Movies
VIFF 2021: The Scary of Sixty-First
When college friends Noelle (Madeline Quinn) and Addie (Betsey Brown) secure an affordable apartment on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, it’s not only too good to be true but worse than they could’ve ever imagined. They’ve barely unpacked when an exceedingly strange investigator (director Dasha Nekrasova) darkens their doorstep and shares
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: 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: 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: The Beta Test
In the post-Weinstein era, the fragile Hollywood ecosystem of predatory talent agencies and investors is a house of cards teetering on collapse. Jordan Hines (Jim Cummings), an ambitious but struggling agent trying to preserve his way of life, receives an anonymous invitation to a no-strings sexual encounter. Obsessed with uncovering
VIFF 2021: Strawberry Mansion
In 2035, James (co-director Kentucker Audley) makes an honest dollar auditing the dreams of others and assessing them back taxes for the more extravagant elements of their nighttime fantasies. Setting up shop at the rural home of elderly, free-spirited Bella (Penny Fuller), he dives into the deep end of her
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: See for Me
Still coming to terms with her loss of sight, Sophie (Skyler Davenport) suddenly finds herself with more pressing concerns when the secluded mansion she’s housesitting is targeted by home invaders. When she frantically activates a new app that allows a volunteer to remotely serve as her eyes, she’s fortuitously connected
VIFF 2021: Saloum
Kicking off at a velocity that would leave most Mission: Impossible entries in its dust, Jean Luc Herbulot’s breathless genre gem vaults us into a darkly poetic, wholly cinematic realm. Having orchestrated a coup in Guinea-Bissau, extracted a foreign drug lord, and absconded with a gold bounty, the Bangui Hyenas—Chaka
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,