North American Premiere
Every morning before dawn, Kelly-Anne (Juliette Gariépy) descends on a Montréal courthouse, eager to secure front row seats for the harrowing trial of Ludwig Chevalier (Maxwell McCabe-Lokos), a loner accused of the torture and murder of three teenage girls. Even more disturbingly, these atrocities were streamed online in the Dark Web’s “red rooms” to depraved audiences who could ante up the ungodly cryptocurrency admission. As Kelly-Anne’s obsession grows, her personal life and career unravel as she plunges into the seediest recesses of the Dark Web to secure a key piece of evidence.
With its exquisitely choreographed long takes, entrancing zooms, and surgical editing, there’s certainly the temptation to say this sees Pascal Plante (Nadia, Butterfly) going “full Fincher”. In actual fact, it finds him continuing his intrepid examinations of subcultures while employing even more exacting direction. A cautionary tale about evil’s allure, Red Rooms is unsettling and enthralling in equal measure.
A disturbingly brilliant psychological horror
Deadline
October 2 & 4: Q&A with director Pascal Plante & crew
Juliette Gariépy, Laurie Babin, Elisabeth Locas, Natalie Tannous, Pierre Chagnon
Canada
2023
Panorama
In French with English subtitles
Violence, Sexual Violence
At International Village
At The Rio
Book Tickets
Indigenous & Community Access
Indigenous Access Tickets Community Access Tickets Ticket Donation Requests
Credits
Executive Producer
Tim Ringuette
Producer
Dominique Dussault
Screenwriter
Pascal Plante
Cinematography
Vincent Biron
Editor
Jonah Malak
Production Design
Laura Nhem
Original Music
Dominique Plante
Director
Pascal Plante
Pascal Plante is a Montreal-based filmmaker. His narrative feature Nadia, Butterfly (2020) has been included in the official selection of the 73rd edition of Cannes Film Festival. After his graduation from Concordia University’s Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema, Pascal co-founded the production company Nemesis Films, with which he directed numerous short films including Blast Beat (Slamdance 2019), Blue-Eyed Blonde (Best Canadian Short Film, VIFF 2015), and Nonna (Slamdance 2017). His first narrative feature, a punk romance entitled Fake Tattoos, competed at the Berlinale, in Generation 14plus, in 2018. Pascal considers himself like a cinephile that became a narrative filmmaker with documentarian tendencies. Red Rooms is his third narrative feature.
Filmography: Nadia, Butterfly (2020); Fake Tattoos (2017)
Missing VIFF? Check out what's playing at the VIFF Centre
The Things You Kill
Thirty-something professor Ali leads an apparently stable life. But when his ailing mother dies under ambiguous circumstances, he starts to unravel, resulting in an act that shatters our understanding of his person.
Ghost Elephants
Everyone's favourite German adventurer, Werner Herzog goes on the hunt for the largest land mammal on the planet, the fabled "ghost elephant" of the Angolan highlands -- that may, or may not, exist.
Miroirs No. 3
Following a car crash that kills her boyfriend, piano student Laura is physically unhurt but emotionally distraught. A local woman takes her in, but she gradually realizes she's in the midst of an eerie, mysterious family situation.
Image: © Schramm Film A4 Kopie
Erika Chow + Blue Giant
Revered pianist Hiromi Uehar composed the score for this electrifying jazz anime, about a young man who wants to be the next John Coltrane. Before the film, tenor sax Erika Chow will lead a quartet through selections from the soundtrack.
Image: © 2023 BLUE GIANT Movie project ©2013 Shinichi Ishizuka, Shogakukan