Drifting States
To celebrate Denis Côté receiving the Prix Albert-Tessier (Quebec’s highest honor for a filmmaker) we are presenting a retrospective of his work. From his debut to his latest feature film (his sixteenth), his directorial choices and perspective have remained at the core of his storytelling. Embracing documentary techniques, a cornerstone of Quebec cinema, he explores the truth-bearing power of cinematic images, testing their limits through a masterful mise-en-scène. In the truest sense, he seeks to uncover the unexpected, the improbable, peeling back the layers of a world that is both enigmatic and complex. His filmmaking evokes the essence of cinema’s early days, where the camera casts a unique and unparalleled light on the world we inhabit.
Winner of the Golden Leopard - Video, 2005 Locarno Film Festival
In the grip of guilt, a man flees to Radisson, in northern Quebec. He must make peace with himself and come to terms with his new community.
Denis Côté
Denis Côté (1973 – New-Brunswick, Canada) has shot fifteen short-films in the 1990s and 2000s. He has been a journalist and film critic before directing his first feature film Drifting States (Les états nordiques) in 2005, launching a sustained and prolific creative rhythm. Carcasses (2009) was presented at Cannes’ Quinzaine des réalisateurs. Curling, his fifth feature film, won honors at the Locarno Film Festival and was presented at more than 80 festivals. In 2013, Vic+Flo Saw a Bear (Vic+Flo ont vu un ours) won the Silver Bear for Innovation at the Berlin International Film Festival. His award-winning films explore themes of solitude and alienation through often eccentric characters. Highlighted in more than forty retrospectives worldwide, his distinctive signature was recognized with the Prix Albert-Tessier in 2024, the highest honor in cinema awarded by the Government of Quebec. Nobody’s Violence (2026) is his 17th feature film.
