Clip Premiere: Who by Fire

Blake has also abandoned city life for a handsome cabin secluded deep in a Quebec forest, where he can skip from lake to lake in the seaplane he pilots when he’s not climbing mountains, canoeing up and down rivers, or working with his editor, Millie (Sophie Desmarais). Blake’s invited Albert and his two kids, Aliocha (Aurélia Arandi-Longpré), an aspiring writer, and Max (Antoine Marchand-Gagnon), who’s brought along a friend, Jeff (Noah Parker), for a few days of R&R, fine wine, and sumptuous meals prepared by housekeeper Barney (Carlo Harrietha) and cook Ferran (Guillaume Laurin).

Jeff hopes to become a director some day, so naturally, he idolizes Blake—until he feels the brunt of Blake’s alpha male drive. Jeff is also harboring an all-consuming crush on Aliocha. This unassuming, slightly shy and awkward young man will become the unwitting fulcrum between alliances forged and broken as cabin fever sets in and the merry band is joined by Hélène (Irène Jacob)—she was a revered star back in the 1990s—and her partner, Eddy (Laurent Lucas). Writing for Film Comment, Beatrice Loayza notes that Jeff’s “emotional ups and downs seem to determine the film’s shifting styles—it’s as if he were already behind the camera, using cinema to articulate what he could never say aloud.”

But it’s cinematographer Balthazar Lab who is behind a camera that’s somehow both subtly unmoored and perpetually just right, framing the expertly blocked ensemble in scenes that editor Mathieu Bouchard-Malo allows to play out as crisscrossing tensions mount and then either grudgingly subside or burst wide open. Who by Fire, the winner of the Grand Prix of the Generation 14plus International Jury when it premiered in Berlin last year, is “a tremendously unpredictable, protean work, drawing its energy from the disparities between individuals and how they can unexpectedly develop and feed upon each other,” writes Ryan Swen at Slant.

With his third fictional feature, Lesage “underlines his ability to carve a semblance of a horror movie from everyday domestic drama—confirming him as a filmmaker of considerable grace and daring,” writes Guy Lodge for Variety. “Fine-tuned and freewheeling at the same time,” writes the Hollywood Reporter’s Jordan Mintzer, “his narratives keep bubbling up until they boil over, in explosive sequences where the characters let it all out or start bellowing pop songs at will.”

Who by Fire will open in New York on March 14 and in Santa Monica on March 21 before beginning its rollout across the country. We’re delighted to premiere a new clip: