h264 presents
an ART ET ESSAI production

Written
ARIANE LOUIS-SEIZECHRISTINE DOYON
A film by
ARIANE LOUIS-SEIZEWithSARA MONTPETITFÉLIX-ANTOINE BÉNARDSTEVE LAPLANTESOPHIE CADIEUXNOÉMIE O’FARRELLMARIE BRASSARD

MADELEINE PÉLOQUIN
MARC BEAUPRÉPATRICK HIVONMICHELINE BERNARDARIANE CASTELLANOS

Length92 minutes
Production
Art et Essai
Jeanne-Marie Poulain
Line Sander Egede
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HUMANIST VAMPIRE SEEKING CONSENTING SUICIDAL PERSON2

Summary

Sasha is a young vampire with a serious
problem: she’s too sensitive to kill! Whenher exasperated parents cut off her blood
supply, Sasha’s life is in jeopardy. Luckily, shemeets Paul, a lonely teenager with suicidal
tendencies who is willing to give his life tosave hers. But their friendly agreement soon
becomes a nocturnal quest to fulfill Paul’s last
wishes before day breaks.

HUMANIST VAMPIRE SEEKING CONSENTING SUICIDAL PERSON

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Interview with the director
Written by Jason Béliveau

Ariane, Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person is your first featurefilm, after many years of directing short films that went on to garner much praise,domestic and abroad. How did you come up with this project?
Ariane Louis-Seize — I already had the desire to make a feature film in me at thetime of my first short (Wild Skin, 2016). I was working on an idea that I ended up
putting aside, but that first writing experience allowed me to know myself better asa creator. Eager to put my ideas on the screen, I made one short film after another.
The creative urges were strong. Then, five shorts later, the desire to move on to alonger form became very important to me. Spontaneously, this idea of a vampire
film came to my mind, sitting at the crossroads of multiple inspirations, between
indie coming-of-age stories and genre auteur cinema, both of which I relate todeeply. I’m thinking of movies such as A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, OnlyLovers Left Alive and Under the Skin.
Writing can sometimes be an arduous and solitary task, but for this project I feltthat I needed to keep it fun, go somewhere crazy, lavish and free with it. Hence thedesire to cowrite the screenplay with Christine Doyon, a friend of mine who shares
my sense of humour. The way I saw it, having a cowriter would force me to change
my way of writing, which is usually more instinctive.
So it was a first for you, this collaboration with another screenwriter? Beyond thefriendship that unites you, what attracted you to Christine’s way of writing?
I wrote my shorts by myself, so yes, it was a first for me. It’s important to findcollaborators who, instead of restricting your imagination, will feed it and help it
grow. I had an intuition about Christine, and I was right to follow it, because we
had so much fun working together! She is an excellent dialogist and her humour
resonates with me. Usually, my films are inhabited by observant characters. I workon atmospheres and a certain strangeness. I wanted such a strangeness, a poetic
signature, for this film, but I also wanted to keep exploring comedy, making sure to
put the dialogues and colourful characters front and center.
As you mentioned, Humanist Vampire... mixes vampire movie, comedy and comingof-age story. How would you define your film first and foremost?
The starting point would be the coming-of-age part. What touches me above allis the characters’ search for identity. Our teenage years leave a rich footprint on
our lives. That’s when we test our limits and those of others, when we questioneverything. Then, I like clashing genres. My short films don’t fit neatly into anybox. I let the world of the film guide me, I follow my instinct and if along the way
I encounter a funny or destabilizing element, I follow this vein of creation without
limiting myself.

