Galas & Special Presentations

WILL SHARPE, UK, 2021, 111 MIN.

“He made the cat his own. He invented a cat style, a cat society, a whole cat world. British cats that do not look and live like Louis Wain cats are ashamed of themselves.”–H.G. WELLS ON LOUIS WAIN

Running the gamut from slapstick comedy to tragedy, and aging across ve decades, Benedict Cumberbatch gives a bravura performance as Louis Wain, an unconventional and deeply idiosyncratic Englishman—a self-styled polymath (at best, a haphazard inventor, fanciful scientist, and unsung composer) who nevertheless struck a deep cultural chord with his knack for imparting human characteristics to cats in hundreds of drawings that simultaneously satirized his own species and attered the feline. Will Sharpe’s engagingly eccentric rst feature begins by painting Louis as an amiably batty but instinctively brilliant outsider artist, out of step with the expectations of Victorian London but chancing on true love in the form of an appropriately unsuitable governess, Emily (Claire Foy), employed to tutor myriad Wain sisters. Although Louis goes on to win fame with his humorous illustrations, the lm’s tone darkens. After a tragedy, Louis’ family obligations weigh heavy and his mental health takes a tumble. Yet when it comes to cats, still he nds an irresistible connection.

Cast Benedict Cumberbatch, Claire Foy, Andrea Riseborough, Toby Jones, Sharon Rooney, Aimee Lou Wood, Hayley Squires, Stacy Martin Exec Ron Halpern, Didier Lupfer, Dan MacRae, Julia Oh, Ollie Madden, Daniel Battsek, Benedict Cumberbatch, Simon Stephenson Prod Guy Heeley, Ed Clarke, Adam Ackland, Leah Clarke Scr Will Sharpe, Simon Stephenson Cam Erik Alexander Wilson Ed Selina MacArthur Prod Des Suzie Davies Mus Arthur Sharpe Dist/Print MK2 Mile-End

CÉLINE SCIAMMA, FRANCE, 2021, 72 MIN.

Petite Maman is a precious, poignant, and perfect lm exploring the mysterious bond between mother and daughter. Céline Sciamma (Portrait of a Lady on Fire, Girlhood) has dreamed up something strikingly original: a simple, subtle, uid fairy tale or ghost story, a poetic conceit realized with the utmost tact and delicacy. Nelly’s grandmother has just died. Eight years old, she is largely left to her own devices, exploring the forest behind the house as her parents set about packing it up. There she meets another eight year-old named Marion (like her mom), building a treehouse. The two become fast friends, and Marion invites Nelly back to her home—which turns out to be identical to her grandmother’s house. The two girls have a deep a nity, not least in their serious turn of mind. With a maturity beyond their years, Nelly and Marion recognize their meeting will be both eeting and irrevocable, like a movie you see just once but that will stay with you always.

Cast Joséphine Sanz, Gabrielle Sanz, Nina Meurisse, Stéphane Varupenne, Margot Abascal Prod Bénédicte Couvreur Scr Céline Sciamma Cam Claire Mathon Ed Julien Lacheray Prod Des Lionel Brison Mus JeanBaptiste de Laubier Prod Co Lilies Films Dist/Print Elevation Pictures

MICHAEL MCGOWAN, CANADA, 2021, 103 MIN.

Despite a failed marriage and oundering career, Yoli (Alison Pill) is more concerned about her sister Elf (Sarah Gadon), a renowned pianist who’s ready to end her enviable life. Boasting standout performances from its two stars, Michael McGowan’s refreshingly candid, deeply affecting adaptation of Miriam Toews’ beloved novel ultimately proves life-a rming in the most unexpected and rewarding of ways.

Cast Alison Pill, Sarah Gadon, Amybeth McNulty, Mare Winningham, Donal Logue Prod Michael McGowan, Patrice Théroux, Tyler Levine

KENNETH BRANAGH, UK, 2021, 97 MIN.

Kenneth Branagh gets personal in this bittersweet black and white autobiographical drama, set in his hometown in Northern Ireland in 1969, at the advent of the Troubles. Buddy (Jude Hill) is nine when spiraling Catholic unrest upsets his previously cozy childhood and sends shockwaves through his tight-knit family: Ma and Pa (Caitríona Balfe and Jamie Dornan) and beloved grandparents (Judi Dench and Ciarán Hinds). For Buddy, it’s a rude awakening, but even hard times bring humour and vivid dreams of escape.

Cast Caitríona Balfe, Judi Dench, Jamie Dornan, Ciarán Hinds, Jude Hill Prod Laura Berwick, Kenneth Branagh, Becca Kovacik, Tamar Thomas

TERENCE DAVIES, UK, 2021, 137 MIN.

