Every once in a rare while, a human being comes along who questions all the basic assumptions of society, who probes the very limits of morality, who negates the old, comfortable ideas of what it means to be human. Throughout history, such people have always been viewed as dangerous – and have, ironically, prompted the most extreme and morally questionable responses. At the turn of the 1811, century, in the wake of the bloody French Revolution, one such dangerous maverick was undoubtedly the Marquis De Sade, the originator of the term sadism. Sade was so scandalous he continues to shock us in the 21st century – and his legacy continues to raise the debate about just what to do with those who gleefully explore the most sinister taboos.

QUILLS boldly enters that debate by imagining the final days of the Marquis De Sade as a blistering black comedy thriller, a battle between lust and love – and between the brutality of censorship and the unpredictable consequences of free expression.