Species

A stressed-out young doctor suspects hostile jobs are doing something gnarly to her generation.

Turns out work doesn’t just suck – it mutates.

Margot (Mara Taquin, Zero Fucks Given) has worked hard to land her first job as a doctor in France’s most prestigious emergency department. But even in this life-and-death medical field, Charles Boyau Hospital is a brutal pressure cooker: the relentless competition among colleagues and merciless production-line pace set by her boss Hélène (Karin Viard, Polisse, MIFF 2011) have Margot so stressed that she’s literally sweating blood. She recalls treating similar unexplained symptoms in patients her own age: young professionals in French workplaces are brutally lashing out, seeming somehow to be … changing. Is this extreme burnout, a novel virus or a transformative environmental adaptation?

Premiering in the Cannes Midnight Screenings section, Marion Le Corroller’s brash debut feature shares a blood type with her body-horreur compatriots Coralie Fargeat (The Substance, MIFF 2024) and Julia Ducournau (Titane, MIFF 2021). But Species delivers its critique of ‘rise-and-grind’ productivity culture with an axe, not a scalpel: every frame is a gonzo frenzy, captured expressionistically by cinematographer Guillaume Schiffman at tilted angles and through fish-eye lenses, all set to a pulsating electronic score by ROB. Imagine Philip Brophy’s Body Melt (MIFF 1994) infecting The Pitt and you might at least have the right genus … but Species is a breed all its own.

Content: Melbourne International Film Festival