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Hollywood heavyweights populate list of movies that should make your VIFF screening list
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This year’s Vancouver International Film Festival is screening 140 feature films and 81 short films from 72 countries.
That deep roster means there is something for everyone playing on one of the 10 screens in Vancouver over the festival’s Sept. 26 to Oct. 6 run. You can see the full list of films at Viff.org or grab an official program at VIFF headquarters at the Vancity Theatre.
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To help guide your selection, we’ve rounded up a list of 10 must see films we would recommend slotting into your VIFF screening calendar:.
Anora
Director: Sean Baker
Cast: Mikey Madison, Mark Eydelshteyn, Karren Karagulian, Yura Borisov, Vache Tovmasyan
What it’s about: Sean Baker’s Palme d’Or-winning Anora is a tragic/comic kind of Cinderella story about a Brighton Beach, N.Y., stripper who, on a whim, marries the son of a mega-rich Russian oligarch. When the Russian parents find out about their son’s actions, they head to New York to try and force an annulment. Critics everywhere have praised the breakout performance of Madison as the titular character.
Show times: Sept. 27, 8:45 p.m., Oct. 1, 9:15 p.m., Vancouver Playhouse.
Emilia Pérez
Director: Jacques Audiard (France)
Cast: Zoe Saldana, Karla SofÃa Gascón, Selena Gomez, Adriana Paz, Edgar RamÃrez, Mark Ivanir
What it’s about: VIFF’s official closing night film was also a Cannes favourite and earned the Jury Prize, while Gascón, Gomez, Paz and Saldaña shared the Best Actress Award at the French festival. This musical story about rebirth sees a Mexico City defence attorney named Rita (Saldana) enlisted to work for a drug lord (Gascón), who is completing gender affirmation surgery. Now, as Emilia Pérez, the once notorious criminal wants to right her wrongs and asks Rita to help her reconnect with her wife, Jessi (Gomez), and her children. As you can imagine, erasing a very deep and dark past isn’t easy.
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Show time: Oct. 6, 5:30 p.m., Vancouver Playhouse.
Conclave
Director: Edward Berger (U.S./U.K.)
Cast: Ralph Fiennes, Stanley Tucci, John Lithgow, Carlos Diehz, Lucian Msamati, BrÃan F. O’Byrne
What it’s about: In his followup to the Oscar-winning film All Quiet on the Western Front, Berger delivers a morality centred story about the election of a new Pope. In the film, Cardinal Lawrence (Fiennes) is tasked with pulling the whole papal plan together. But, like any popularity contest, there are machinations and cutthroat conniving characters, in this case a very ambitious cardinal played by the always sumptuous Lithgow.
Show times: Sept. 29, 3 p.m., Oct. 4, 6 p.m., Vancouver Playhouse.
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The End
Director: Joshua Oppenheimer (Denmark/Germany/Ireland/Italy/U.K./Sweden)
Cast: Michael Shannon, Tilda Swinton, Moses Ingram, George MacKay, Tim McInnerny
What it’s about: In this musical film, Michael Shannon and Tilda Swinton are a rich couple riding out the apocalypse with their son (George MacKay) in a fancy bunker deep down in a salt mine. They’ve been there for two decades, and the son knows no other life, well, until a young Black woman (Moses Ingram) shows up and blows up the story the parents have been selling.
Show times: Oct. 4, 9 p.m., Oct. 6, 9 p.m., Vancouver Playhouse.
Bird
Director: Andrea Arnold (U.K./U.S./France/Germany)
Cast: Barry Keoghan, Franz Rogowski, Nykiya Adams
What it’s about: In this coming-of-age drama with a magical realism twist, a streetwise tween named Bailey (Adams) lives in a squat near the English seaside with her unpredictable brother (Buda) and their disconnected dad (Keoghan). While trying to navigate adolescence, Bailey makes friends with a stranger named Bird (Rogowski), who offers her the attention she craves.
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Show times: Sept 26, 9:30 p.m., Sept. 30, 9:15 p.m., Vancouver Playhouse.
