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

Emilia Pérez

This event has passed

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

This event has passed.

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

The Seed of the Sacred Fig

Dir. Mohammad Rasoulof
167 min

A tense mystery and an act of radical protest, this film tells the story of an Iranian lawyer who’s lost his handgun and knows someone in his family took it. With every moment, his wife and daughters grow more afraid of him–yet none of them will confess…

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

Every Little Thing

Dir. Sally Aitken
93 min

If you thought Flow was an emotional rollercoaster, wait til you meet Cactus and Wasabi, baby hummingbirds fighting for their lives under the loving care of hummingbird-whisperer Terry Masear, an Angelino who makes it her mission to nurse injured birds.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

Soundtrack to a Coup D’Etat

Dir. Johan Grimonprez
150 min

In January 1961, seven months after Congolese independence, Patrice Lumumba is assassinated. In excavating the history of this political murder, this essay-film traces the complex and unlikely intersections of American jazz and Cold War geopolitics.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

Bribe, Inc.

Dir. Peter W Klein
93 min

Exposing one of the most audacious and lucrative bribery schemes in modern history, Bribe, Inc is a disturbing chronicle of corruption, bureaucratic bungling and impunity. Q&A with filmmakers.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre