Movies
VIFF 2024: Mongrels
The howling of wild dogs through the windows of a summer evening… In the middle of the night, a man talks to his dead wife on a disconnected telephone… Airplanes are swallowed up in the sky. In rural Canada in the 1990s, a Korean family – a widower, his teenage
VIFF 2024: Methods to Madness with Longlegs’ Osgood Perkins
Even before its release, Osgood Perkins’ Longlegs had become the stuff of legend, anointed by tastemakers as “nightmare fuel” of the highest order. And by the time the public had their fill, Longlegs was not only the most successful release in NEON’s history, but also the most successful independent film of 2024. In this
VIFF 2024: Grand Theft Hamlet
Out-of-work, UK actors Sam and Mark are in a pickle about what to do with their time in lockdown. Escaping into the violent online world of Grand Theft Auto V, they happen upon an amphitheatre. Inspired, they decide to mount a full production of Hamlet in the city of Los Santos, a perfect
VIFF 2024: GIFT: A Film by Ryusuke Hamaguchi X Live Score by Eiko Ishibashi
Multi-instrumentalist and composer Eiko Ishibashi, who scored director Ryûsuke Hamaguchi’s Oscar-winning film Drive My Car (VIFF 2021) presents the Canadian Premiere of GIFT—a new silent film directed by Hamaguchi, and accompanied by a dynamic, live soundtrack performed by Ishibashi. Developed in collaboration with Hamaguchi’s latest feature film, Evil Does Not Exist (VIFF 2023), GIFT has been hailed
VIFF 2024: Fréwaka
Canadian Premiere Shortly after the death of her estranged mother, Shoo (Clare Monnelly) a primary care nursing student takes a placement in a remote Irish village to care for Peig (Brid Ni Neachtain) a reclusive, elderly woman who lives in fear, haunted by her experiences in a Catholic asylum. The
VIFF 2024: Else
Following a mediocre one-night stand, Anx and Cass are forced into lockdown together in Anx’s apartment. A mysterious virus is causing people’s bodies to melt and fuse with the surfaces of inanimate objects. All the infected can do is moan in pain as their body slowly merges with whatever they
VIFF 2024: Dream Team
Two sexy Interpol agents: No St. Aubergine (Esther Garrel, Call Me By Your Name) and Chase National (Alex Zhang Hungtai, formerly of Vancouver’s Dirty Beaches) travel to Mexico to investigate a conspiracy involving deadly, poisonous gas-emitting coral. Dream Team is a bizarro homage to 90s basic cable television; a bleary-eyed binge-watch of a six-episode
VIFF 2024: Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point
Canadian Premiere There’s no place like home for the holidays and the extended Balsano family gathers to celebrate Christmas Eve together for perhaps the last time. The traditional Xmas party: the ladies gossip in the kitchen, the men smoke cigars outside the garage, and the children play video games in
VIFF 2024: Black Dog
Guan Hu’s film, winner of the Prix Un Certain Regard at Cannes, tells the story of two discontented souls and the bond that grows between them. The action takes place in 2008, as the Beijing Summer Olympics approach; following a stint in prison, Lang (Eddie Peng) returns to his hometown
VIFF 2024: A Different Man
Edward (Sebastian Stan) is a facially disfigured man who leads a life of self-consciousness and awkward social encounters. His new neighbour Ingrid (Renate Reinsve) is an aspiring playwright, and for a moment it looks like he might have a chance at romance with her; alas, she rejects him. Soon after,