Denis Côté Talks About On-Screen Sexuality in His Berlin Film ‘That Kind of Summer’
Ben Croll “I asked myself, why was it so difficult to name a Quebecois film from the past 25 years that treated sexuality as its central theme?” Côté told Variety. “Why could France foster directors who filmed the human body in direct and unselfconscious ways, and Quebec could not? Were Quebecois more prudish than others?”And so the Montreal-based filmmaker started on his 14th feature, which follows three so-called “hypersexual” women, plagued with troubled histories and fragile mental states, as they participate in a month-long therapy retreat. But as he developed the script with a local sexologist, the filmmaker saw potential traps in two very different directions.“The film could never be meant to judge,” Côté explained.