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
Matthieu Sampeur, Edith Proust, Lika Minamoto
France/Belgium
2024
In French with English subtitles
At International Village
At The Rio
Book Tickets
Indigenous & Community Access
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
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).
