Skip to main content
Janis Ian: Breaking Silence film image; woman playing a piano in front of big crowd

Janis Ian: Breaking Silence

Book Now Book Now

In the mid-60s, Janis Ian, a tiny teenage Jewish singer-songwriter from New Jersey, scores a controversial hit single called “Society’s Child,” about an interracial love relationship. The song launches her illustrious career but also ignites death threats, plunging her into an emotional tailspin—only to emerge from the ashes in the 1970s with an even bigger hit, “At Seventeen,” a song ahead of its time in confronting lookism and bullying.

Janis overcomes a host of obstacles—embezzlement, record industry misogyny, and heartbreak—to find love and produce an indelible body of searingly honest songs that earn her a devoted following and critical acclaim.

Director

Varda Bar-Kar

Featuring

Janis Ian, Joan Baez, Lily Tomlin, Arlo Guthrie, Tom Paxton

Credits
Country of Origin

USA

Year

2024

Language

English

19+
114 min

Book Tickets

Monday May 05

4:45 pm
Hearing Assistance
VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre
Book Now

Wednesday May 07

6:20 pm
Hearing Assistance
VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre
Book Now

Credits

Screenwriter

Varda Bar-Kar, Pierre Hauser

Cinematography

Matthew Steven Wilder

Editor

Ryan Larkin

Original Music

Janis Ian, David Melchor

Also Playing

No Other Land

Dir. Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal, Yuval Abraham & Rachel Szor
96 min

Deemed by many critics one of the essential films of 2024, a multiple festival award winner and Academy Award winner for Best Documentary, No Other Land is a reminder that mass expulsion is by no means a new reality for Palestinians.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

That They May Face the Rising Sun

Dir. Pat Collins
111 min

John and Kate have moved from London to a farm in Ireland, to the bemusement of the locals. This lyrical Irish reverie taps deep wells of feeling in the stuff of everyday life.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

Shepherds

Dir. Sophie Deraspe
113 min

Mathyas quits his marketing job in Montreal and goes to France with the romantic notion of becoming a shepherd. He's in for a rude awakening... Based on a true story, Deraspe's stirring film plays spiritual uplift off against some 3000 sheep and a donkey.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

The Hermit of Treig

Dir. Lizzie MacKenzie
79 min

In this rather special film, Lizzie MacKenzie trains her camera on octogenarian Ken Smith, who has lived more than four decades off-the-grid on the shores of Loch Treig, in the Scottish Highlands. This cheerful hermit is a personable storyteller.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema