DIGGING LANDGRAVES

The short film shows the dark side of music journalism.

François Ruel Côté as Jérémie and Pierre-Luc Brilliant as Patrick

Journalism can be a rewarding job for many of us who are in the business of chasing stories and telling all from our own perspective.  All the major perks that come with the job especially when you are a music journalist are cool and admirable.   Interviewing musicians, getting into concerts and music festivals and getting the latest merchandise from bands gives any music journalist that swag.  But there comes a time when all journalists wished there was a story they should have never pursued but because of their passion could not turn back.

Director Jean-François Leblanc directs this intense short film Landgraves screening at this year’s Blood in the Snow Film Festival which focuses on a music journalist name Jérémie, played by François Ruel Côté who drives deep into the woods to interview a heavy metal duo LANDGRAVES.  For the first time in a year, the band is recording a new album which is one year since the murder imprisonment of one of the members Patrick, played by Pierre-Luc Brilliant.  When the interview actually takes place between both Jérémie and Patrick, it becomes one of the scariest and strenuous chats for the young journalist who engages in this activity amidst a heavy snowstorm.

This has to be one of the genuine scariest short films on the slate of this year’s Blood in the Snow Film Festival.  It has to do with the intelligent filmmaking of Jean-François Leblanc who wastes no time into building the tension between both Jérémie and Patrick.   The mood and the atmosphere plus the character of Patrick gets into the minds of the audience so fast that they know that Jérémie is in a bad place at a bad time.  The audience is horrified and left to their imagination of how Patrick killed someone and how it all went down in the past.  This makes us all tense up as we wonder throughout the duration of the film if history is going to repeat itself?  The heavy metal soundtrack increases the anxiety of the audience but the way the direction of Jean-François Leblanc tells this story through top-notch cinematography and acting should have this film being Almost Famous.  This is the true opposite of Cameron Crowe’s classic in which the French dialogue makes it a cold yet exotic horror.  Anyone up for the Pitchfork Festival next year?