The breakout horror hit of this year’s festival circuit has a release date. Julia Ducournau’s “Raw” will hit theaters March 10, 2017 and digital platforms in the summer, Birth.Movies.Death. reports.
Since its World Premiere at Cannes Critics’ Week, “Raw” has left a major mark on both critics and audiences. The critically acclaimed film made headlines back in September at the Toronto International Film Festival, where multiple audience members passed during screenings, overwhelmed by the film’s realistic gore.
“Raw” centers on Justine (Garance Marillier), a gifted student training to be a vet. She’s a vegetarian who reluctantly tries meat during a hazing ritual. The incident leaves Justine with an insatiable appetite for meat — and her impulse to consume flesh escalates to a degree that’s not only socially unacceptable, but illegal. Basically, Justine goes from abstaining from eating animals to fighting the irresistible urge to eat humans.
“With ‘Raw,’ I set myself the challenge of shifting the audience’s moral standards throughout the film,” Ducournau told Women and Hollywood. “I wanted the audience to feel empathy for a character that is becoming a monster in their eyes,” she explained. “It sounds twisted, but I believe that the building of a moral identity comes with the acknowledgement of tendencies that we qualify as monstrous or evil. I often ask myself, for example, ‘What’s the difference between me and someone who kills?’ I wanted to disturb the audience in that way.”
“Raw” marks Ducournau’s debut feature film. The writer and director’s previous credits include “Mange,” a television movie, and “Junior,” a short that played at Cannes in 2011.
