Skip to main content
Emilia Pérez film image; woman posed for audience

Undefeated in the courtroom, Rita (Zoe Saldana), a Mexico City defence attorney, is enlisted to tend to the affairs of a notorious drug lord (Karla Sofía Gascón) who has grown contrite and is now completing gender affirmation surgery. Rechristened Emilia Pérez and determined to right a litany of past misdeeds, she relies on Rita to reintegrate her in the lives of her wife Jessi (Selena Gomez) and young children. However, in Emilia’s past, there is more than one score to settle; there will be blood, ballads, and dance numbers.

Several decades into his distinguished career, Jacques Audiard (A Prophet; Rust and Bone) has delivered the most outré entry in his oeuvre with this maximalist musical that’s punctuated by gunplay and buoyed by unabashed melodrama. Gascón is absolutely mesmerising to behold as a woman striving for actualization and redemption. And everyone in the ensemble is singing from the same hymn sheet, staging a cinematic spectacle that needs to be seen and heard to be believed.

Captioned Screening: Screening with Open Captions
The Wednesday, Jan 22 screening is a Captioned Screening. Our Wednesday matinee Captioned Screenings welcome Deaf and hard of hearing audiences, along with anyone who benefits from captions. Films will screen with subtitles or (when available) open captions. This film will screen with open captions.

Imagine a world in which Stephen Sondheim made Sicario.

David Fear, Rolling Stone

Director

Jacques Audiard

Cast

Zoe Saldana, Karla Sofía Gascón, Selena Gomez, Adriana Paz, Edgar Ramírez, Mark Ivanir

Credits
Country of Origin

France

Year

2024

Language

In Spanish with English subtitles

Awards

Jury Prize and Best Actress Award: Official Competition, Cannes 2024

10 Golden Globe Nominations

12 Academy Awards Nominations, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actress & Best Adapted Screenplay

19+
132 min
Why Not Productions, PAGE 114, Saint Laurent Productions, Pathé, France 2 Cinéma

Book Tickets

Thursday February 27

8:10 pm
Hearing Assistance Subtitles
VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema
Book Now

Credits

Executive Producer

Pauline Lamy

Producer

Pascal Caucheteux, Jacques Audiard, Valérie Schermann, Anthony Vaccarello, Ardavan Safaee, Jean-Pierre Dardenne, Luc Dardenne

Screenwriter

Jacques Audiard, Thomas Bidegain, Nicolas Livecchi, Léa Mysius

Cinematography

Paul Guilhaume

Editor

Juliette Welfling

Production Design

Emmanuelle Duplay

Original Music

Clément Ducol, Camille

Also Playing

Parthenope

Dir. Paolo Sorrentino
137 min

Great beautician Paolo Sorrentino (The Young Pope) returns to the city of his birth with this languorous, love-struck chronicle of the life of a modern day siren, Parthenope (newcomer Celeste Della Porta). Stylish, philosophical, deeply Italiano.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

Oscar® Shorts 2025: Documentary

164 min

Four of this year's short documentary nominees are from the USA, and three of them deal with violence: a prisoner on death row, Parkland, and a police shooting incident in Chicago, 2018. Happily the other nominees focus on classical music.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

Oscar® Shorts 2025: Live Action

104 min

This year's live action shorts include films from India, South Africa, the USA, the Netherlands, and Croatia about rhinos, robots, and testing times.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

Sugarcane

Dir. Julian Brave Noisecat & Emily Kassie
107 min

"Deeply impactful", Sugarcane is an important contribution to the ongoing process of Truth & Reconciliation in this country, a compassionate, sensitive account of the investigation into residential school abuse at Williams Lake, BC.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre