All You Can Eat Buddha

  • 84'
  • Canada
  • 2017

After too much time spent in a sanitised, childish setting, vacation resorts can feel very surreal. But never weirder than in Ian Lagarde’s first feature. Mike is a quiet, corpulent tourist, who enjoys the routine in a South-American resort to the point where he could stay there forever. After an encounter with an octopus on the beach, bizarre events occur. Mike starts to perform miracles. 

For All You Can Eat Buddha, cinematographer-turned-director Lagarde crafts an eerie counterpoint to Ulrich Seidl’s Paradise: Love (2012), where all-you-can-eat buffets and all-inclusive delights replace sex tourism. The film unfolds into deadpan, Zen-like, unnerving visions as Mike becomes the inscrutable Buddha of the title. Clients come and go, the resort is not immune to some political events out there but Mike stays the same. Lagarde slowly draws us into a dreamscape, reminding us that at the end, as the Talking Heads sang, "Heaven is a place where nothing ever happens".

Director
Ian Lagarde
Premiere
European premiere
Country of production
Canada
Year
2017
Festival Edition
IFFR 2018
Length
84'
Medium
DCP
Original title
All You Can Eat Bouddha
Language
French
Producers
Gabrielle la Tougas-Fréchette / Voyelles films, Ménaïc Raoul
Production Company
Voyelles films
Sales
Stray Dogs
Screenplay
Ian Lagarde
Cinematography
John Londono
Editor
Mathieu Grondin
Production Design
Joëlle Péloquin
Sound Design
Jean-Sébastien Beaudoin-Gagnon , Sylvain Bellemare, Hans Laitres
Cast
Ludovic Berthillot, Sylvio Arriola, Yaite Ruiz, David La Haye, Alexander Guerrero
Website
http://www.ianlagarde.com
Director
Ian Lagarde
Premiere
European premiere
Country of production
Canada
Year
2017
Festival Edition
IFFR 2018
Length
84'
Medium
DCP
Original title
All You Can Eat Bouddha
Language
French
Producers
Gabrielle la Tougas-Fréchette / Voyelles films, Ménaïc Raoul
Production Company
Voyelles films
Sales
Stray Dogs
Screenplay
Ian Lagarde
Cinematography
John Londono
Editor
Mathieu Grondin
Production Design
Joëlle Péloquin
Sound Design
Jean-Sébastien Beaudoin-Gagnon , Sylvain Bellemare, Hans Laitres
Cast
Ludovic Berthillot, Sylvio Arriola, Yaite Ruiz, David La Haye, Alexander Guerrero
Website
http://www.ianlagarde.com

Programme IFFR 2018

Bright Future

A selection of discoveries for the future. Emerging talent with original subject matter and an individual style. Includes the Bright Future Competition for first feature films.

Read more about this programme