“I watched my first horror movie when I was 6, by chance. My parents didn’t know anything about it, of course. I realised later that I’d seen The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.” These are the words of Julia Ducournau, first-time feature director and the creative behind the new French horror-film Raw, a critically-acclaimed arthouse horror about cannibalism. Perhaps it’s unsurprising, then, that a showing at the Toronto International Film Festival left some viewers fainting, and even hospitalised, after watching some of its gory scenes.

The film charts the life of protagonist Justine, played by Garance Marillier, a virginal veterinary student sent off to college to study her family’s traditional profession. However, an initiation ritual where she eats raw meat in a desperate attempt to fit in kickstarts a chain of events which see her swapping vegetarianism for cannibalism in a desire to conform.

Critics are calling Raw a coming-of-age movie, and they may be right. As well as the possibly metaphorical cannibalism, it’s also a story about adulthood, acceptance, sexual awakening and body image. “Each of my films have been about physical transformation”, Ducournau explains. “Raw is focussed on the construction of identity and moral standards inside a perverted system.”

The film has had a positive reception, winning the FRIPRESCI Prize at the Cannes Film Festival in May and the Sutherland Award at the London Film Festival. Watch an exclusive clip above.

Raw is released in UK cinemas on April 7