Skip to main content

VIFF+ Members’ Early Bird Day is on now! Save up to 30% off Festival Ticket Packs and Passes

Days of Happiness film image

Days of Happiness

Les jours heureux

This event has passed

Days of Happiness, the latest drama from Montreal-based writer-director Chloé Robichaud, is an emotionally complex, visually assured drama about a young orchestra conductor who finds herself at a crossroads in her life and career.

Charismatic, gifted Emma (Sophie Desmarais) is a rising star, on track to become a major player on the Montreal classical music scene. Audiences are enraptured by her work, and a dream opportunity is put before her. However, her career is very closely managed by her controlling father, Patrick (Sylvain Marcel), who’s also her agent. And her attention, along with her heart, are at the same time pulled towards her secret relationship with Naëlle, a single mother and cellist.

Just like the music she conducts intensifies,swells, and crescendos on stage, tension builds with the complex relationships around her. With a fierce sense of determination, she is only just beginning to realize she can have the life she deserves, if she fights for it.

Days of Happiness examines familiar territory – the musician battling her demons – but with a fresh, engaging touch.
VOX

Director
Cast

Sophie Desmarais, Sylvain Marcel, Nour Belkhiria, Maude Guérin, Vincent Leclerc

Credits
Country of Origin

Canada

Year

2023

Series

Panorama

Language

In French with English subtitles

Film Contact
Links
18+
119 min
Drama LGBTQIA2S+ Romance Women Directors

Book Tickets

This event has passed.

Credits

Producer

Pierre Even

Screenwriter

Chloé Robichaud

Cinematography

Ariel Méthot

Editor

Yvann Thibaudeau

Production Design

Louisa Schabas

Director

Chloé Robichaud headshot

Chloé Robichaud

Screenwriter-director, Chloé Robichaud’s career is already well-established. In 2013, at the age of 25, her first feature
film, Sarah Prefers to Run, was part of the official selection for the Cannes Film Festival’s Un Certain Regard. A year earlier, Herd Leader, was also screened at Cannes, and received a nomination for the Palme d’or of short films. Chloé has
also worked in television, directing episodes of the popular series, Trop, which garnered her a nomination for Best Direction-comedy at the 2018 Gémeaux Awards. More notably, she has helmed episodes of the popular Canadian series, Transplant, which airs on CTV and NBC. Chloé is currently in pre-production on a new adaptation of the legendary Quebecois cult film, Deux femmes en or. Born in Quebec City, Chloé Robichaud now lives and works in Montreal.

Filmography: Sarah Prefers to Run (2013); Boundaries (2016)

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

Samia

Dir. Yasemin Şamdereli
102 min

Despite growing up in Mogadishu, Somalia, during the civil war, Samia Yusuf Omar persists in her dream of becoming an Olympic athlete and competes in Beijing, 2008 -- with London, 2012 next on her agenda. Based on a true story.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

Sudan, Remember Us

Dir. Hind Meddeb
78 min

A portrait of young artists and activists, Meddeb's doc charts events in Khartoum between 2019 -- in the immediate wake of the revolution that deposed dictator Omar al-Bashir -- and the mood four years later, when the country has been torn apart by civil war.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

Margaret

Dir. Kenneth Lonergan
186 min

Seventeen-year-old Lisa is rocked with guilt after a woman is killed in a traffic accident. But that’s only one thread in a teeming social tapestry this intense, passionate teen must negotiate as she comes of age in a time of contradiction and confusion.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

E.1027 Eileen Gray and the House by the Sea

Dir. Beatrice Minger & Christoph Schaub
89 min

In this elegant non fiction film, actors play Irish designer Eileen Gray, her lover, the architect Jean Badovici, and modernist superstar Le Corbusier, who would become obsessed with the house on the Cote d'Azur that Eileen designed.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight

Dir. Embeth Davidtz
98 min

Embeth Davidtz adapts Alexandra Fuller's memoir of growing up in Rhodesia as it transformed into post-colonial Zimbabwe in 1980. Lexi Venter is astonishing as the feral child at its centre.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

Scarecrow

Dir. Jerry Schatzberg
112 min

A bittersweet, touching buddy movie with Gene Hackman as a volatile tramp, Max, and Al Pacino as "Lion", a drifter now set on returning to the wife and kid he abandoned years ago. Hackman's favourite of his own movies.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre