Elias and Laurent are the only two new counsellors at camp this summer. When their initiation goes sideways, Laurent tries to get out of it – and the entire group ridicules him. Elias is trapped: he either needs to reject his friend, or risks being rejected himself.

Director Biography

Olivier Côté is a young director and screenwriter from Montreal (Canada) whose films are often inspired by his own experiences. His previous student shorts Film Me and Strike have garnered recognition in the festival circuit (Palm Springs, Regard+). Les Rois concludes a trilogy about peer pressure in hyper-masculine settings.

Director Statement

KINGS was inspired by my experience as a new summer camp counselor. In the name of tradition, the boys had to strip naked in the water in front of the counselors. The feeling of being trapped in that crowd is still vivid in my memory. I knew the drag of my discomfort would be short-lived, whereas standing up to the pack I'd worked so hard to integrate would have cost me more. So I gave in. Survive and o unnoticed, then I'll be fine. On the other hand, what put me off the most about that event was that I was one of those who carried on the tradition loud and clear the following summers. I had bowed to the pressure of the group to belong, and now I was one of the ones imposing this humiliation.

This drastic change in my role led me to think a lot about the small cycles of education that insidiously ensure the perpetuation of large-scale toxic behavior between boys. Behaviours in which I have all too often participated simply out of an instinct for "survival". That's what I wanted to recreate with KINGS; a brief moment that looks mundane, but where the stranglehold of a majority that insidiously imposes its codes of conduct would be presented in its simplest state. A short story of friendship betrayal that would embody the workings of these cycles of toxic upbringing, reminding us that it doesn't always take an atrocious humiliation to humiliate atrociously. A film that would bring both the protagonist and the viewer face to face with the dilemma that, in my view, is constantly behind these cycles of toxic education: to belong by imitating or to be left out. In this context of hyper-masculinity, you're either prey or predator; there's no in-between.