HUMANIST VAMPIRE SEEKING CONSENTING SUICIDAL PERSON

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Sasha is very close to dark and romantic representations of vampires in literatureand film. Yet the members of her family, although colourful, lead a very concrete
life, banal even.
That parallel was interesting to me. To imagine that vampires also have daily problems,that women have to manage a significant mental load, that children sometimes refuse
to leave the family nest and cling to their comfort. These dynamics needed to exist
in the lives of vampire too. I had such fun creating a melancholic atmosphere that’s
typical of the genre, but I still needed the audience to identify with these characters.
Sara Montpetit is perfect as Sasha. It’s as if the role was written with her in mind.
How did you cast her?
I didn’t have anyone specific in mind when writing the film. When the time cameto cast for Sasha, Sara had just won the Iris for Revelation of the Year at theQuébec Cinéma Gala, for her role in Sébastien Pilote’s Maria Chapdelaine. Beyond
the promising career that awaits her, I felt above all that there was something…
vampiric about her, in the sense that she can play a young 68-year-old girl! She has avery touching depth and when I saw her interact with Félix-Antoine Bénard, who goon to play Paul, I instantly knew I had found my two main roles. They each possessa strangeness in their own way. They were fascinated by each other, which fit withthis encounter between two marginalized beings who do not understand eachother, but share the same inner struggles.
You also went for actors with whom you had worked before on your short films…
I love this stage of the casting process. Even the supporting characters had tohave something extra, a madness. It’s important for me to maintain long-term
relationships with actors. They were easy to convince. They wanted to explore thisuniverse populated by vampires and I wanted characters who would feel whole.
Also, when writing and directing a film, I think about the characters first. They’remy anchor. The challenge is to build characters who are as realistic and profound aspossible. When I reread my screenplay, I do it through the eyes of each character.
Their reaction is never left to chance. That’s why in my final version of the script,
I know exactly how to direct the actors in every scene. This preparation makes
it possible to go further in our exploration. It allows me to be open to ideas thatcome from the actors. I communicate my vision to all the creators and artisticcollaborators on the project, and then I trust them because I love their tastes andadmire their talent. Then there is this desire to stay focused on my vision, but
without being rigid, so that the work grows with them.
You’ve been working with cinematographer Shawn Pavlin since your first short film.
How did you approach the visual aspect of this film? Several scenes had to be shot atnight and, to some extent, you had to play with the aesthetics of the horror movie.
Shawn and I developed our styles simultaneously. He listens to my vision andunderstands that I like to create captivating worlds, which attract and enthrall theviewer, and wish to avoid something hermetic. We did a lot of visual research, andwatched to a lot of vampire movies, not to pastiche them so much as to wink atthem. We embraced the darkness, typical of the genre, but never sidelined the lightand colours, which play their own narrative role. We had a lot of fun working withcontrasts.
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I couldn’t help but think of German expressionism while watching the film. The
cinematography, the lighting that sometimes echoes Sasha’s moods, the confusionthat lives in her...
Yes, the flashing lights surrounding her is a good example of that. These are themoments when the vampire in her awakens. Sasha’s inner struggle is there, as her
great humanism clashes with her vampire identity. From the moment her sharp
teeth come out for the first time, instincts and impulses start warping her thoughts.
We used lighting to express this inner turmoil.
German expressionism and vampire movies certainly inspired us, but also teenmovies from the late nineties and early aughts. We wanted to explore the texture
and lighting typical of these films. These two influences have created our visual
universe, and I think that these references breed nostalgia, which adds to themelancholy permeating the film.
This balance between different styles is largely built in editing. Your editor was
filmmaker Stéphane Lafleur, who is righlty known for works where laughter neverstrays far from melancholy. Did his creative sensibilities help you in finding theright tone?
I love Stéphane’s cinematic universe, where dry humor rubs shoulders withmelancholy. We both play in the same areas and that’s why I wanted to work withhim. The film was edited as it was written, in a very natural way. At no time did ourways of conceiving the tone of the film diverge. He understood the project fromfrom the very moment he read it. Editing began before the film was finished, soStéphane’s invaluable feedback was coming in as the shoot progressed. Two weeks
after wrapping the film, we already had a first assembly.
In recent years, genre cinema in Quebec has freed itself from the margins, and it’s
now reaching an ever-growing audience. Viewers are now fond of original, hybrid
proposals, ideas that go off the beaten track. How do you envision this film’srelease? When making your film, do you think about audience reception?
Is Humanist Vampire... more of a theatre film or a festival film? I don’t know. Myambition is for it to be screened at international festivals; to connect with people
from all over the world; to travel, while also connecting with the Quebecois. I hope
to give to viewers a work that I would enjoy discovering myself. I’m convinced thatthe film has the potential to reach both the youth and the cinephiles, but only time
will tell!

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Director’s note

Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person was born out of the needto tame my own anxieties about death. Coupled with my ambition to make avampire movie for several years, the idea of addressing this universally terrifying
theme through the vampire figure quickly took hold. As creatures who are doomed
to kill to survive, vampires carry death within them. But what happens if theystart thinking too much about the value of the lives they take compared to theirown? It is by asking this ethical, philosophical and potentially tragicomic questionthat the character of Sasha, a young humanist vampire ready to let herself die tospare others, was born. Death is also anchored in the character of Paul, a teenager
with chronic depressive behaviors who does not find his place in a world he can’t
decipher and that is hostile to him. The inner dramas of Sasha and Paul are certainly
tragic, but I wanted light and hope to emerge from their encounter. So if the firstpart of the story addresses their relationship to death, the film is also an ode to lifein which a roster of characters, each more colourful than the last, create a whirlwindof adventures for them.
When I begin my creative process, I always give myself the freedom to instinctively
draw on several cinematographic genres that live in me or inspire me. I like to have
fun with the various codes and languages, I use them as valuable narrative tools
to thwart expectations—mine and that of the viewers. This approach also allows
me to shape my own universe, which I want to be bold and bountiful, and avoid it
getting confined to a single category. Created in this desire for freedom of formand creation, the universe of Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person
navigates between genre film, coming-of-age story and dark comedy.
I also approached the directing of this film in a spirit of artistic continuity, asI sought to create an intoxicating cinematic experience that’s always centeredaround the characters. My visual universe is lush, textured, precise, and my staging
and blocking are intimate. The atmosphere is sulphurous, the frame stays poised
and the camerawork shows an economy of movements. That way, momentum mostoften comes from my progatonists. My intention is that the form be put at theirservice, that it accompany them, sometimes as a way to exacerbate their feeling ofsuffocation and their disconnect with the world around them, sometimes to offerviewers a window into their past. It’s also in this character-focused mindset thatI sprinkled my film with small moments of magic which allowed for a private accessinto their interiority. Both at the writing and mise-en-scène stages, I paid as muchattention to the silences filled with unspoken things, as to moments of tension,
colourful dialogues and dynamic sequences where the twists and turns happen.
The amalgamation of all these elements was essential to give my film its DNA.

