Alice Rohrwacher’s first feature since the widely acclaimed Happy As Lazzaro five years ago is an exhilaratingly unpredictable, mysterious, rough and tumble tale of a disheveled English tomb raider living on the margins amongst a roisterous group of Italian bohemians: singers, smugglers, peasants and petty thieves. Even in this rum company Arthur (Josh O’Connor) is an odd duck, but he’s at the heart of their operations because he has the gift of divination: he sniffs out ancient Etruscan graves, and with them treasure troves of artifacts buried with the dead. Rohrwacher’s story (she wrote the original screenplay) could be called oblique and whimsical, but her movie is rooted in the rude, earthy tradition of Pasolini, the Tavianis and Roberto Rossellini (whose daughter Isabella has an extended cameo here as the mother of Arthur’s beloved, missing Beniamina); that is to say, it’s a vivid and authentic film of the land and the people who live on it, not to mention those who came before and are buried underneath.
Best Screenplay, Grand Prize of the Jury Cannes 2023
Presented by
Josh O’Connor, Isabella Rossellini, Alba Rohrwacher, Carol Duarte, Vincenzo Nemolato
Italy/France/Switzerland
2023
Special Presentations
In Italian and English with English subtitles
Book Tickets
Indigenous & Community Access
Credits
Executive Producer
Eli Bush, Jeff Deutchman, Alexandra Henochsberg, Alessio Lazzareschi, Manuela Melissano, Pierre-Francois Piet
Producer
Carlo Cresto-Dina
Screenwriter
Alice Rohrwacher
Cinematography
Hélène Louvart
Editor
Nelly Quettier
Production Design
Emita Frigato
Director
Alice Rohrwacher
Alice Rohrwacher was born in Fiesole and studied in Turin and Lisbon. She wrote and played music for the theater before being drawn to cinema, where she began working as a documentary film editor. Her first full-length film, Corpo Celeste (2011) premiered at Cannes in the Quinzaine des Réalisateurs. Her second film, The Wonders (2014) won the Grand Prix at Cannes. She was nominated for an Oscar in the Best Live Action Shorts category for Le pupille (2023).
Filmography: Corpo Celeste (2011); The Wonders (2014); Happy as Lazarro (2018)
Missing VIFF? Check out what's playing at the VIFF Centre
The Remarkable Life of Ibelin
Mats Steen, a Norwegian gamer, died of a degenerative muscular disease at the age of 25. His parents mourned what they thought had been a lonely and isolated life, when they started receiving messages from online friends around the world.
Ru + Kim Thúy in Conversation
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, who will join us in conversation after the screening.
Janet Planet
For her first film as writer-director, Pulitzer prize-winning playwright Annie Baker gives us a lonely and imaginative 11-year-old, Lacey (Zoe Zigler) besotted with her single mom, Janet (Julianne Nicholson).