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Watch La Lisière, a gritty, post-apocalyptic French short film

Watch La Lisière, a gritty, post-apocalyptic French short film

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If you’re looking for a new fix after finishing The Hunger Games, The Last of Us, or any similar piece dark, post-apocalyptic media, then check out La Lisière (The Edge in English). Set in a future where vaguely described wars and natural disasters have destroyed civilization, La Lisière tells the story of Hama (played by Ouidad Elma), a young woman who lives with her father Selim (Saïd Amadis, who in a neat bit of trivia did the voice dub for James Earl Jones in the French language version of The Empire Strikes Back).

La Lisière was directed by Simon Saulnier, a relatively unknown French director who had previously made a sci-fi short called Babylone. The short film is coming off a year and a half of touring festival circuits, after premiering at the HollyShorts film festival in 2015, but today marks the first time it’s been widely available for the public to view.

In the film, Hama is forced to go on a mission after a raid on their encampment causes her to lose her most precious possession. The world is an interesting take on the apocalypse, where the survivors have fled to a lush, green forest — a nice change from the dusty wastelands of films like Max Mad or The Book of Eli — along with some mysterious science fiction overtones that make it well worth the few minutes of your day to watch.

La Lisière will be available to view online for free for one week, starting today. (Note: the film is entirely in French, but contains English subtitles through YouTube’s closed captioning feature.)