Watch: ‘Death Does Not Exist’ First Look Revealed ahead of Cannes Directors’ Fortnight

Cinephiles today got their first look at Death Does Not Exist (La Mort n’existe pas), the latest hand-drawn feature from celebrated Canadian filmmaker Félix Dufour-Laperrière (Archipelago, Ville Neuve, Transatlantic). The animated drama will make its world premiere during the Cannes Directors’ Fortnight, a non-competitive, independent sidebar to the Cannes Film Festival, and is slated to screen in competition at Annecy in June.

The film follows a political activist named Hélène, who after a failed armed attack on the wealthy landowners of a luxurious villa flees into the forest, where metamorphoses and great upheavals disrupt the natural order. When one of her collaborators catches up with her, Hélène must reconsider whether or not to join in the violent attack — and decide how far she is willing to compromise one belief for another.

Dufour-Laperrière told Deadline, which premiered the new clip: “It’s a story about radicality, with all its contradictions, its hopes, its dead ends. A story born from deep anger, from overwhelming desires that flare up to try and shake the world into motion – only to collide with the limits of their own actions, and their own internal tensions. The characters come to realize a clear, sometimes irreconcilable opposition: the impossibility of violence, and the impossibility of the status quo.”

Death Does Not Exist screened as Work-in-Progress at the 2024 Annecy Festival (where Dufour-Laperrière won a Jury Distinction in the Contrechamp competition for Archipelago in 2021). The film is produced by Nicolas & Felix Dufour-Laperrière for Embuscade Films and Emmanuel-Alain Raynal and Pierre Baussaron for Miyu Productions.

The film will be released theatrically by UFO Distribution in France and by Maison 4:3 in Canada. International rights are handled by Brussels-based Best Friend Forever.

You can read Animation Magazine’s interview with the acclaimed director of the movie in the upcoming Annecy issue (No. 350) of the magazine next month.