Skip to main content
Else film image; black and white photo of person walking away from camera

Else

Altered States

This event has passed

Following a mediocre one-night stand, Anx and Cass are forced into lockdown together in Anx’s apartment. A mysterious virus is causing people’s bodies to melt and fuse with the surfaces of inanimate objects. All the infected can do is moan in pain as their body slowly merges with whatever they are touching. Holed up for protection, the couple is forced to actually get to know each other. Alternately, they can chat with the disembodied voices echoing from the vents…

Featuring enough guts and goo to paint the walls of a studio apartment and a phantasmagorical third act, Else is sure to get under your skin. Thibault Emin’s directorial debut takes its time building the couple’s relationship before subjecting them to the horrors outside the building as the film changes from an uncomfortable quarantine romance into a grotesque body-horror nightmare that distorts our physical relationship with the world around us.

 

Supported by

     

Media Partner

Community Partner

Director
Cast

Matthieu Sampeur, Edith Proust, Lika Minamoto

Credits
Country of Origin

France/Belgium

Year

2024

Language

In French with English subtitles

Film Contact
18+

At International Village

19+

At The Rio

100 min
Drama Horror & Sci-Fi
Les Produits Frais, Wrong Men

Book Tickets

This event has passed.

Credits & Director

Producer

Damien Lagogué

Screenwriter

Thibault Emin, Alice Butaud, Emma Sandona

Cinematography

Léo Lefèvre

Editor

Ariane Boukerche

Production Design

Gabrielle Desjean

Original Music

Shida Shahabi, June Ha

Thibault Emin headshot; Else director

Thibault Emin

Thibault Emin grew up in Paris with a love of science fiction. After studying philosophy, he decided to become a film director. At the passing of his mother when he was 19, he immersed himself in cinema; Kitano, Lynch, and Cronenberg became his adoptive family. His philosophical study of sci-fi cinema led him to find the metamorphic doctrine that would become the driving force behind the Else project, developed over 13 years. He directed fiction and documentaries at the University of Paris 8, then at La Fémis (including the short film version of Else).

 

Missing VIFF? Check out what's playing at the VIFF Centre

That They May Face the Rising Sun

Dir. Pat Collins
111 min

John and Kate have moved from London to a farm in Ireland, to the bemusement of the locals. This lyrical Irish reverie taps deep wells of feeling in the stuff of everyday life.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

Secret Mall Apartment

Dir. Jeremy Workman
91 min

The stranger-than-fiction true story of a group of artists who built and furnished a hidden apartment inside a mall, remaining undetected for years. This is an absurdly fun and surprisingly profound film about gentrification and art.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

The Encampments

Dir. Michael T. Workman & Kei Pritsker
82 min

When pro-Palestine protests took hold of Columbia last year, the filmmakers were there from the beginning. This documentary charts the mounting tensions between students and the administration, as the protests were picked up across North America.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

The Teacher

Dir. Farah Nabulsi
118 min

In this potent thriller, English teacher Basem witnesses the murder of a teenager by a Israeli settler. While the subsequent investigation rolls slowly towards a foregone conclusion, the teacher is caught up in a parallel kidnapping case...

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

Bob Trevino Likes It

Dir. Tracie Laymon
102 min

When her toxic, narcissistic dad cuts her out of his life, Lily Trevino looks him up on Facebook and happens across his namesake, Bob (John Leguizamo), a gentle, genial contractor who lives nearby, and who proves an altogether better dad...

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre
A Duke Ellington Tribute with the Mike Braverman Sextet
man posed to play a piano

A Duke Ellington Tribute with the Mike Braverman Sextet

150 min

After a scintillating session of Duke standards performed by The Mike Braverman Sextet, enjoy a roundup of Ellingtonia on Film: his first short sound films from the late 20s and 30s, and clips from the scores he composed in the 50s and 60s.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema