118 minutes – Black comedy
Language: English, French, Swedish, German
Festival release date:  May 18, 2024 –  77th Cannes International Film Festival
Release date: October 18, 2024
Production companies: Square Peg, Buffalo Gal Pictures, Maze Pictures
Canadian distributor: Elevation Pictures
U.S. distributor: Bleecker Street

The leaders of the G7 nations convene at a posh rural German bogland estate to make diplomatically friendly with each other and draft their annual statement to the world, a document we are to believe is of vital importance, especially in light of what they refer to as “the present crisis”, an unspecified geopolitical situation the leaders vaguely allude to but never directly address or describe. However, these so-called leaders become spectacles of incompetence, contending with increasingly surreal obstacles. Before being led to a stately fenland gazebo to work, they are shown the excavation site of an Iron Age “bog person,” the mummy of a man ritualistically murdered and castrated in the long-ago pagan belief his death would bring bountiful harvests to the region. This anthropological aside complete, they settle into the gazebo for a pleasant sunset dinner, some good wine and, before plunging themselves into the work of composing their provisional statement, a nostalgic and even somewhat maudlin conversation about their respective regrets, in life and as leaders, during which we learn that this year’s summit is, alas, to be their last together as a group. The composition of this crucial yet vague statement so captures the attention of the leaders that they fail to notice that every other person associated with the mounting of this enormously complex summit has disappeared. Gone too is all cell-phone contact with the outside world. The great leaders are positively mystified and frightened, but forge on, hopeful everyone will return in time to hear their statement read out loud.

Rumours is a Canada-Germany coproduction.