What's On
The Hermit of Treig
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.
How Green Was My Valley
This month's VIFF+ Premium member selection was made by Mathew Englander, who chose the movie that beat Citizen Kane to Best Picture in 1941. Set in a Welsh mining village, it's a bittersweet reflection on a community sundered by industrialization.
The Lunchbox
In the first of our new monthly film series for 55+, a modern classic rom-com from India. Enjoy the movie and stay for refreshments and informal chat.
Are We Done Now?
Down River director Ben Immanuel returns with a wry, self-aware Covid comedy in which a socially distant Vancouver documentarian checks in with a stressed-out therapist (Gabrielle Miller) and several of her patients over the course of the pandemic.
Mambar Pierrette
The third and final film of the spring session of African Cinema Now is the first dramatic feature from Cameroonian non-fiction filmmaker Rosine Mbakam (Chez Jolie Coiffure), an imaginative portrait of a seamstress.
No Other Land
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.
Rose
Rose, 78 years old, has just lost her adored husband. When her grief gives way to a powerful impulse to live, making her realize that she can still redefine herself as a woman, the whole balance of the family is upset.
One to One: John and Yoko
Both a concert film (Madison Square Gardens, August 1972) and a time machine, dropping us into the dizzying political kaleidoscope of the early 1970s, Kevin Macdonald's latest documentary is a rewarding addition to Lennon Studies.
Minnie and Moskowitz
John Cassavetes' deliciously witty take on Hollywood romance is a modern screwball comedy, a mismatched love story between a car park attendant (Seymour Cassel) and a museum administator (Gena Rowlands) who believes herelf to be too good for him.
Freaks
Beautiful circus trapeze artiste Cleopatra likes to flirt with one of the sideshow attractions, Hans, a dwarf. When she learns that Hans is a wealthy man she decides to marry him. It's a choice she will live to regret... An unforgettable 1932 shocker.
Universal Language
In a wintery, Farsi-speaking city that’s equal measures Winnipeg and Tehran, storylines entangle and the concepts of space, time, and identity grow increasingly opaque. Inventive and absurd, Rankin's poetic fable reminds us that Winnipeg is a wonderland. Rated: G
Janis Ian: Breaking Silence
This comprehensive doc tracks the ups and downs of the 60s Jewish singer-songwriter who found fame at 15 with Society's Child and followed it with an even bigger hit, At Seventeen.