HUMANIST VAMPIRE SEEKING CONSENTING SUICIDAL PERSON | TIFF 2023
/
Sasha (Sara Montpetit) is like any other teenager giving her parents a hard time with her picky eating habits, except Sasha is a vampire, a 68-year-old vampire to be exact! After a traumatizing birthday party, her mother (Sophie Cadieux) and father (Steve Laplante) realize with the help of their vampire pediatrician, that Sasha does not feel hunger when faced with an opportunity to feed, but compassion. This compassion leads to a delay in the development of her fangs and without fangs she can not feed. Unable to consume human food because it is poisonous to vampires, her parents provide blood bags that she consumes like a child with a juice box trying to get to the last drop. She is faced with an ultimatum by her parents effectively cutting off her blood supply and sent off with her cousin Denise (Noémie O’Farrell) to learn to fend for herself.
One night Sasha’s attention is caught by Paul (Félix-Antoine Bénard), a lonely teenager working at the local bowling alley, when he’s on the rooftop about to jump only to back away and finish his shift. On the other hand, Sasha is about to consume a bite of human food before she too stops last minute. Both of these ‘teens’ end up in a support group where they realize they could help one another. What follows is a dark, comedic, vampire coming-of-age film. Director Ariane Louis-Seize describes her feature film debut:
“I made parallels with the sexual awakening and her fangs coming out. When she tried to bite for the first time, to kill for the first time, it’s a little bit like the first time you want to have sex,” shared Louis-Seize. “It was a little bit like a classic coming-of-age in that sense, but with a vampire twist.”
Having its North American premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival this year, Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person has two showtimes you won’t want to miss. You can buy tickets for it here.
