Canadian auteur Denis Côté received a new kidney from a donor friend in August 2023, after a degenerative disease had threatened both his life and his ability to keep making movies.
“I didn’t know if I’d receive a transplant or dialysis, or if I’d die. I had no clue what was life on the other side or whatever was upcoming,” Côté tells The Hollywood Reporter ahead of the world premiere of his 17th film, Nobody’s Violence, at the Locarno Film Festival. He wrote the script for the drama — about a young woman who makes a death pact to help desperate people end their lives — during the final year of his illness, when his kidney function had dropped critically low.
The result is the film’s lead character, Mira, played by Larissa Corriveau: a solitary woman of few words who let Côté explore what it means to live under a death threat while still holding onto hope and the possibility of changing others’ lives. Côté has worked with Corriveau on five earlier films he wrote and directed, including another Locarno title, Mademoiselle Kenopsia, which he shot in September 2022 while battling the same progressive kidney disease.
Nobody’s Violence, which is being shopped to international buyers by Heretic Films, also stars veteran French actor Philippe Rebbot as Ludo, and Xavier Bergeron as Pierric, a young man Mira meets during her travels.
