
Seventeen-year-old Jeff, an aspiring filmmaker, is invited by his friend Max and his family to stay in the isolated lodge belonging to Blake, an award-winning film director. As Jeff tries to navigate his awkward crush on his friend’s older sister, Aloicha, he witnesses the vicious, ego-driven, alcohol-fueled interactions between the renowned auteur and his former collaborator, Max’s screenwriter father, Albert. Surrounded by monumental mountains and shimmering lakes, the party veers between moments of elation and cruelty, unease and palpable danger.
Acclaimed Quebecois director Philippe Lesage (The Demons; Genesis) returns with a tense, mesmerizing tour de force that’s both agonizing and cathartic. Parallel, painful generational stories play out both in the seemingly infinite wilderness and across the dinner table; the slow burn of mounting dread punctuated with electrifying, deeply unsettling moments of feral intensity.
Grand Prix: Generation 14plus, Berlin 2024
Community Partner
Noah Parker, Aurélia Arandi-Longpré, Arieh Worthalter, Paul Ahmarani, Sophie Desmarais, Antoine Marchand-Gagnon
Canada/France
2024
In French and English with English subtitles
Book Tickets
Indigenous & Community Access
Indigenous Access Tickets Community Access Tickets Ticket Donation Requests
Credits & Director
Producer
Galilé Marion-Gauvin
Screenwriter
Philippe Lesage
Cinematography
Balthazar Lab
Editor
Mathieu Bouchard-Malo
Production Design
Geneviève Huot

Philippe Lesage
Philippe Lesage came to cinema via documentary. Following Ce coeur qui bat (2012 Jutra Award for Best Documentary Feature), filmed in a Montreal hospital shortly after his own surgery, Lesage transitioned to fiction. His films The Demons (2015) and Genesis (2018) have been showcased at numerous festivals worldwide such as San Sebastian, Locarno, Rotterdam, and more. Who by Fire is Lesage’s latest film which premiered at the 2024 Berlinale.
Filmography: Pourrons-nous vivre ensemble? (2006); The Heart That Beats (2010); The Demons (2015); Genesis (2018)
Missing VIFF? Check out what's playing at the VIFF Centre
School of Rock
With not one, but two new Richard Linklater movies at VIFF this year (Nouvelle Vague and Blue Moon), we thought it would be fun to revisit a choice cut from his rich back catalogue: the best Black and White movie ever made, School of Rock.
Boyhood
A dozen years in the making, Richard Linklater's masterpiece chronicles the evolution of a boy into a young man, from six to 18. It is the ultimate coming-of-age movie, and one of the most audacious cinematic feats of the decade.
There Will Be Blood
Paul Thomas Anderson's lacerating epic about the birth of the oil age: Daniel Day-Lewis is extraordinary as the prospector entirely consumed with his own enterprise, a Trumpian figure of naked self-assertion; Paul Dano the evangelist who may be his nemesis.
Godland
In the late 19th century, a Danish Lutheran priest is dispatched to a far corner of Iceland where a devout farmer has seen fit to build a church. The physical journey is arduous. His spiritual journey, more taxing still.
The Balconettes
In this flamboyant black comedy set in Marseille during a heatwave, writer-director-star Noémie Merlant and her two besties have to cover up the unpleasant evidence of a disastrous night partying with the hunk across the way.