HUMANIST VAMPIRE SEEKING CONSENTING SUICIDAL PERSON10Ariane Louis-Seize’s bio

Ariane Louis-Seize is a Montreal-based filmmaker. She made her directorial debutwith her short film WILD SKIN, a fantasy drama that travelled in more than fifty
festivals across the world and won several awards and nominations, including
Best Fiction Short Film at the Québec Cinéma Gala and Canadian Screen Awards.
She then shot LES PETITES VAGUES, which was selected at the Berlinale and as
part of TIFF’s Canada Top Ten. In 2018, Ariane writes and directs THE DEPTHS,
followed by COMME UNE COMÈTE in 2019. Both got a world premiere at TIFF anda Quebec premiere at Festival du Nouveau Cinéma. With COMME UNE COMÈTE,Ariane won a dozen awards around the world, in addition to being nominated again
for the Iris for Best Fiction Short Film at the Québec Cinéma Gala. HUMANISTVAMPIRE SEEKING CONSENTING SUICIDAL PERSON is her first feature film.
Theatre release for this dark humour vampire dramedy is scheduled for fall 2023.

Filmography
2022
2020
2019
2019
2018
2016
2016
2013

Rencontres nocturnes silencieuses | 4 minutes
Comme une comète | 23 minutes
Les profondeurs | 21 minutesRituels | 7 minutes
Les petites vagues | 12 minutes
La peau sauvage | 19 minutes
D’encre et de sang | 1h22 minutes
À l’horizon | 16 minutes

HUMANIST VAMPIRE SEEKING CONSENTING SUICIDAL PERSON

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Christine Doyon’s bio (cowriter)

A writer and a designer, Christine has been writing for film, TV and digital media
since 2013. She notably wrote the web series MICHAËLLE EN SACRAMENTand GERMAIN S’ÉTEINT seasons 1 and 2, and the short film CHALOUPE, whichearned her her first international writing awards (Best Series and Best Texts atthe Marseille Webfest, Melbourn Webfest and Buenos Aires Series) as well as her
first nominations for the Gémeaux and the Jutra Awards. In 2020, she cowrote
her first feature film, HUMANIST VAMPIRE SEEKING CONSENTING SUICIDALPERSON which won the Best Pitch Grant awarded by Netflix as part of thePitch: FNC First Works. Programmer at the St-Séverin Film Festival from 2017 to2020, she is currently developing her first TV series at Urbania. Christine also acts
as a screenwriting consultant, a project analyst and a trainer at L’inis in various
screenwriting programs.

HUMANIST VAMPIRE SEEKING CONSENTING SUICIDAL PERSON13Cast info

WithSARA MONTPETITFÉLIX-ANTOINE BÉNARDSTEVE LAPLANTESOPHIE CADIEUXNOÉMIE O’FARRELLMARIE BRASSARD
MADELEINE PÉLOQUIN
MARC BEAUPRÉPATRICK HIVONMICHELINE BERNARDARIANE CASTELLANOS

A film by

ARIANE LOUIS-SEIZE

Written by

ARIANE LOUIS-SEIZECHRISTINE DOYON

Producers

JEANNE-MARIE POULAIN
LINE SANDER EGEDE

Associate producersIRÈNE BESSONEANAËLLE BEGLET

Director of Photography

SHAWN PAVLIN

Artistic Director

LUDOVIC DUFRESNEEditing

STÉPHANE LAFLEURSoundTHIERRY BOURGAULT D’AMICOSound DesignMARIE-PIERRE GRENIERSIMON GERVAISMixing

LUC BOUDRIASMusicPIERRE-PHILIPPE CÔTÉHUMANIST VAMPIRE SEEKING CONSENTING SUICIDAL PERSON

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Technical info

Original Title

VAMPIRE HUMANISTE CHERCHE SUICIDAIRE CONSENTANT

International Title

HUMANIST VAMPIRE SEEKING CONSENTING SUICIDAL PERSON

Shooting Format

4K

Screening Copy

DCP (colour)

Sound

5.1

Length92 minutes

Original Version

FrenchSubtitles

EnglishAspect Ratio

2.39 / Scope

Production CountryCanadaYear2023

HUMANIST VAMPIRE SEEKING CONSENTING SUICIDAL PERSON16

Produced with the financial support ofSODECTELEFILM CANADACRÉDIT D’IMPÔT CINÉMA ET TÉLÉVISION (QUÉBEC)CANADA COUNCIL FOR THE ARTSCANADIAN FILM OR VIDEO PRODUCTION TAX CREDIT

In collaboration withCRAVERADIO CANADA

With the support of

POST-MODERNE
MTL GRANDEBANDE À PARTCINEPOOLBAM MUSICMELSHUMANIST VAMPIRE SEEKING CONSENTING SUICIDAL PERSON17