Films

At a boys’ water polo training camp in the summer of 2003, twelve-year-old Ben, a socially anxious boy, desperately tries to find his place among his teammates. The dominant group, led by the cruel Jake, turns Eli, an isolated boy with a skin condition, into the target of a prank claiming that he suffers from a contagious disease called “the plague”. What begins as a teenage joke becomes increasingly cruel, forcing Ben to choose between belonging to the group and standing up for the boy everyone has decided to exclude. Directed by Charlie Polinger, The Plague is a psychological coming-of-age story that turns teenage hierarchy into a small laboratory of violence, bullying and toxic masculinity. Featuring Joel Edgerton as the coach, it premiered in Cannes’ Un Certain Regard section and uses water and water polo as metaphors for the turbulence of growing up.