SHORT CUTS CANADA: NEXT FLOOR

Director: Denis Villeneuve
Writer: Jacques Davidts
Producers: Phoebe Greenberg, Penny Mancuso
Production Company: Phi Group
Cast: Simone Chevalot, Ariel Ifergan, Deepak Massand, Daniel Rousse, Helga Schmitz
Distributor: Phi Group
International Sales: Nextfloor-film.com

One of the big ironies about this year’s TIFF is that one of the most anticipated feature films won’t be screened. Celebrated Quebec filmmaker Denis Villeneuve made no secret of the fact that he wanted to premiere his latest, Polytechnique – based on the 1989 Montreal massacre in which 14 women were gunned down by a crazed misogynist – at TIFF ’08.

But while the film wasn’t ready to screen in time, fans of Villeneuve – who’ve been waiting for his return to the big screen since his mighty Maelström in 2000 – will be able to get a fix of the filmmaker’s unique vision at TIFF, albeit in short form. The director has concocted Next Floor, a surreal fable about gluttony, lust and a dinner party that continually collapses as the floors beneath give way. It grabbed the Grand Prix Canal+ for best short film this year at Cannes.

‘I wanted to do something about the end of the world,’ says Villeneuve. ‘But I really wanted to keep it light. So it’s about something dark, but is treated in a light way.

The 11-minute completely uncensored short has a group of dinner party guests wolfing down a decadent and often outright grotesque spread of strange culinary concoctions, putting up with the cuts and bruises they are forced to endure as they fall through each subsequent floor.

Villeneuve explains that he was approached by Montreal-based actress and patron of the arts Phoebe Greenberg, who was a fan of Maelström (‘She loved the talking fish,’ Villeneuve recalls). Greenberg told the filmmaker he could come up with whatever crazy ideas he liked.

‘The freedom was just amazing,’ notes Villeneuve. ‘It was the first time the money came before the story did.’

That combination of economic and artistic freedom supplied Villeneuve with an incredible rush: ‘I loved it! There was no talk of budgetary restrictions, or all the things we couldn’t do,’ he elaborates. ‘It was just about our imagination, and was sheer fun. It was purely about the art of cinema, and how much fun that can be.’

It will also leave audiences reeling, which is no wonder considering Villeneuve’s many influences, ranging from the existential Samuel Beckett to French film icon Jacques Tati to cinema master Stanley Kubrick.

Villeneuve credits Kubrick for the light in dark areas: ‘The way he managed to tap into nuclear angst to create humor in Dr. Strangelove – that was an amazing feat.’