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Else film image; black and white photo of person walking away from camera

Else

Altered States

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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.

 

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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

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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).

 

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