One of the most talked about films at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival is this wild and inventive genre mash-up that combines the warmth of a family drama with the disturbing visuals of a Cronenbergian body horror.
Romain Duris (Eiffel, AF FFF21) and Paul Kircher (Winter Boy, AF FFF23) play François and Émile, a father and son living in the not-so-distant-future when the planet is afflicted with a new crisis: people are mutating into animals. One of the casualties of this nightmarish scenario is François’s wife and Émile’s mother. The pair relocates to live near one of the new institutions designed to indefinitely house the human/animal hybrids, including their wife/mother. Amid the growing mystery, paranoia and fear emerges Émile's tender coming of age story. He discovers what it means to be human and how the next generation will adapt to a world where the forces of nature are changing forever.
Filmmaker Thomas Cailley, who previously distinguished himself with the unconventional anti-romcom Love at First Fight, delivers yet another compelling, rule-breaking and convention-defying film.
Nominee – Un Certain Regard, Cannes Film Festival
Tuesday 5th March
128 min
M
Romain Duris, Adèle Exarchopoulos, Paul Kircher, Billie Blain
Thomas Cailley
Film Festival
Palace Moore Park
