World Premiere at Sitges 2026
October 14th
HEAT OF MADNESS is the long-awaited follow-up to director Karim Ouelhaj’s award-winning 2022 feature MEGALOMANIAC, which won the coveted Best Film Cheval Noir trophy at the Fantasia International Film Festival, toured over fifty global festivals, and secured more than twenty awards. The director’s new film, which will World Premiere at Sitges International Film Festival, pulls audiences back into the bleak, unforgiving spaces that Ouelhaj has become so celebrated for mastering.
HEAT OF MADNESS stars Olivier Picard as Scola. On the verge of becoming a father, he’s hoping to make it big with one final heist… but when he’s betrayed by his accomplices, he becomes blinded by the obsession to recover his loot. Embarking on a vengeful quest that leads him into a supernatural world, Scola meets Petite Pomme (Julie Carroll), a mysterious figure who tries to open his eyes. Lost on a road trip that feels like purgatory, Scola has to decide whether to face reality or sink entirely into madness. HEAT OF MADNESS navigates the blurred boundaries between obsession, guilt, and redemption in a world where the real and the supernatural collide.
Says the filmmaker of his latest…
HEAT OF MADNESS represents a major step in my career. It combines a striking visual aesthetic with a fully immersive sensory experience, each frame designed as a self-contained pictorial composition. Drawing inspiration from art history (Retzsch, Millet, Spilliaert, Magritte) and Dante’s Purgatorio, the film explores the layers of the human soul as well as our personal, psychological journeys. While visually ambitious, HEAT OF MADNESS remains accessible – offering an intense, immersive, and emotionally resonant cinematic experience to its viewers.
HEAT OF MADNESS is written and directed by Karim Ouelhaj, and stars Olivier Picard, Julie Carroll, Claudio Dos Santos, and Louise Moor. It is produced by Florence Saâdi and Karim Ouelhaj via their production house, OKAYSS. Sales are being handled by Justyna Koronkiewicz at Media Movie.
HEAT OF MADNESS World Premieres at 15:00 (3:00PM) on October 14th, inside the festival’s grand Sala Tramuntana Meliá, with the filmmaker and select cast and crew in attendance.
