‘Teenage Sex And Death At Camp Miasma’ Comes Alive at Cannes With Warm Standing Ovation

Jane Schoenbrun’s Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma came alive at the Cannes Film Festival Wednesday night with a world premiere at Debussy Theatre to kick off the Un Certain Regard lineup.

And the Cannes crowd greeted Schoenbrun’s bloody effort with a warm reception and standing ovation that clocked in at just under six minutes after the credits rolled, as well as a four-minute speech from the filmmaker. At one point, Schoenbrun mimicked smoking a joint and hugged her stars. Later, they started clapping to gin up the standing ovation to go on for longer.

Schoenbrun then offered additional remarks at the end of the ovation — Einbinder said loudly, “What now?” — and thanked the entire team: “Thank you for bringing your open hearts.”

In a moment that prompted cheers and laughter from attendees before the screening, Schoenbrun began their onstage speech with: “There’s this song by Drake called, ‘Started from the Bottom.’ It goes, ‘Started from the bottom, now we’re here!” They added: “It’s unbelievable, I can’t believe we’re standing up here in a room full of people who are here to watch our movie. So many people worked so hard and with so much love [on it].”

Anderson, star of The X-Files and Sex Education, also got in a small joke: “This is my first time in Cannes with a film, after a few 100 years of being in the industry, and I’m so honored to be here with this particular film.” She continued: “I’m so proud of it, and I’m proud of what [Schoenbrun has] created with all of the extraordinary team. And yeah, it’s an incredibly special moment, so thank you for inviting me to the party.”

Directed by Schoenbrun from their own script, the film follows what happens when the infamous Camp Miasma slasher franchise is set to be rebooted again. However, when the latest movie’s director (Hannah Einbinder) becomes obsessed with the mysterious, reclusive actress who played the “final girl” in the original film (Gillian Anderson), a whole new kind of slasher emerges from the bottom of a lake.

For Schoenbrun, the film, which follows earlier work We’re All Going to the World’s Fair and I Saw the TV Glow, was designed to be a good time. “This movie was very consciously designed to be fun … and to bring in a lot of people to have a discussion about sex and gender and overcoming trauma,” Schoenbrun told The Hollywood Reporter’s David Canfield in an exclusive interview ahead of the festival. “I don’t know any other movies — certainly any other Hollywood movies — that are having that conversation this way, from this perspective.”

The transgender filmmaker pulled a lot of inspiration from earlier horror entries but reframed it through their lens. “This image of the trans monster kept coming up, whether that be Norman Bates or Buffalo Bill or Frankenstein as a constructed body, and there was this lineage of trans people having really complicated feelings about those movies,” Schoenbrun said. “In one sense, those are the places where they saw representations that felt familiar or comforting in some way to their own experiences — but also, those movies are super fucking transphobic and problematic.”

The showing marked Schoenbrun’s Cannes debut, a milestone moment that came after visiting the festival a decade ago in a different capacity, she told THR. “I was working a day job that I hated and in a body that I hated, and that’s literally where I decided to quit my job and figure out how to live a life that felt better,” Schoenbrun said. “I said to myself, ‘I need a better reason to be at Cannes.’”

Major industry players came to celebrate with the cast on the Palais carpet, including Jordan Firstman, who will present Club Kid later in the week, and Oscar-winning producer Alex Coco. Also in attendance was UTA partner Billy Lazarus and Camp Miasma producer Jeremy Kleiner, best known for 12 Years a Slave and Moonlight Academy Award wins.

Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma is set to be released by Mubi on Aug. 7.