Julia Ducournau on Raw | Picturehouse Podcast

Sam talks to writer-director Julia Docournau about her new film Raw. The movie premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in 2016 and went on to play numerous international festivals across the globe. It won the Sutherland Award for Best First Feature at the BFI London Film Festival. Raw is in cinemas now. 

Director: Julia Ducournau.
Starring: Garance Marillier, Ella Rumpf, Rabah Naït Oufella. France/Belgium 2016. 99 mins. French with English subtitles.

Following in the footsteps of her entire family, shy 16-year-old Justine, an animal-loving vegetarian, enrols in veterinary college. Entering a seductive world of boys, drugs and all-night parties, she is confronted with a moral dilemma when she must eat a raw rabbit liver as part of an initiation ritual. She devours the meat, and is soon overtaken by unusual cravings. Julia Ducournau’s impressive debut feature is a highly accomplished, bold and bloody exploration of womanhood. Based around Marillier’s terrific, no-holds-barred performance, Raw has echoes of both Catherine Breillat’s explorations of female sexuality and the body horror of early David Cronenberg. The tense coming-of-age story has a mordant streak of dark humour and moments of brutality and gore. These may prove disturbing even for seasoned horror fans, thanks to the work of FX maestro Olivier Afonso. Be warned, the blood and guts apparently caused some cinemagoers to faint during a recent screening at the Toronto Film Festival.