POLYTECHNIQUE

French-Canadian director Denis Villeneuve is considered one of the most influential filmmakers of our time. With Arrival, Blade Runner 2049 and Dune, he has left his mark on the contemporary science fiction genre, before establishing himself as a master of suspenseful thrillers with his first Hollywood productions Prisoners, Enemy and Sicario.

The retrospective at the Freistadt cinema is dedicated to his early Canadian films, which laid the foundations for his later international success: intense character studies with a dense atmosphere and impressive visual language. Works that reveal his signature style, which made him one of the most important directors of his generation.

After a break of several years, Villeneuve returned in 2009 with Polytechnique, a haunting black-and-white film about the massacre at the École Polytechnique in Montreal in 1989, in which 14 women were murdered by an armed assassin. The film examines the events from various perspectives, including those of the perpetrator, the victims and a survivor. Villeneuve tells the story with a sober, almost documentary-like distance, without losing any of the emotional intensity.

The film concentrates less on the violence itself and more on the psychological and social effects of the crime. With his clear, visually reduced production, Villeneuve succeeds in portraying a sensitive and complex subject in a respectful and effective way. Polytechnique is considered a turning point in Villeneuve's career and demonstrates his flair for difficult material and his talent for handling it with cinematic precision.