Else

TIFF65: Greek Premiere

A bizarre epidemic slowly turns human skin into “inorganic” matter and, as a result, people get absorbed by their environment. The disease is transmitted through eye contact with the infected. While increasingly more people gradually transform into cement, stone, wood, and other materials, a young couple isolates in their apartment as a precaution, grappling with maintaining their identity as the world around them dissolves. An outrageous (and quite innovative) concept provides the material for a remarkably unique psychedelic thriller to be crafted, borrowing vivid elements from Cronenberg’s body horror, which uses the human body as a canvas for expressionistic compositions reminiscent of visual arts. A horror film serving as a parable to the modern, post-covid world, and inextricably intertwining the grotesque and the poetic. The chilling Else destroys the barriers between species and culminates into an uncontrollable visual trip, one which David Lynch would applaud.

Screening Schedule

No physical screenings scheduled.

Direction: Thibault Emin

Script: Thibault Emin, Alice Butaud, Emma Sandona

Cinematography: Léo Lefèvre

Editing: Ariane Boukerche

Sound: Alain Sironval, Renaud Bajeux, Tom Diaz, Matthieu Dallaporta

Music: Shida Shahabi, June Ha

Actors: Matthieu Sampeur, Edith Proust, Lika Minamoto

Production: Les Produits Frais, Wrong Men

Producers: Damien Lagogué

Co-producers: Benoit Roland

Costumes: Catherine Marchand

Production Design: Gabrielle Desjean

Make Up: Kenza Benbouchta

Format: DCP

Color: Color

Production Country: France, Belgium

Production Year: 2024

Duration: 103'

Contact: WTFilms

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 found the metamorphic doctrine that would become the driving force behind the Else project. He directed fiction and documentaries at the University of Paris 8, then at La Fémis (including the short film Else), learned about acting, taught cinema, discovered poverty, and developed the Else project over 13 years.