Meander

Meander
France | 2020 | 90′ | Colour  | French, English | English subtitles| Group: C
Director: Mathieu Turi

Whether trapped in a coffin, cage, elevator, phone booth or panic room, there is a long tradition of actors placed in confined spaces for the duration of a movie. In Meander, French director Mathieu Turi puts actress Gaia Weiss in a maze of tubular tunnels and she is forced to shuffle her way through hundreds of metres in the course of the film, with attacks from zombie-like humans and multiple fire and water traps to tackle along the way. We don’t know who is doing this to her, but we know that others have died in the tubes trying before her. It’s a bold, ultra-high concept that Turi pulls off with aplomb, effectively placing the camera inside the tubes with her to capture the tension and claustrophobia that she feels. For a 90 minute shot of pure nerve-crunching adrenalin, it’s not to be missed.

MIKE GOODRIDGE

After getting a car ride from an unknown man, Lisa passes out and wakes up in a labyrinth of human-sized tubes. On her arm is strapped a bracelet with a countdown. She quickly understands that every eight minutes, fire burns through an occupied section of the tube. She has no choice but to crawl into safe sections to survive. To know why she’s there and how to get out, Lisa will have to face the memories of her dead daughter…

Born in Cannes, France, in 1987, Matthieu Turi joined the EDRA Cinema School in Paris in 2005. After his studies, he worked in various assistant director capacities on films directed by Clint Eastwood, Quentin Tarantino and Guy Ritchie among others. His first short film Sons Of Chaos (2010) was selected for competition at Sitges and his second short Broken (2013) won the IndieFest Award in Los Angeles. His first feature film Hostile (2017) was sold to over 60 territories and is now available on Amazon Prime Video worldwide. Meander is his second feature and had its world premiere at Sitges in October.