First Look at Pascal Plante’s Red Rooms Follow-Up King’s Daughters Starring Sandrine Bonnaire

Red Rooms was not Pascal Plante’s first film, but it sure suggested an arrival. Coming from seemingly nowhere and immediately placing the Québécois director on our radar, that film—which we gave a rather high grade when we still assigned grades—wound up on our list of the best and most underseen titles of 2024, roughly the best endorsement this publication could afford.

Needless to say we’re excited to learn Plante is well into shooting his next project, King’s Daughters; doubly so that it stars the legendary Sandrine Bonnaire, who leads a cast featuring Laurie Babin (Red Rooms), Lauréna Thellier (Slack Bay), Zoé Adjani, and Marguerite Champoux. Described by Variety as a “historical survival drama spiced with folk-horror undertones,” the film—which has been acquired for worldwide rights by WTFilms—is partly set aboard “the cursed transatlantic voyage of the first group of orphan virgins sent by King Louis XIV to be married off in his faltering colony of New-France, which is the area now known as Quebec.” Their 111-day trip is “plagued by promiscuity, disease, superstitious crew, famine, vermin, apathy and death,” for those who found Red Rooms‘ vision of social and moral decay too soft. (Producers Dominique Dussault, Stephanie Morissette, and Caroline Bonmarchand nevertheless suggest something brighter: “a story of survival, oppression, and resilience will resonate deeply with contemporary audiences.”

In early days and from afar, the 1663-set King’s Daughters already suggests a far more ambitious production: shooting began this spring in Montreal, and picks up next month in France. A 2027 debut is anticipated, putting this high on next year’s list of priorities.