Anne Émond’s Amour Apocalypse (Peak Everything) is one of three Canadian films making their world premiere at the 57th edition of the Cannes Film Festival parallel section Directors’ Fortnight.

Created by La Société des réalisatrices et réalisateurs de films in 1969, the Directors’ Fortnight is an independent sidebar at the Cannes Film Festival, which runs from May 14 to 24.

Amour Apocalypse is produced by Metafilms’ Sylvain Corbeil and marks Émond’s sixth feature film. It follows a kennel owner, suffering from depression, played by Patrick Hivon (My Brother’s Wife). He falls in love with a Northern Ontario mother played by U.S. actor Piper Perabo (Covert Affairs).

The romantic comedy also stars Gilles Renaud, Elizabeth Mageren, Éric K. Boulianne, Connor Jessup, Gord Rand, Jean-Carl Boucher and Fabiola Nyrva Aladin.

Immina Films is the Canadian distributor, and following its world premiere at the festival the film will be released in Quebec on Aug. 8. Paris-based Indie Sales has picked up the film’s international sales rights outside of the U.S. and Canada. Indie Sales was also one of the financial supporters of the project along with SODEC, Telefilm Canada, Crave and Noovo along with Canadian provincial and federal tax credits.

La mort n’existe pas (Death Does Not Exist) from Félix Dufour-Laperrière, is the second film from a Quebec director making its world debut at Directors’ Fortnight.

The Canada/France animated coproduction is written and directed by Dufour-Laperrière and produced by his co-founded Embuscade Films along with France’s Miyu Productions. Nicolas and Félix Dufour-Laperrière are producers for Embuscade along with Emmanuel-Alain Raynal and Pierre Baussaron for Miyu Productions.

The film follows a woman who, after a failed attack on wealthy landowners, abandons her friends and accomplices. However, when one of her allies returns to haunt her, she must revisit her convictions and choices.

La mort n’existe pas features the voices of Zeneb Blanchet, Karelle Tremblay, Mattis Savard-Verhoven, Barbara Ulrich and Irene Dufour-Laperrière.

Montreal’s Maison 4:3 is the Quebec distributor while Paris’ UFO Distribution is the France distributor. Brussels-based Best Friend Forever is the international sales agent.

Alex Boya’s National Film of Board of Canada (NFB)-produced animated short Bread Will Walk is also making its world bow at the parallel section this year.

The English version of the film has all its characters voiced by Jay Baruchel (Blackberry) and is set in a world where a corporation has devised a solution to world hunger. However, it turns those that eat it into walking loaves of bread. Jelena Popović is producing for the NFB and the NFB’s Christine Noël is an executive producer along with Rob McLaughlin.

Additionally, Brooklyn-based, Canadian-Korean director Lloyd Lee Choi is marking his first feature film with Lucky Lu, a U.S.-produced feature adaptation of his short film Same Old, which was selected for TIFF’s Canada’s Top Ten in 2022. Choi is also this year’s winner for the TIFF-CBC Films Screenwriter Award.

Image courtesy of Immina Films