An electrifying film that took Cannes by storm upon its premiere in the Critics’ Week section this past May, Julia Ducournau’s wild, primal, flesh-eating marvel, Raw, boldly introduces a major new French talent to the world stage.

Brilliant, shy 16-year-old Justine heads to the same veterinary college her parents attended, and where her older sister, Alexia, is also a student. Along with the other newbies, Justine is subjected to a series of bizarre initiations, including a hazing ritual that forces her to eat a raw rabbit liver. Although she’s a committed vegetarian, Justine is desperate to fit in and ultimately caves to the peer pressure. Afterward, she grows a voracious appetite for meat, which starts branching out to other forms of flesh. At the same time, the young virgin’s new carnivorous tendency coincides with a burgeoning sexual desire.

A grisly, viscerally charged experience, Raw is art-house horror of the highest order. A darkly funny coming-of-age story at its bloody heart, it unpeels the complex layers of the sisters’ not-always-nurturing bond as it hurtles toward a climactic, bloody showdown.

Starring: Garance Marillier, Ella Rumpf, Rabah Nait Oufella, Laurent Lucas, and Joana Preiss

Director: Julia Ducournau
Screenwriter: Julia Ducournau
Producers: Jean des Forêts, Julie Gayet, and Nadia Turincev
Distributor: Focus World

Release Date: March 10, 2017
Runtime: 99 minutes
Rated R
In French with English subtitles.

Garance Marillier appears in Raw by Julia Ducournau, an official selection of the Spotlight program at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival. Courtesy of Sundance Institute.