Program Note
Anx and Cass wake up in the same bed. Anx, shy and reserved, feels awkward around the bold and free-spirited Cass after their one-night stand, yet also finds himself drawn to her by curiosity and growing affection. While scrolling through party photos from the night before on social media, Anx notices something subtly off about the skin of people in the pictures. His sense of unease soon proves prescient as news breaks of a strange skin disease spreading throughout the world - a contagious illness causing people’s skin to blend with surrounding objects and landscapes. Quarantined together in an apartment, the two must confront not only this mysterious illness, but a growing and unfamiliar terror.
Thibault Emin’s ELSE is a body horror film shaped by the era of pandemic and lockdown. The film unfolds in two parts: the first, an intimate romance in a confined space; the second, a stark black-and-white sci-fi horror as the world outside loses all color. Seamlessly crossing genre boundaries, Emin weaves wry imagination with a philosophical meditation on the transformation of the human body, crafting a genre-bending film that is both unique and thought-provoking. (KIM Byeonggyu)