After being feted on the Lido (winner of the Director’s Award in the Giornate degli Autori section – we were there) and being showcased at TIFF, Ariane Louis-Seize returned to her home turf for the presentation of her award-winning feature debut (it continued its winning streak claiming the Festival du nouveau cinéma’s Grand Prix prize) and a complete retrospective of her short film work. Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person (perhaps the best titled film to come out in ’23) doesn’t reinvent the wheel of the vampire genre but it’s playful coming-of-age template joined by a decadent funny bone makes for an amusing calling card with… bite.
I sat down with Ariane not once, but twice. My Lido interview recording had a technical glitch and so I was happy to get a redo. We spoke about her path from short to feature filmmaker, we spoke about the experience of having a co-writing partner (in Christine Doyon) and how she wrote sound on the project – its imaginative application balances both humor and terror in equal measures.
