The trailer has debuted for “Mademoiselle Kenopsia,” the latest film from Canadian filmmaker Denis Côté, who won awards at Berlin Film Festival with “Vic + Flo Saw a Bear” and Locarno with “Curling.” “Mademoiselle Kenopsia” had its world premiere at the Locarno Film Festival this month, and will premiere in North America at next month’s Toronto Film Festival in the Wavelengths section, which was unveiled Friday. H264 is handling international sales.
Côté says: “We imagined and intended the trailer as a sort of refuge that invites a sense of calm… while still provoking a slight anxiety. This essentially encapsulates ‘Kenopsia’: an anguished state of floating that hangs over the whole film to the point of overwhelming its main character.”
The press notes explain what the word “kenopsia” means: “The eerie, forlorn atmosphere of a place that’s usually bustling with people but is now abandoned and quiet.”
“Mademoiselle Kenopsia” focuses on a woman, referred to by Côté as the “Guardian of Spaces,” who is “obsessed with watching over anonymous interiors and occupying them,” and is “set on carrying out her task with dedication,” according to the press notes. “Both a custodian of the premises and a ghostly presence, she becomes an echo of how we relate to time, solitude and the melancholy of forsaken spaces.”
Côté explains how he got the idea for the project: “During the coronavirus pandemic, we all experienced moments of seclusion, confinement or isolation. We spent a lot of time in the same few places. I feel that, in our minds, spaces had become purely functional. It no longer mattered whether they were clean, beautiful, new or well thought-out. Our living environments were utilitarian at best, run-down at worst.
“I think that this violence of spaces, coupled with the increasing sluggishness of my body, led me to take an interest in this project.
“As an extension to this trail of thought, we sometimes hope that our apartments and environments find a new life, in terms of definition or function. I toyed with this desire and also with what we call liminal spaces. In a liminal world, we project a lot of ourselves or a quasi-ghostly version of ourselves, lost between an awakened state and a dream. And the idea of transition borders several states of melancholy or anxiety.”
In the film, Larissa Corriveau plays the lead character. It is the fourth collaboration between the actor and Côté. He says: “I asked her to play the Guardian of Spaces. We both liked the term. As if, from that moment on, we no longer needed to discuss psychology. I think she built a loneliness for the character that is more mysterious than depressing. I told her that she moved in spaces, that it was her job. ‘Inhabiting the space’ was the name of the game. Poetry came with the idea of leaving a trace or making up a story from scratch for these raw, naked places, without seeking meaning or transcendence.”
Some characters visit her, and others phone her. Côté says: “I tried to break her loneliness and offer the film a few tone shifts. Evelyne de la Chenelière plays an apparition who comes to share a solitude, or fill the space if you prefer. She wrote her own ‘cigarette monologue.’ I liked the idea of seeing the Guardian of Spaces trying to find a foothold or some form of otherness via mysterious phone calls. She thinks a lot about her place in these languishing places. There might not even be anyone on the other end of the line.”
Jean-Christophe J. Lamontagne and Stéphanie Demers of H264 said: “We are thrilled to present the unique cinematic experience of ‘Mademoiselle Kenopsia’ to the TIFF audience. The selection of ‘Mademoiselle Kenopsia’ in the prestigious Wavelengths program confirms our belief that it will resonate deeply with cinephiles. We can’t wait to share this extraordinary film with the festival’s audience.”
Watch the trailer for “Mademoiselle Kenopsia” below.
