EXCLUSIVE: Global Constellation has boarded sales on Jérémy Comte’s new film Eléo & Nova, in the wake of the buzzy reception for the Canadian director’s first feature Paradise in the Berlinale’s Panorama section.
Like Paradise, about two interconnected two teenagers living in Ghana and Quebec, and 2018 Oscar-nominated short Fauve, Comte’s new feature Eléo & Nova features a youthful story and cast.
Left to their own devices in a remote country house in northern Canada during an endless heatwave, four siblings, a young boy and his three sisters, find themselves cut-off from the outside world by a prolonged power outage.
When their parents fail to return, an initial sense of liberation turns to fear, as they ask whether the power cut and strange lights in the sky are harbingers of something more sinister down the line.
Principal photography is currently underway in the boreal forests of the Laurentians, Quebec, with Comte due back on set this Saturday, for a final eight days of shooting, following his trip to Berlin for the world premiere of Paradise.
The film is produced by Academy Award–nominated producer Roger Frappier (The Power of the Dog), alongside Sylvie Lacoste and Veronika Molnar at Montreal-based Max Films, known for its longstanding collaborations with Denys Arcand, Denis Villeneuve, Kim Nguyen, Lyne Charlebois, François Girard and Jane Campion among others.
“Since his Oscar-nominated short Fauve, Jérémy Comte has emerged as one of the most exciting new voices in cinema,” said Frappier.
“His latest feature, Éléo & Nova, a story drawn from his own experiences, was developed at Max Films and is now in the final days of principal photography. Every day on set, the film reveals a rare combination of breathtaking visuals, raw emotion, and narrative power making it a truly unforgettable cinematic experience.”
Global Constellation Managing Director Film Fabien Westerhoff welcomed the new collaboration.
“We are delighted to reunite with Jérémy Comte for this striking second feature, which further affirms the precision and sensitivity of his filmmaking. Intimate yet cinematic in scope, the film unfolds with haunting intensity as it charts the fragile threshold where childhood no longer offers refuge,” he said.
Speaking to Deadline in Berlin, Comte put more flesh on the storyline and inspiration for the film.
“It’s about a family that moves to a remote country house. They are having financial issues, so the father leaves them, to get money, work, and they start to experience some weird natural phenomena,” said Comte.
The boy’s imagination takes hold, and he interprets the power cut and aurora borealis lights in the sky as signs that the end of the world is nearing.
“It becomes a quest for survival and an adventure movie from the perspective of the kids kind of having an apocalyptic world unfolding in front of their eyes. It’s quite an immersive, sensorial movie in the same line of my short film Fauve,” said Comte.
The director reveals the storyline taps into his own childhood.
“I grew up in the countryside. I have three sisters… it touches on the environment and the eco-anxiety. I grew up vegetarian. That’s something I heard a lot from my parents, the state of the world, about how we never really know how it’s going to end and how it could be exponential.”
Working with Fauve and Paradise casting director Victor Tremblay-Blouin, Comte scouted schools in and around Val d’Or in Canada’s remote Abitibi-Témiscamingue region for the someone to play the character of the boy.
“I wanted a boy that was both tough and very sensitive. I had a feeling that we could maybe find him in Abitibi,” said Comte. “We scouted schools and found him. He is great – really attentive and works hard. His role is very physical. There’s a lot of running and falling and stunts, and he’s really a very determined boy and collaborative.”
Comte heaps praise on Montreal’s collaborative film community but admits he would love to branch out internationally in the longer run, citing Quebec-born Dune director Denis Villeneuve’s path as a source of inspiration.
“Montreal is very culturally vibrant. Everybody knows each other. We share a lot. There’s a lot of support,” he says. “I want to make movies that connect with a broader audience, public, for sure. I’m really inspired by Denis Villeneuve’s path. He’s always been a reference, an idol. I want to be honest to myself, authentic to my cinema, to my voice… but definitely, I’m starting to have ideas that could work out in the U.S. We’ll see what happens.”
Produced by Max Films, the film is co-financed by Telefilm Canada and SODEC, with the support of Canadian and Quebec tax credits, in association with Radio-Canada. It is distributed in Canada by Opale and Entract.
Aside from Paradise, Global Constellation, a subsidiary of the Vuelta Group, is also selling Berlinale The Education of Jane Cumming by Sophie Heldman, while the company also launched Bad Major at the EFM among other titles.