Here is a list of BC Films and Hollywood Heavy Weights for the 2024 Film Festival. The annual Vancouver International Film Festival showcases exceptional cinema in one of the world’s most beautiful cities.
Their spectacular roster includes some of the best cinema from around the globe, one-of-a-kind live performances, talks, industry sessions, and other unique events celebrating film and film culture.
Browse the program below and be sure to subscribe to VIFF NEWS to get festival news and program updates.
BC FILMS
Inedia, Dir. Liz Cairns (Canada) | Northern Lights
- Liz Cairns (The Horses, VIFF 2021) returns with a mesmerizing feature debut that sees a young woman (Amy Forsyth) suffering from mysterious food allergies join a remote island community practicing alternative healing methods. Inedia is a profound study of psychological disturbance that deftly taps into the complex inner workings of fringe communities preying on the fragile. Cairns lends the film a touch of ethereal mystique that perfectly articulates the hermetic nature of the character’s distress.
- https://viff.org/whats-on/viff24-inedia/
Mongrels, Dir. Jerome Yoo (Canada) | Northern Lights
- Korean widower, Sonny has been hired to eradicate the feral dogs plaguing a small town in rural Canada. Like his teenage son and young daughter, he’s still coming to terms with his grief. Jerome Yoo’s gorgeous, brilliantly structured first feature is a lyrical and gut-wrenching tale of immigrant survival and resilience in Canada. Dreamlike, surreal, and filled with raw emotion, Mongrels is a remarkable study of family, loss, and hope in the midst of profound uprooting.
- https://viff.org/whats-on/viff24-mongrels/
The Stand, Dir. Christopher Auchter (Canada) | Northern Lights
- Chris Auchter’s terrific doc explores a 1985 dispute over clearcut logging in the Haida Gwaii. On one side are loggers, their bosses, and the BC government; on the other is the Haida Nation, which wishes to protect its traditional lands from further destruction. Taking us from canny retrospective commentary to the thick of the action, Auchter’s film employs animation and a wealth of archival footage to riveting effect.
- https://viff.org/whats-on/viff24-the-stand/
Can I Get a Witness?, Dir. Ann Marie Fleming (Canada) | Special Presentations
- Ann Marie Fleming’s absorbing morality play is set in the future, when we’ve solved the environmental crisis–at a significant cost. As Kiah (Keira Jang) suffers through the first day of her new job, her mother Ellie (Sandra Oh) is preparing for a new journey of her own. Key story information emerges gradually, and as the film builds to its powerful conclusion, the style is deceptively casual. Jang and Oh are terrific, and Joel Oulette shines in his role as Ellie’s charismatic co-worker.
- https://viff.org/whats-on/viff24-can-i-get-a-witness/
HOLLYWOOD HEAVY WEIGHTS
Emilia Pérez Dir, Jacques Audiard (France) Special Presentation / Closing Film
Cast: Zoe Saldana, Karla Sofía Gascón, Selena Gomez, Adriana Paz, Edgar Ramírez, Mark Ivanir
- A Mexico City defence attorney (Zoe Saldana) is enlisted to tend to the affairs of a notorious drug lord (Karla Sofía Gascón) who is now completing gender affirmation surgery. Rechristened Emilia Pérez and determined to right her misdeeds, she relies on Rita to reintegrate her in the lives of her wife Jessi (Selena Gomez) and children. However, in Emilia’s past, there is more than one score to settle; there will be blood, ballads, and dance numbers. A maximalist musical from Jacques Audiard (A Prophet).
- https://viff.org/whats-on/viff24-emilia-perez/
Conclave Dir, Edward Berger (USA/UK)
Cast: Ralph Fiennes, Stanley Tucci, John Lithgow, Carlos Diehz, Lucian Msamati, Brían F. O’Byrne
- When the Pope dies, Cardinal Lawrence (Ralph Fiennes) is handed the responsibility of marshalling the Church’s most influential figures and orchestrating the election of a successor. Sequestered in the Vatican, several cardinals–-including John Lithgow’s Tremblay-–turn cutthroat in their bid to lay claim to the papal throne. In his follow up to the Oscar-winning All Quiet on the Western Front, Edward Berger delivers another deeply satisfying, immaculately crafted, psychologically complex morality tale.
- https://viff.org/whats-on/viff24-conclave/
The End Dir, Joshua Oppenheimer (Denmark/Germany/Ireland/Italy/UK/Sweden)
Cast: Michael Shannon, Tilda Swinton, Moses Ingram, George MacKay, Tim McInnerny
- Michael Shannon and Tilda Swinton united at last–and sitting out the apocalypse in a lavishly furnished bunker deep in a salt mine. Their son (George MacKay, from 1917 and The Beast) has known no world beyond these walls. But when a young Black woman (Moses Ingram) turns up out of the blue, the family’s carefully manicured secrets and lies crack open… The first dramatic feature from Act of Killing director Joshua Oppenheimer is many things, but most surprisingly, a musical. The cult starts here.
- https://viff.org/whats-on/viff24-the-end/
The Piano Lesson Dir, Malcolm Washington (USA) — (Denzel Washington’s son, and his other son acts in it)
Cast: Samuel L. Jackson, John David Washington, Ray Fisher, Michael Potts, Erykah Badu, Skylar Aleece Smith
- Pittsburgh, 1936. Boy Willie (John David Washington) shows up at the home of his widowed sister, Berniece (Danielle Deadwyler). He brings with him news of a death, a truckload of watermelons, and a plan to capitalize on the ornately carved piano that sits neglected in the parlour. Berniece, however, is having none of it. The third film in Denzel Washington’s project to bring the plays of August Wilson to the screen, The Piano Lesson is a riveting drama marbled with resonant ideas about the legacy of trauma.
- https://viff.org/whats-on/viff24-the-piano-lesson/
Get your tickets here: https://viff.org/ticket-info/
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