O Fear, O Night

O Fear, O Night
Christine Chevarie-Lessard / 2026 / French with English subtitles / Canada / 70 min / World Premiere
With short film Please by Anna Mantzaris
What would a world without anxiety even look like? Life might feel more manageable, but ultimately, would things work out for the better? Director Christine Chevarie-Lessard’s O Fear, O Night explores the uneasy world of anxiety, delving deep into the fear driving so many of our inner dialogues. Chevarie-Lessard sits down with an Anxiety Anonymous group, gathering various perspectives and discovering how, in each unique case, the experience of living with anxiety is shockingly universal.
O Fear, O Night does an exceptional job of humanizing the experience, conveying what it’s like to exist on a perpetual hamster wheel of fear, shame, and dread. But the film’s beauty lies in its affirming message: the secret to “conquering” anxiety may be recognizing that anxious doom-spiraling comes from an inability to sit with our discomfort. The film posits that anxiety can be a reasonable response to an unreasonable world. Once we stop running from that discomfort and instead make space for it, the hamster wheel slows, and those overwhelming experiences become easier to manage.
— Victor Stiff, Rendezvous with Madness 2026 Film Programmer
---#GETMAD #COMPLEXITIESOFCARE
Complexities of Care. Care is often messy, and, like Love, both good and harm are done in its name. Our experiences as care givers and care recipients are intimately connected to our social location. Who can consent? Whose care is compensated? How is it valued? What type of care is offered? Is it sustainable? The various levels of care and its disparities are linked to gender, race, ability, and class amongst many other identities.
ABOUT RENDEZVOUS WITH MADNESS & WORKMAN ARTSRendezvous With Madness is both the first and the longest running Mental Health & Addictions based film & multi-arts festival in North America. With its roots in raising awareness through film, it has since expanded into bringing in other mediums such as theatre, dance, music and visual art. All programming, artwork, administration, and operations is created by and run by those who have lived and living experience. Follow us on Instagram: @workmanartsto
TICKETING & SEATINGTickets are general Admission with limited seating available! To avoid being turned away or standing in a rush line, please book your ticket in advance if possible. Please arrive to the venue no later than 15 minutes before the event in order to avoid your ticket being given to the rush line should an event be sold out.
RUSH TICKETS & INFORMATIONIf a program is off sale, you can come to the venue starting one hour before the event begins to place your name on our Rush list. Rush tickets are sold at the start of the event and patrons are seated just after introductions while trailers are playing. To avoid having your seat given to a Rush patron, please plan to arrive at the venue at least 15 minutes before the program begins.
ACCESS INFORMATIONAll of our venues are fully accessible. Live captioning provided for most spoken events and Q&A's. Open Captions for the vast majority of films. Films in other languages are always presented with English subtitles.