Skip to main content
Karaoke film image, director Moshe Rosenthal

Karaoke

This event has passed

Movie theatres usually discourage talking but our latest series is designed to encourage it — before and after (not during) the show. Aimed at film lovers 55+, Talking Pictures offers audience-friendly festival films, refreshments, and an open invitation to chat about our shared experience of the movie. Tickets are just $10. Bring a buddy and get two tickets for $16!

Talking Pictures happens the last Tuesday of the month, 11:00 am, at the most comfortable theatre in the city, the VIFF Centre.

Meir (Sasson Gabay) is slumping towards retirement and no longer has any fight in him. When the new guy in the penthouse suite double parks in front of Meir’s car, well, it just sums up the kind of day/week/life he’s having. But Itsik (Lior Ashkenazi) apologizes profusely and insists Meir and his wife Tova (Rita Shukrun) come up for a glass of wine. Turns out Itsik isn’t just rich and successful, he’s also charming and gregarious. Under the bright wattage of his attentive smile, Meir and Tova start to feel better about themselves and imagine a new chapter is possible.

Moshe Rosenthal’s comedy of vanities (the Audience Award winner at the Jerusalem Film Festival) has a deft, light touch, but hits harder than you might expect. That’s down to a sharp, keen script, and to the excellence of the performances—with special mention reserved for Gabay, who shows us a decent, downtrodden man willing to do almost anything (karaoke!) to recover his self-respect. That this is a grave error of judgment should go without saying.

Director

Moshe Rosenthal

Cast

Sasson Gabay, Lior Ashkenazi, Rita Shukrun, Arie Tcherner, Kobi Farag, Michal Levi

Credits
Country of Origin

Israel

Year

2022

Language

In Hebrew with English subtitles

Awards

Four Ophir (Israeli Academy) Awards including Best Actor, Best Actress; Audience Award, Jerusalem Film Festival

19+
103 min

Book Tickets

This event has passed.

Credits

Executive Producer

Yaron Bloch, Ben Giladi, Michal Vermus, Roni El-Roy, Dubi Rubinstein, Raz Yosef, Reuven Hecker

Producer

Efrat Cohen, Iris Ben-Moshe

Screenwriter

Moshe Rosenthal

Cinematography

Daniel Miller

Editor

Dafi Farbman

Production Design

Ido Dolev

Original Music

Gal Lev, Lior Perla

Also Playing

Super Happy Forever

Dir. Kohei Igarashi
94 min

This beguiling film depicts a man’s return to the Japanese seaside town where he met his now-deceased wife five years earlier. He tries to relive the past, and in the film's final section -- a flashback to 2018 -- the audience is afforded that privilege.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

Inedia

Dir. Liz Cairns
107 min

Liz Cairns makes a mesmerizing feature debut that sees a young woman suffering from mysterious food allergies join a remote island community practicing alternative healing methods. She soon realizes that not everything is as it seems.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre
Drop Dead City
Drop Dead City film image; someone holding a newspaper up in front of a brick wall

Drop Dead City

Dir. Michael Rohatyn & Peter Yost
108 min

New York, 1975. The city is minutes away from bankruptcy and President Gerald Ford wants no part of it. Sanitation workers are on strike and cops are telling tourists it's not safe to visit. The town is going up in flames and they can't pay the firemen.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

The Hustler

Dir. Robert Rossen
135 min

Prime Paul Newman as Fast Eddie Felson, a hungry pool shark who knows he's the sharpest guy in the room. Jackie Gleason and George C Scott have other ideas.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre