Winner of last year’s Grand Prix in the Generation 14plus section at the Berlinale and selected as part of the New York Film Festival 2024 (Main Slate), with his fourth consecutive fiction feature, Quebecois filmmaker Philippe Lesage takes the plunge into unstable, emotionally complex terrain where the young folk (and older folks) navigate not only the deep forrest but also the challenges of identity, new and old relationships, and self-discovery. As noted in our review, Lesage ends on the merest suggestion of reconciliation, there’s arguably nothing left on the icing of this scorched cake between two compromised male egos who seem interested in driving knives into their wounds rather than burying the axe.
In the exclusive clip for Who by Fire below, we find Albert (Paul Ahmarani – who appeared in Lesage’s Genèse), his teen son, his teen son’s best friend, Jeff (Noah Parker), and daughter Aliocha (Aurélia Arandi-Longpré). They meet up with Blake Cadieux (Arieh Worthalter – from Lukas Dhont’s Girl) who obviously has a pilot’s license and some getaway cabin deep in the woods, but as we see it isn’t the most welcoming of situations – and it might just foreshadow the tempestuous relationship between the two creative men who have their own, damaged history.
The KimStim folks open Who by Fire on Friday, Mar. 14th at Film at Lincoln Center (grab your tickets here) and then opens on Friday, Mar. 21st at Laemmle Theatres in Los Angeles with a national release to follow.
