Movies
Genre: Drama
VIFF 2021: Red Rocket
Arriving on his estranged wife Lexi’s (Bree Elrod) dilapidated doorstep barely dressed, badly bruised, and all but penniless, semi-legendary porn star Mikey Saber (Simon Rex) needs somewhere to hole up for a while. Within a matter of days, the manic motormouth has not only talked his way into Lexi’s bed,
VIFF 2021: The Boathouse
Already anxious and skittish, Anne (Firecrackers’ Michaela Kurimsky) could’ve found a less triggering summer job. With her music professor Natalia (Kelly Martin) having gone missing, Anne’s been hired on by Natalia’s husband, Dominic (Alan Van Sprang), to be a live-in nanny at a lakeside cottage. After winning over the couple’s
VIFF 2021: Sinkhole
Middle-manager Park Dong-won saved up for 11 years to buy a home in Seoul for his family of three. When the Parks move in to their condo, they notice some structural glitches, like a slanted floor. But they are more alarmed by their weird neighbour Man-su. As Park’s co-workers gather
VIFF 2021: The Girl and the Spider
Both very sly and very daring, Ramon and Silvan Zürcher’s long-awaited follow-up to The Strange Little Cat (VIFF 2013) is largely set in a spacious bohemian apartment, as tenant Mara (Henriette Confurius) and various friends and family gather to help Mara’s longtime roommate, Lisa (Liliane Amuat), move out. But the
VIFF 2021: Bipolar
Reminiscent of its monochromatic brethren Dead Man and A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, Queena Li’s Bipolar is an odyssey all its own: a buddy comedy featuring a broken-hearted musician and technicolour lobster that sends the Orpheus myth crashing through the looking glass. In the Tibetan capital of Lhasa
VIFF 2021: Three Sisters
Laced with poisonous black humour and deliciously vindicating moments, this blistering indictment of patriarchal abuse and religious hypocrisy would make Chekhov’s jaw drop to the floor. Three wildly different sisters are hit by life crises all at once. Thrifty, self-harming doormat Hee-sook (Kim Sun-young) is spurned by her goth daughter
VIFF 2021: The Book of Delights
Marcela Lordy has made a film as thorny, erotic, and complex as the writing of one of Brazil’s most fêted writers, Clarice Lispector. Set in Rio, and based on Lispector’s novel with the same name, The Book of Delights is a compelling character study focuses on a complicated, intelligent, freedom-loving,
VIFF 2021: Kicking Blood
Robbie (Luke Bilyk) and Anna (Alanna Bale) cross paths courtesy of a “meet macabre:” he’s a despondent alcoholic in desperate need of a drink, while she’s a high-on-hemoglobin immortal who’s looking for her latest fix. Unexpectedly enchanted with his take-it-or-leave-it approach to life, a disarmed Anna stows Robbie away in
Fallen Angels (2020 Restoration)
Lost souls reach out for human connection amidst the glimmering night world of Hong Kong in Wong Kar Wai’s hallucinatory, neon-soaked nocturne. Originally conceived as a segment of CHUNGKING EXRESS, only to spin off on its own woozy axis, this hyper-cool head rush plays like the dark, moody flip side
Best Sellers
Lucy Standbridge (Aubrey Plaza) has inherited her father’s publishing house, and the ambitious would-be editor has nearly sunk it with failing titles. She discovers she is owed a book by Harris Shaw (Michael Caine), a reclusive, cantankerous, booze-addled author who originally put the company on the map decades earlier. In