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All We Imagine as Light
Director: Payal Kapadia (France/India/Netherlands/Luxembourg)
Cast: Kani Kusruti, Divya Prabha, Chhaya Kadam, Hridhu Haroon, Azees Nedumangad
What it’s about: This Mumbai-set drama focuses on the lives of two female nurses at different stages in their lives. One’s husband has been away for years working while the younger nurse is full of dreams and thoughts of true love. When a friend of the older woman decides to head back to the coastal village where she grew up, the two nurses decide to go visit her. It’s here the women start to welcome life’s possibilities.
Show times: Sept. 28, 9:30 p.m., Oct. 1, 3 p.m. Vancouver Playhouse.
Can I Get a Witness?
Director: Ann Marie Fleming (Canada)
Cast: Keira Jang, Joel Oulette, Sandra Oh
What it’s about: This Canadian science fiction film blends live action and animation to create a post-apocalyptic world where travel and technology are pretty much banned. In a kind of a Logan’s Run (look it up, kids) thing, people are exterminated when they reach age 50. The twist is that teenage artists document the final moments of life.
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Show times: Sept. 27, 5:30 p.m., Vancouver Playhouse. Oct. 2, 6 p.m., Fifth Avenue Aud 3.
Brief History of a Family
Director: Lin Jianjie (China/France/Denmark/Qatar)
Cast: Zu Feng, Guo Keyu, Sun Xilun, Lin Muran
What it’s about: Described as a dark and beautiful domestic thriller, this feature film debut for Jianjie focuses on two schoolmates, one studious, the other a slacker. The slacker introduces his friend to his family. They like him a lot, which leads to fraught family dynamics.
Show times: Sept. 26, 6:15 p.m., Fifth Avenue Aud 3, Oct. 4, 8:45 p.m., International Village 9.
Rumours
Directors: Guy Maddin, Evan Johnson, Galen Johnson (Canada/Germany)
Cast: Cate Blanchett, Roy Dupuis, Nikki Amuka-Bird, Charles Dance, Takehiro Hira, Denis Ménochet
What it’s about: As we are well into political seasons both here and in the U.S., it seems fitting to put a wicked political satire on a must-watch list. In this film, a group of world leaders meet for a G7 summit to draft a statement on a current but unspecified crisis. Things go sideways when the gathering is disrupted, and the leaders are left hiding in the woods. As for the casting, well it just seems funny: Blanchett as the randy German chancellor; Dance as a confused and unserious U.S. president; and Dupuis as the good-looking, scandal attracting Canadian prime minister.
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Show time: Oct. 1, 6. p.m., Vancouver Playhouse.
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Dahomey
Director: Mati Diop (France/Senegal/Benin)
Cast: Gildas Adannou, Habib Ahandessi, Joséa Guedje
What it’s about: In 1892, French colonial troops plundered thousands of cultural artifacts from the Kingdom of Dahomey. Flash forward to 2021, and 26 of those items are returned to the Republic of Benin. The return of those stolen artifacts prompts a debate about the nature of restitution. The winner of the Golden Bear Award at the Berlin International Film Festival, this documentary offers another entry point into the ever-growing discussion of a post-colonial world.
Show times: Sept. 29, 8:45 p.m., SFU Woodwards, Oct. 5, 3:45 p.m., Vancouver Playhouse.
Secret Mall Apartment
Director: Jeremy Workman (U.S.)
Cast: Michael Townsend, Colin Bliss, Adriana Valdez-Young, Andrew Oesch, Greta Scheing, Alexander Gebrail, David O’Hanlon
What it’s about: In 2003, Michael Townsend and several friends created a very cool guerrilla art project. They built and furnished a hidden, 750 square foot apartment inside the Providence Mall in Rhode Island. The group remained undetected for four years. While just the act of pulling this off is a fun enough story, it’s also profound as you think about what makes a home, the effects of gentrification and the role of social art in our world.
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Show times: Sept. 26, 4 p.m., International Village 9, Sept. 29, 6:30 p.m., Fifth Avenue Aud 3, Oct. 3, 6:45 p.m., The Rio Theatre.
Dgee@postmedia.com
x.com/dana_gee
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