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The Canadian feature “Les Affamés” by Robin Aubert (Produced by Stéphanie Morissette – La maison de prod Canada 2017), just won the Best Film Award and Best Director award at the 38th edition of the Oporto International Film Festival, in the fantasy main official section. It is the second time that the director has won at the festival – he also won Best Director with his first feature “Saints Martyrs des Damnés” in 2006. 

“I am so excited that viewers around the world will get the chance to watch Les Affamés. I'm also proud for the Netflix audience to experience its thrills and chills in its original Québécois version, my mother tongue, which is so rich and colorful, full of history and mystery, something that fully characterizes my universe as a filmmaker,” said writer/director Robin Aubert. “Even if I truly believe in mankind, I’m terrified when rage and hate get the best of us. Les Affamés echoes the current state in western societies. Making a zombie movie was my own personal way of expressing both my fears and hopes about what's lying ahead of us.”

Synopsis

In a small, remote village in Upstate Quebec, things have changed. Locals are not the same anymore – their bodies are breaking down and they developed an outlandish attraction for flesh. Some call them the Ravenous. A handful of survivors go hiding into the woods, looking for others like them.

Two best buddies, Bonin and Vézina, try to laugh their way out of this nightmare, but a fatal encounter keeps them apart and on the run. Bonin takes under his wings Tania who has a dog’s bite mark on her hand… or is it?

Tough businesswoman Céline exults her guilt with raging machete virtuosity and never shies away from fighting back.

Old neighbors Pauline and Thérèse join forces to keep their land safe and to shelter other survivors.

And there’s the mysterious stock car racing pilot “No. 76”. He might have found a safe haven untouched by the Ravenous. If only the other survivors could find him first… But how long will they stay alive before the Ravenous make the boreal forest their new hunting ground?

Robin Aubert

Robin Aubert is a writer, filmmaker and actor. From 1997 to 1998, he has been part of the weekly filmmaking competition La Course Destination-Monde (Radio-Canada/CBC) where he won the Audience Award and the SODEC Prize as he finished in second place.

His short Lila has competed at the Clermont-Ferrand Film Festival and won the Quebec Critics Association Award for best Narrative Short in 2002.

His feature debut, the arthouse horror St. Martyrs of the Damned, played TIFF in 2005, then garnered the Best Director Award at Fantasporto Fest (Portugal) and the Audience Award at the CinEnygma Festival in Luxemburg. The film has been sold to Germany, Austria, Spain, Japan, Brazil and the Netherlands. In 2009, he directed Train to Nowhere (À Quelle Heure Le Train Pour Nulle Part), an improvised, experimental independent feature shot in India with a film crew of three – including the lead actor. The film premiered at the Fantasia Film Festival and won the Gilles-Carle Award for Best first or second feature at the Rendez-Vous du Cinéma Québécois.

The next year, social drama Crying Out (À L’origine D’un Cri) won raving reviews at TIFF and has been screened in Busan, Valladolid, Mannheim-Heidelberg, Seattle, Boston, Mons, Paris, Nîmes, Portland and Barcelona.

In 2012, the short film On Cement won the Jury Prize at Off-Courts Trouville and The Grand Prix National at Regard. Aubert went back to his independent roots with Tuktuq, a feature shot in Nunavit with limited crew and gear, which won the Festival du cinéma international en Abitibi- Témiscamingue Oecumenical Award in 2016. Les Affamés is his 5th feature film.