Determined to escape perpetually post-apocalyptic Los Angeles, Levi (Justin Benson) instead falls in with John (Aaron Moorhead), a kindred conspiracy theorist. After witnessing an inexplicable event in Levi’s apartment, the neighbours become intent on monetizing the paranormal activity by shooting a Netflix-style docuseries. Convincing themselves that they’re piecing together a grand puzzle consisting of (but hardly limited to) numerology, symbology, energy fields, and mass simulations, they plunge through the looking glass and tumble down a succession of rabbit holes.
Serving as directors, producers, editors, stars, writer (Benson) and cinematographer (Moorhead), this dynamic duo, last seen at VIFF with 2017’s The Endless, remain the standard bearers for DIY speculative cinema. Their on-screen chemistry and adroitness with cinematic sleights of hand anchor their latest film even as Levi and John spiral further into delusion. Ultimately, it’s Benson and Moorhead’s infectious enthusiasm for mining mystery and endless possibility from the mundane that makes this lo-fi sci-fi spectacle so captivating.
Media Partner
Justin Benson & Aaron Moorhead
Justin Benson, Aaron Moorhead
USA
2022
English
Book Tickets
Missing VIFF? Check out what's playing at the VIFF Centre
The Lives of Others
This month's Talking Pictures film is a masterly Cold War thriller set in East Berlin. An agent of the secret police, conducting surveillance on a writer and his lover, finds himself becoming increasingly absorbed by their lives...
Two Strangers Trying Not to Kill Each Other
This intimate and candid film by a younger husband and wife artist team is a delicate and immensely moving dual portrait of two artists, husband and wife, together and apart, at that point in life when the end casts a shadow over even the sunniest day.
Image: © Manon et Jacob and Final Cut For Real
Blue Road - The Edna O'Brien Story
Judging by this candid, funny, passionate biographical documentary, it would have been a wild ride to have been Irish novelist Edna O'Brien, or even to have been in her circle of friends and lovers. Well, for an hour and a half we can pretend we were.
Erupcja
Charli xcx headlines this indie gem about a young English couple coming unmoored over a few days in Warsaw. Will means to propose. Beth has cold feet -- and an escape hatch she has barely admitted to herself... Think Before Sunrise 2025.
Lingua Franca
Lingua Franca is a tender portrait of intimacy shaped by migration, vulnerability, and the quiet negotiations of belonging. Centered on an undocumented Filipina trans woman living in New York, the film moves with delicate restraint.
Credits
Producer
David Lawson, Aaron Moorhead, Justin Benson
Screenwriter
Justin Benson
Editor
Michael Felker, Justin Benson, Aaron Moorhead
Production Design
Ariel Vida
Original Music
Jimmy LaValle
Art Director
Catherine Simon