Mistral Spatial is an unidentified cinematic object with an unpredictable trajectory that, in sync with the film’s main character, invites the viewer on an immersive journey of letting go.

Deeply passionate about cinema and driven by a desire to explore the medium with as few constraints as possible, I felt that my first feature film needed to be made in the same way one makes their first short film—that is, freely improvised and relying on creativity to achieve its ends. Produced on a short-film budget and with a very small crew (an average of 7–8 people during shooting), the ambitious Mistral Spatial was built over several years and is the result of a truly phenomenal amount of love, sweat, creative stubbornness, and above all, risk-taking.

With this first film, I seek to evoke strong emotions without being afraid to unsettle the viewer, just as I personally enjoy being unsettled when I go to the cinema. Fully embracing its raw and sometimes elusive surface, Mistral Spatial is a hybrid intersection between my fantasies as a filmmaker and as a cinephile.

From the very beginning of the writing process, it was clear to me that I wanted to tell my story through the uncompromising perspective and intense sensations experienced by my protagonist. The loss of bearings that SAM undergoes in the film is triggered by a romantic breakup. When paralleled with the hypothesis of an extraterrestrial abduction, this painful situation inevitably generates in him a quest for meaning.

In a relentless hope of finding answers, SAM moves through a range of emotions tied to the grieving process—sadness, confusion, fear, abandonment, and acceptance, to name a few.

Intrinsically tied to my initial intentions, the visual language and sound design of Mistral Spatial are carefully conceived in service of this search for meaning. Across three distinct acts, the film’s form transforms radically, following the pulse of the character, in order to immerse the viewer in the evolving landscape of his psyche. Like SAM, who searches for answers in a state of chronic insomnia, the deliberate exploration of cinematic language and genre codes leads us to try to untangle truth from falsehood—to confront the reality of hallucination.

As the narrative unfolds, the viewer is gradually forced to assimilate new elements that surprise them and even blur the boundaries of rationality. As both screenwriter and director, I am well aware of the keys to Mistral Spatial and the mythology that shapes its universe: extraterrestrials, the relationship to green-colored screens, Cats vs. Dogs, the presence of water and stars… Yet with this film, I deliberately refrain from revealing everything, leaving a portion of the inexplicable open to interpretation by whoever experiences it.

I invite the audience watching Mistral Spatial to surrender themselves to the experience as well—to embark on a quest that mirrors SAM’s journey in the story. Because in the end, the best—and sometimes only—way to move forward is simply to let go and follow the flow of things, without trying to understand everything.

As Canari (or is it Cath?) so aptly says in the film’s third act: “There are things that can’t be explained, and that’s okay.”

Samuel Brassard, Catherine-Audrey Lachapelle, Alex Trahan, Véronique Lafleur, Marie Brassard

‍

DIRECTING: Marc-Antoine Lemire

SCREENPLAY: Marc-Antoine Lemire

PRODUCTION: Marc-Antoine Lemire (Les Films de la méduse)

CINEMATOGRAPHY: Olivier Racine

SOUND: Simon Lacelle, Benoît Dame

ORIGINAL SCORE: Pierric Soucy, Lydia Képinski, Kerry Bursey

EDITING: Anouk Deschênes