Skip to main content
The Cormorant film image, director Lubna Playoust

The Cormorant

Le Cormoran

Canadian Premiere

A mother and son live in a secluded house on an isolated island, where memory merges with the present, intertwining two moments of their lives—youth and maturity. This is a quiet film about the evolution of a relationship, and how, even in a parent-child situation, that intimate bond can become fleeting. Terrific cinematography captures the rugged seascapes and helps create a melancholic tone emanating from the loss she feels. This is a deep examination of the ties of relationship, escape, and need, and the complex layers that get created over time. It is a lovely, reflective work about human bonds, at times so strong, at others so fragile.

 

Community Partner

Director
Cast

Mireille Perrier, Robinson Stévenin, Lubna Playoust, Anatole Karmitz

Credits
Country of Origin

France

Year

2021

Language

In French with English subtitles

Film Contact
Links
23 min

Featured in:

Island of Freedom film image, director Petr Januschka

International Shorts: Connect/Disconnect/Reconnect

The films in this shorts program are all about connections. People connecting with one another, dealing with change, or rediscovering a part of themselves and their past.

 

MORE INFO

Missing VIFF? Check out what’s playing at the VIFF Centre

The Great Salish Heist

Created by Orca Cove Media and shot in Cowichan Valley, The Great Salish Heist is a scrappy indie Ocean's 11 with bags of charm and some authentic things to say about cultural colonialism.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

A Difficult Year

The latest from the jackpot writing-directing team Olivier Nakache and Éric Toledano (Les Intouchables; The Specials) is a buddy comedy which finds a wryly original perspective on the serious theme of climate change denialism.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

Humane

Caitlin Cronenberg's debut feature is a dystopian black comedy about a family gathering from which no one will emerge with much credit -- that is, if they emerge at all...

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

Ru

At ten, Tinh and her family are forced to flee Vietnam and eventually find refuge in wintery but welcoming Quebec. A lyrical, warm adaptation of the award-winning novel by Kim Thúy.

VIFF Centre - Vancity Theatre VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

Perfect Days

Widely acclaimed as Wim Wenders' best (fiction) film since his glory days in the 1980s, Perfect Days is a humanist character study, steeped in the director's admiration for the cinema of Yasujiro Ozu.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre VIFF Centre - Vancity Theatre

The Taste of Things

Set in France in 1885, and photographed like an Impressionist painting, this sublime foodie film surveys the intuitive, intimate partnership between famed gourmand Dodin (Benoit Magimel) and his beloved cook Eugénie (Juliette Binoche).

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

Credits

Producer

Nathanaël Karmitz, Juliette Schrameck, Jeanne Ezvan, Marthe Lamy

Screenwriter

Lubna Playoust

Cinematography

Marine Atlan

Editor

Gabriel Gonzalez, Nicolás Longinotti

Art Director

Louise Le Bouc Berger, Laura Bücher

Director

Lubna Playoust headshot, The Cormorant director

Lubna Playoust

Born in Italy and raised in Paris, Lubna Playoust is a French director and actress. Her first professional experiences in art, fashion, and marketing fed her fierce passion for every aspect of filmmaking. She trained in filmmaking with Abbas Kiarostami in Cuba, and Lucrecia Martel in Barcelona. Her short film Waltz For Three (2014) stars French New Wave actors Jean-Pierre Marielle and Agathe Natanson. She is currently developing her first feature film.