What's On
God Will Not Help
At the turn of the 20th century, a Chilean woman shows up in a remote Croatian community of shepherds, claiming to be the widow of the family’s eldest son. Deeply buried tensions start to surface among the distrustful clan.
Image: © Kinorama
News From Home
One part city symphony, one part introspective meditation, one part epistolary text, News from Home is a structuralist masterwork by Belgium’s genius of contemplation, Chantal Akerman.
Shifting Baselines
Towering rockets rise as wetlands vanish in this sly black-and-white documentary about SpaceX’s conquest of Boca Chica, Texas. With sci-fi aesthetics and observational calm, the film exposes how cosmic dreams begin with the quiet erasure of Earth.
Steal Away
Get Out meets Rosemary’s Baby in this surreal psychological thriller from award-winning director Clement Virgo (Brother, VIFF 2022), as a sheltered teenager (Angourie Rice) obsesses over the mysterious refugee her mother has taken in (Mallori Johnson).
Clan of the Painted Lady
Jennifer Chiu’s engrossing documentary explores the Hakka — a people, a language, and a culture that have been obscured for far too long. Tracing her own lineage back to from Canada to China, the director creates an illuminating, bravely personal film.
The Strange Little Cat
This droll, perfectly executed comedy chronicles a day in the life of a multigenerational family prepping a celebratory dinner in their cramped Berlin apartment. Putting daily life’s absurdities on display, it's an exciting choreography of the quotidian.
3670
Park Joon Ho's fascinating, deeply poignant film tells the story of a gay North Korean defector adjusting to life in Seoul. The writer-director walks a fine line: his film is humane enough to avoid cynicism and honest enough to reject false uplift.
Divine Intervention
Palestinian visionary Elia Suleiman is at the height of his powers with this series of deadpan, interconnected, absurdist vignettes about two Palestinian lovers on either side of an Israeli military checkpoint.
Nika & Madison
Two young Indigenous women become fugitives following an act of self-defence and are forced to flee into the wilderness. Inspired by Thelma and Louise, this compelling story of unbreakable friendship sheds light on systemic injustices.