Achingly intimate, visually sumptuous, and richly detailed, the latest from Terence Davies is a portrait of WWI poet Siegfried Sassoon. The subversive writer is played in old age by Peter Capaldi and in younger years by Jack Lowden; both give superb performances, and they’re matched by the rest of the ensemble cast. The real star, however, is Davies himself: with his musical treatment of images and his sublime articulation of emotion, he delivers a tour de force of lmmaking.

MIA HANSEN-LØVE, FRANCE/BELGIUM/GERMANY/SWEDEN, 2021, 102 MIN.

The custodians of Ingmar Bergman’s legacy site on Fårö Island have transformed a rural village into a theme park over owing with potential meaning. Chris (Vicky Krieps) and Tony (Tim Roth) are visiting lmmakers; it’s his residency and her questions that keep them circling around Bergman’s old set locations and the insular culture they promote. For director Mia Hansen-Løve, the island is a suggestive text that she can frame and re-frame, rst as wry comedy, then as reckless meta-tragedy.

RYUSUKE HAMAGUCHI, JAPAN, 2021, 179 MIN.

Kafuku is a theatre director, actor, and storyteller... yet even he withdraws when it comes to confronting his deepest sorrow. Mourning his wife, and the secrets that died with her, he accepts an invitation to mount a new production of Uncle Vanya, and surprises everyone by casting a troubled young movie star, Takatsuki, his late wife’s lover, in the title role. Elaborating on a short story by Haruki Murakami, Asako I & II director Hamaguchi has crafted a piercing, sublime philosophical drama.

Cast Hidetoshi Nishijima, Toko Miura, Masaki Okada, Reika Kirishima, Park Yurim, Jin Daeyeon, Sonia Yuan, Ahn Hwitae, Perry Dizon, Satoko Abe Prod Teruhisa Yamamoto

FRANÇOIS OZON, FRANCE, 2021, 113 MIN.

Partially paralyzed, 85 year-old André (André Dussollier) makes a desperate request of his daughter Emmanuèle (Sophie Marceau): help him end his life. She struggles with her father’s decision, navigating legal concerns and family drama as she hopes that he will regain interest in life. François Ozon’s intimate lm subtly captures the intricate dynamics of family bonds.

Cast Sophie Marceau, André Dussollier, Géraldine Pailhas, Charlotte Rampling, Eric Caravaca, Hanna Schygulla, Gregory Gadebois Prod Éric Altmayer, Nicolas Altmayer

APICHATPONG WEERASETHAKUL, THAILAND/COLOMBIA/UK/MEXICO/FRANCE/GERMANY, 2021, 136 MIN.

The latest from Apichatpong Weerasethakul is set in beautiful Colombia and stars Tilda Swinton as Jessica, an expat orchid grower with a strange malady: she recurrently experiences a booming sound that no other character can hear. Memoria is a lm of questions more than answers—a poetic, mysterious, and stunningly beautiful work from one of the great directors of our time. “[A]stonishing… it left a residue of happiness in my heart.”–PETER BRADSHAW, THE GUARDIAN

EVA HUSSON, UK, 2021, 104 MIN.

1924: a maid, Jane (Odessa Young) spends Mother’s Day in a stolen tryst with her lover, Paul (Josh O’Connor) two weeks before he’s due to be married to Emma, a young woman of his own class. It will be a fateful day, a day she will come to memorialize decades later in a prize-winning book. Graham Swift’s cleverly layered 2016 novel is sensitively translated to the screen in this handsomely produced period piece in the quality tradition of Downton Abbey and Atonement.

DANIS GOULET, CANADA/NEW ZEALAND, 2021, 97 MIN.

In her provocative, pulse-quickening thriller, Danis Goulet devises a speculative future spawned from Canada’s colonial legacy. In a war-ravaged 2043, Indigenous people live with the knowledge that their children are practically destined to become property of their military occupiers. When Niska’s (Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers) daughter is taken, she joins a group of Cree vigilantes intent on springing their children from a forti ed compound. But sometimes survival hinges on more than just a killer instinct.

Cast Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers, Brooklyn Letexier-Hart, Alex Tarrant, Amanda Plummer, Violet Nelson Prod Tara Woodbury, Paul Barkin, Ainsley Gardiner, Georgina Allison Conder, Chelsea Winstanley, Eva Thomas

Competencia O cial MARIANO COHN, GASTÓN DUPRAT, SPAIN/ARGENTINA, 2021, 114 MIN.

In this riotous Spanish satire on moviemaking, actors, and egos, Antonio Banderas plays an international lm star cast opposite a revered, and deeply self-serious stage thespian (Oscar Martínez) by arty, unorthodox director Lola Cuevas (Penélope Cruz). Cuevas gures the two men’s antithetical approach to acting will bring an edge to their performances. But she is going to need all her acumen to keep their rivalry from upending her movie. From the Argentine team behind 2016’s The Distinguished Citizen.

Cast Penélope Cruz, Antonio Banderas, Oscar Martínez, José Luis Gómez Prod Jaume Roures

ZHANG YIMOU, CHINA, 2020, 105 MIN.

Set during the upheaval of China’s Cultural Revolution, this is the serio-comic saga of a man who escapes a labour camp for a glimpse of his daughter on-screen. But to do so, he must vie with a young vagabond who has made o with one of the reels. During their ongoing tussle, the two form a bond of sorts, and ultimately collaborate to ensure the show goes on. A love letter to celluloid and the collective experience of moviegoing, the latest from master lmmaker Zhang Yimou will delight cinephiles.

JANE CAMPION, AUSTRALIA/NEW ZEALAND, 2021, 127 MIN.

In her strongest movie since The Piano, Jane Campion turns the machismo of the Western lm on its head. On the Burbanks’ Montana cattle ranch, the boorish Phil (Benedict Cumberbatch) rules the roost over his mild-mannered brother George (Jesse Plemons). When George nds himself a wife and heir in the form of Rose (Kirsten Dunst) and her e ete son (Kodi SmitMcPhee), Phil is determined to make their life hell. But then he takes a shine to the boy. A stark, brooding tale destined to be a modern classic.

Cast Benedict Cumberbatch, Jesse Plemons, Kirsten Dunst, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Thomasin McKenzie, Genevieve Lemon, Keith Carradine, Frances Conroy Prod Jane Campion, Tanya Seghatchian, Emile Sherman, Iain Canning, Roger Frappier

SEAN BAKER, USA, 2021, 128 MIN.

Canadian Premiere. Arriving in his Texas hometown barely dressed, badly bruised, and all but penniless, washed-up porn star Mikey Saber (Simon Rex) talks his way into his estranged wife’s bed, starts peddling weed, and schemes to turn Svengali to teenaged Strawberry (Suzanna Son) so that he can liberate her from a donut shop and rocket her to stardom. As we ride shotgun on Mikey’s breathless, amoral odyssey, Sean Baker (The Florida Project) crafts another luminous, seriocomic fable concerning America’s underclass.

Cast Simon Rex, Bree Elrod, Suzanna Son Prod Sean Baker, Alex Coco, Samantha Quan, Alex Saks, ShihChing Tsou

RENAN OZTURK, FREDDIE WILKINSON, USA, 2021, 102 MIN.

World Premiere. In their quest to traverse Mooses Tooth in Denali National Park, climbers Freddie Wilkinson and Renan Ozturk come across the story of pioneering photographer and cartographer Bradford Washburn—a friend of Ansel Adams—who mapped the mountains from single-prop planes, and in doing so opened up Alaska and the Yukon for future generations of climbers. Washburn’s photography is revelatory, and brings a deeper spiritual dimension to what is already a breathtaking mountain movie.

Feat Renan Ozturk, Freddie Wilkinson, Zach Smith, Brad Washburn, Barbara Washburn, David Roberts Prod Kate Holland, Ryan Kampe, Taylor Rees

For more than a quarter of a century, Kore-eda Hirokazu has been a mainstay at VIFF: Maborosi, his feature debut, scored the festival’s prestigious Dragons & Tigers Award in 1995, the director visited in 1998 to screen After Life, and both Like Father, Like Son (2013) and Shoplifters (2018) won our festival’s audience award. On the occasion of our 40th edition, we invited Kore-eda to nominate an emerging director to join him in conversation. He elected Bora Kim, whose decorated rst feature, House of Hummingbird, scored more than 50 awards following its premiere at the 2018 Busan International Film Festival. Over the course of their lively conversation, these lmmakers discuss inspiration, creating on-set chemistry, the importance of storyboarding, and how to distinguish between craft and art.

This VIFF Leading Lights tribute talk is available for free on our VIFF Connect streaming platform from October 1-11.

Like Father, Like Son and House of Hummingbird are available for rental on VIFF Connect until October 11.

JOACHIM TRIER, NORWAY/FRANCE/SWEDEN/DENMARK, 2021, 127 MIN.

Moving with breathtaking velocity and featuring a fearless turn by Renate Reinsve, Joachim Trier’s (Oslo, August 31st) latest is a riotous and re ective coming-of-age epic about Julie, a capricious force of nature leaving a trail of destruction in her wake. Exquisitely scripted and exhilaratingly paced, the lm sends its vibrantly realized characters careening between awkward comic encounters, euphoric revelry, fantastical interludes, astute critiques of contemporary culture, and disarming realizations.