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Who by Fire film image; group of people sitting around a dinner table

Who by Fire

Comme le feu

Canadian Film Week

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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.

Director

Philippe Lesage

Cast

Noah Parker, Aurélia Arandi-Longpré, Arieh Worthalter, Paul Ahmarani, Sophie Desmarais, Antoine Marchand-Gagnon

Credits
Country of Origin

Canada/France

Year

2024

Language

In French and English with English subtitles

Awards

Grand Prix: Generation 14plus, Berlin 2024

19+
162 min
Unité

Book Tickets

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Credits

Producer

Galilé Marion-Gauvin

Screenwriter

Philippe Lesage

Cinematography

Balthazar Lab

Editor

Mathieu Bouchard-Malo

Production Design

Geneviève Huot

Also in This Series

Canadian Film Week spotlights 18 features, including six Vancouver premieres and four brand new films from BC filmmakers, plus returning classics, new favourites, and free screenings on National Canadian Film Day.

Sweet Summer Pow Wow

Dir. Darrell Dennis
92 min

After the local hit The Great Salish Heist, writer-director Darrell Dennis proves his versatility with this charming love story about two young people who meet cute on BC's Pow Wow circuit. Her mom wants her to become a lawyer, but Jinny loves to dance...

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

Universal Language

Dir. Matthew Rankin
89 min

In a wintery, Farsi-speaking city that’s equal measures Winnipeg and Tehran, storylines entangle and the concepts of space, time, and identity grow increasingly opaque. Inventive and absurd, Rankin's poetic fable reminds us that Winnipeg is a wonderland. Rated: G

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

Are We Done Now?

Dir. Ben Immanuel
84 min

Down River director Ben Immanuel returns with a wry, self-aware Covid comedy in which a socially distant Vancouver documentarian checks in with a stressed-out therapist (Gabrielle Miller) and several of her patients over the course of the pandemic.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre