BROTHERS IN ARMS

Brothers in Arms

A film by François Lalonde

Fiction

2025

10 min

French with English subtitles

With Édouard Tremblay-Grenier, Arnaud Vachon, Jacob Whiteduck-Lavoie, Antoine Marchand-Gagnon, Alexis Lemay-Plamondon, Rosemarie Sabor

LOGLINE

During a weekend with friends to celebrate his 18th birthday, Édouard sees his boundaries transgressed; the unexpected arrival of his older brother forces the group to confront its own contradictions about consent and male brotherhood.

SYNOPSIS

To celebrate his 18th birthday, Édouard spends a weekend at a cabin with his friends. Between laughter and camaraderie, their brotherhood seems unbreakable… until Édouard's boundaries are crossed. The unexpected arrival of his older brother Max late in the evening then confronts the group with its own contradictions. Through an exploration of masculine dynamics, Brothers in Arms questions how perceptions of consent are shaped and challenged.

Technical information

Duration: 10 minutes

Language: French with English subtitles

Filming: 4K - color

Ratio 3:2 | Sound 5.1

DCP - ProRes - H264

Filming location: Canada (Quebec)

Country of action: Canada (Quebec)

Festivals and awards

29th Fantasia International Film Festival - Montreal, Canada / July 2025 - SPIRA Regional Awards

21st Cinema on the Bayou Film Festival - Louisiana, USA / January 2026

27th Dawson City International Film Festival - Dawson City, Yukon, Canada / April 2026

Director

François Lalonde

Biography

Trained in film directing at UQAM, François Lalonde likes to make works that are generous with their audience. He is a fan of coming-of-age stories, a genre that lets him draw on the codes of popular culture and, above all, fully expose his characters' emotional upheavals. Behind his cynicism, François hides countless rays of hope.

As a director, he made the short films En jeu (2022) and Le temps d'un spleen (2022), which had successful festival runs. He then directed the short films Frères d'armes (2025) and Après le close (2025).

Alongside his directing work, François also works as an assistant director. He has worked on several feature films and series (Les Météorites, Les Mal-Aimants, La terre appelle Mathilde, Le temps d'un été, We Are Zombies).

Filmography

Frères d'armes (2025) - 10 min

Après le close (2025) - 8 min

Le temps d'un spleen (co-directed) (2022) - 22 min

En jeu (2022) - 5 min

Director's Note

At a time when masculinist rhetoric is increasingly reaching young people on social media, I wanted to offer, with Brothers in Arms, a sensitive and positive vision of what a guy can be. By offering a critical yet compassionate look at the current issues of sexual consent and toxic masculinity, the film immerses us in the frenzy of a teenage debauchery party. Between what we think we know and what we actually saw, how do we react to the problematic behavior of someone we love?