Skip to main content

Creature

This event has passed

Canadian Premiere

Set in an abandoned Arctic research station, Creature follows a ballet in which a mysterious creature is found and captured by a military operation, becoming the subject of intense research and experimentation. Despite the physical and mental torture inflicted upon him, the creature falls in love with a cleaning woman and dreams of escape. Director Asif Kapadia captures this incredible contemporary ballet choreographed by Akram Khan and performed by the English National Ballet using agile camera movement, dramatic lighting, masterful editing, and powerful music.

Leading an outstanding cast, Jeffrey Cirio is a physical and emotional powerhouse, moving his body with pulsing precision, portraying the Creature with poignancy and wide-eyed purity. The story is mysterious, echoing Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and hinting at a near dystopia, exploring the ills and triumphs of human nature within the yearning to belong. The film sets an uncompromising, singular vision that astonishes with kinetic movement, high energy, and unfettered emotion. Creature sets the bar for a cinematic treatment of dance.

Director
Cast

Jeffrey Cirio, Erina Takahashi, Stina Quagebeur, Ken Saruhashi, Andy Serkis

Credits
Country of Origin

UK

Year

2022

Series

Showcase

Language

No Dialogue

Film Contact
18+
87 min
Art, Music & Photography Drama

Book Tickets

This event has passed.

Credits

Executive Producer

Asif Kapadia, Heather Clark Charrington, Daniel Alicandro, Louise Shand-Brown

Producer

Uzma Hasan

Cinematography

Daniel Landin

Editor

Sylvie Landra

Original Music

Vincenzo Lamagna

Director

Asif Kapadia headshot

Photo by Andrew Leo

Asif Kapadia

Asif Kapadia is an Academy Award, four-time BAFTA Award, Grammy Award & European Film Award winning director, writer, and producer. He is best known for his documentary trilogy, Senna (2010), Amy (2015), and Diego Maradona (2019), which collectively amassed three BAFTA awards alongside the Best Documentary Oscar for Amy (2015). Kapadia’s debut film The Warrior (2001) won BAFTAs both for Outstanding British Film and Outstanding Debut by a Director, Writer or Producer.

Filmography: The Warrior (2001); Senna (2010); Amy (2015); Diego Maradona (2019)

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

Caravaggio

Dir. David Bickerstaff & Phil Grabsky
100 min

In the latest from Exhibition on Screen, co-directors David Bickerstaff and Phil Grabsky shed light not only on Caravaggio's paintings, but his life, often kept half-hidden in the same chiaroscuro tones he shaded his masterpieces with.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

Orwell: 2+2=5

Dir. Raoul Peck
119 min

Oscar-nominated director Raoul Peck reimagines 1984 in this urgent essay on power, language, and control. With narration by Damian Lewis, it’s a chilling portrait of how Orwell’s warnings became our reality.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

Train Dreams

Dir. Clint Bentley
104 min

A lovely, ruminative movie set in the Pacific Northwest in the first half of the last century. Robert (Joel Edgerton) is a lumberjack, a taciturn man who comes to appreciate the life slipping between his fingers.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

Wisdom of Happiness

Dir. Philip Delaquis & Barbara Miller
90 min

An audience with the Dalia Lama, who, at 90, looks back on his life and shares the tenets of Buddhism as a practical guide to surviving the 21st Century with joy and compassion.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

Köln 75

Dir. Ido Fluk
116 min

The true story behind the greatest solo concert in jazz history, this is Keith Jarrett's legendary 1975 Köln Concert — as organized by 18-year-old rebel music promoter Vera Brandes. Fun, inventive and feminist, it's the Bend It Like Beckham of jazz films.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre
La Belle at the Movies + Apostles of Cinema
La Belle at the Movies film image; serious woman looking out

La Belle at the Movies + Apostles of Cinema

Dir. Cecilia Zoppelletto
67 min

Cecilia Zoppelletto's lyrical documentary examines the fate of cinephilia in Kinshasa, the Democratic Republic of the Congo's capital city, currently without a single operating cinema. + Apostles of Cinema (Tanzania, 17 min)

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre