Northwest Film Forum

Côté took home the Golden Leopard from Locarno Film Festival for the exquisitely constructed All That She Wants. True to form, he turns the camera on characters at the margins—broken families in a nameless country. Composed in breathtaking black and white, All That She Wants is a collection of images and relationships creating more than a conventional narrative. At the center stands Coralie, a rebellious teenager with no mother (hers has disappeared) but two father figures: Jacob, who may be her biological father, and the eerily friendly Pierrot, an ex-con who sets up next door with his dubious crew. Permeating All That She Wants is the sense of unease, even dread, familiar from Côté’s other work, and the formal virtuosity that has made him one of Canada’s most internationally respected directors.

"The Stranger Suggests: The films of the French-Canadian director Denis Côté are challenging, but only a coward registers all challenges as bad. We must not be cowards in the case of Côté’s films. We must confront and experience them as fully as possible. They deserve our effort. The difficulty in Côté’s cinema is not in the style (manner) but the substance (matter), and this substance primarily concerns the limits and fragility of human morality." —The Stranger

“An assured, disquieting drama of identity, isolation, and rebirth.”—Canadian Film Institute