Three years after a donor friend saved his life with a kidney transplant, Canadian director Denis Côté is back at the Locarno Film Festival with his 17th film, Nobody's Violence, a dark story about a young woman who makes a death pact to help desperate people end their lives.

He wrote the script during the final year of his illness, when his kidney function had dropped critically low. A degenerative kidney disease had threatened both his life and his ability to keep making movies; in August 2023, a donor friend provided the kidney that changed both outcomes, The Hollywood Reporter reported on 7 August 2026.

Côté had spent more than a decade with the progressive kidney disease before the transplant, Variety noted. He had already been working through the illness: his earlier Locarno title Mademoiselle Kenopsia was shot in September 2022 while he was battling the same disease.

Nobody's Violence — French-language title Violence du corps de l'autre — had its world premiere at Locarno's 2026 edition, where it screens as a Canadian production in DCP 4K, colour, according to the Locarno Film Festival. It is Côté's eighth feature to premiere at the festival; he had previously brought seven feature films to the Swiss event.

Larissa Corriveau stars as Mira, the lead character, described as a solitary woman of few words. The Hollywood Reporter has also described her role as a young woman tangled up in a death cult. Corriveau and Côté are frequent collaborators; Nobody's Violence is their sixth film together. The cast also includes veteran French actor Philippe Rebbot as Ludo and Xavier Bergeron as Pierric, a young man Mira meets during her travels.

The film's premise touches on territory Canada has legislated directly. In 2016, Canada passed MAID — Medical Aid in Dying — a legal process allowing someone found eligible and giving informed consent to receive assistance from a medical practitioner to end their own life.

International buyers will get their chance to acquire the film: Heretic Films holds world sales rights and is shopping Nobody's Violence to distributors, Variety reported on 12 July 2026. For sales agents at a festival market like Locarno, that means meeting territory-by-territory with distributors who license films for their home countries.

Côté is not the only Canadian in the Locarno competition. Wayne Wapeemukwa's Manhunt also world premieres at the festival, making two Canadian films in the lineup, Playback reported on 9 July 2026.

Locarno's festival director has called the 2026 lineup "adventurous" for what he described as an "era of algorithms," with Nobody's Violence among the titles cited in The Hollywood Reporter's festival preview on 30 July.

What makes this premiere resonate beyond the programme is the chain of decisions behind it. A director wrote a script about death and bodily autonomy while his own body was failing him. A friend gave an organ. The film got made. Now it sits on a festival screen in Locarno, waiting for buyers to decide how many other screens it will reach.