Opening Feature Film: “By Design”

by Amanda Kramer (Germany Premiere)

Canada - 2025 ‧ Sci-fi/Drama ‧ 1h 32m

*The Original Version in English will be screened

Camille (Juliette Lewis) enters a home décor store and becomes fixated on a chair. Soon after, she inexplicably swaps bodies with it, only to discover that those around her seem to prefer this new version of her. Narrated by Melanie Griffith, Amanda Kramer’s Sundance-premiered “By Design” is a surreal, darkly comic exploration of desire, identity, and the objectification of women.

Set in a hyper-stylised world, the film takes fetishisation to its most absurd conclusion: the desire not only to possess an object, but to become one. With a rigorous visual language and biting, dry humour, Kramer blends cinema, literature, and performance art to expose the absurdity and emptiness of social behaviour. As Camille’s body remains strangely present in the lives of those around he, even improving her relationship with her mother, “By Design” becomes both a rebellion against female objectification and a provocative examination of the desire to be desired, taken to the point of surrendering oneself entirely.