Skip to main content
Animalia film image

Animalia

This event has passed

With her affluent husband and his oppressive family away on a day trip, Itto (Oumaïma Barid) intends to savour some solitude in their opulent home. But when an ominous meteorological event blows in, all of Morocco is plunged into a state of emergency. Forced to evacuate and thrust from her sheltered privilege, the heavily pregnant Itto witnesses increasingly strange phenomenon. Through her efforts to reunite with her husband on the other side of the Atlas Mountains, this sheltered woman is instead reacquainted with the exhilaration of freedom.

Sofia Alaoui refashions tropes from sci-fi flicks and road movies into a debut that defies ready classification. Meticulously crafted and deeply meditative, the film reflects on faith and class (Itto hails from a lower social rung), while delivering shimmering supernatural spectacle. In charting this alienated woman’s odyssey through an increasingly otherworldly and apocalyptic milieu, it marks the arrival of a unique new voice in international cinema.

 

Special Jury Award, Sundance 2023

 

Series Media Partner

  

Director
Cast

Oumaïma Barid, Mehdi Dehbi, Fouad Oughaou

Credits
Country of Origin

Morocco/France/Qatar

Year

2022

Series

Altered States

Language

In French, Arabic and Berber with English subtitles

Film Contact
18+

At International Village

19+

At The Rio

90 min
Action Drama Horror & Thriller Women Directors

Book Tickets

This event has passed.

Credits

Producer

Margaux Lorier, Toufik Ayadi, Christophe Barral

Screenwriter

Sofia Alaoui

Cinematography

Noé Bach

Production Design

Hafid Amly

Original Music

Amine Bouhafa

Director

Sofia Alaoui headshot

Sofia Alaoui

Sofia Alaoui is a French-Moroccan filmmaker, raised between Morocco and China. Featured as one of Screen Daily’s Arab Stars of Tomorrow, she has credits including the short films So What If the Goats Die (Sundance Film Festival Grand Jury Prize 2020, César Awards Best Short Film 2021), followed by The Lake for 20th Century Fox, broadcast on Hulu. Animalia is her feature debut.

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

Palestine '36

Dir. Annemarie Jacir
118 min

An epic historical drama from director Annemarie Jacir that follows an ensemble of rural villagers who face off against British colonial forces during the 1936 Palestinian revolt.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

The Art of Adventure

Dir. Alison Reid
90 min

The unbelievable adventure story of how painter Robert Bateman and ecologist Bristol Foster drove a Land Rover from Africa to Australia in 1957, developing a love of nature to last a lifetime. An inspirational love letter to the adventure of life itself.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

Chasing Ice

Dir. Jeff Orlowski-Yang
75 min

This visually stunning film follows renowned National Geographic photographer James Balog on a harsh Arctic expedition where he captures a multi-year record of the world's changing glaciers — undeniable evidence that our planet is in crisis. The screening will be introduced by James Balog.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

Dead Lover

Dir. Grace Glowicki
83 min

A foul-smelling gravedigger's romance ends in tragedy, spurring her to attempt a resurrection through a madcap series of science experiments. Grace Glowicki and Ben Petrie’s film is a zany DIY horror that zaps fresh life into Mary Shelley's classic.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

Calle Málaga

Dir. Maryam Touzani
116 min

Seventy-nine-year-old María Ángeles lives independently in Tangier's Spanish quarter. When her daughter pressures her into selling her apartment, she refuses to give in, finding in her old age a new resilience and an unexpected romantic connection.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

Sansho the Bailiff

Dir. Kenji Mizoguchi
124 min

The third of the great Japanese masters (with Ozu and Kurosawa), Mizoguchi is a poet of suffering. There's plenty of that here in his exquisite telling of an ancient folktale about the enslavement of a woman and her two children.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema