Imagine a young vampire who can’t bite because he feels too much compassion for humans… On this original idea, to say the least, filmmaker Ariane Louis-Seize came up with the script for her first feature film, a nicely titled black film , writes comedy Humanist vampire seeks consensual suicide.
“It was a flash that I had about five years ago,” explains Ariane Louis-Seize in an interview with the Journal.
“At first I thought about making a short film. I wanted to have fun and do something funny because I had just had the experience of writing a feature film and it didn’t come to fruition. But I started writing the script with my co-writer Christine [Doyon], we began to see the full potential of this story and decided to turn it into a feature film. »
The humanist vampire in his film is Sasha (Sara Montpetit), a “young” vampire (she’s actually 68 years old!) who worries her family because she can’t bite. The problem is that her vampire fangs still haven’t grown because she feels too much compassion for humans. His meeting with Paul (Félix-Antoine Bénard), a young man with suicidal thoughts, may offer him a solution to his biting problem.
The screenplay for Humanist Vampire Seeks Consenting Suicide allowed Ariane Louis-Seize to mix three genres that she particularly enjoys: black comedy, vampire films and initiation stories, while also touching on universal themes such as self-affirmation, friendship and family.
“The aura of vampires and the peripheral characters have always interested me,” says the filmmaker, who won the best director award in the “Venice Days” section at the prestigious Venice Film Festival last month.
“For my first short film, Wild Skin (released in 2016), I asked actress Marilyn Castonguay to watch vampire films because I wanted to direct her a bit like a vampire. I like melancholic and strange atmospheres and playing with the phenomenon of attraction and repulsion. I think the themes I address in the film and the characters I developed have lived with me for a very long time. »
PHOTO VIVIEN GAUMAND
Avoid that blood
When people talk about vampire movies, they generally talk about blood smells. However, Ariane Louis-Seize decided not to go this route so as not to get into blood.
“It was really a fake decision,” she agrees. I really like strange universes where there is tension. But I don’t like it when things get bloody and we see too much blood or open wounds. My intention was to play with things off camera, such as contrasting screams with very upbeat jazz music to create a comical effect. »
She also took some liberties by revisiting the codes of the vampire film: “There are codes, but we have the choice to use them or not. I’ve seen vampire movies where vampires can go out into the sun. From there we took what we liked. »
Producing this rare Quebec vampire film required Ariane Louis-Seize to overcome several challenges. In particular, she had to get used to a nighttime filming schedule.
“I’m a very young person in life, so turning my biological clock backwards at night was special,” she says. The first three days I wondered how I was going to do it and I was afraid I wouldn’t function. But after three days you get used to it. And the fact that we were the whole gang, the actors and the film crew members, going through the evening together made us feel a little like vampires ourselves… That perhaps added to the vampire atmosphere of the film! »
Humanistic vampire seeking consensual suicide hits theaters October 13th.