An outcast hockey player, Heather (Bobbi Salvor Menuez) is saddled with baggage heavier than her goalie pads: not only is she a closeted lesbian living with her alcoholic mom, but she’s also inherited a familial curse that transforms her into a bloodthirsty lycanthrope. Falling for Jonny (Amandla Stenberg), a figure skater nursing her own emotional wounds, Heather invites further persecution from the prejudiced townsfolk. But turn around is feral play, and there’s a full moon rising.
From its transfixing opening transformation sequence, Jacqueline Castel’s My Animal is a full-blooded creature feature that weds the classic werewolf mythos with its own sapphic sensibility. Likewise, it leans into some genre tropes (including a synth score in the key of Carpenter), while exploring new avenues of the uncanny (let it be said: LSD and lycanthropy don’t mix). Ultimately, it’s an anthem of self-actualization and an ode to outcasts, whatever form they take.
September 30 & October 2: Q&A with director Jacqueline Castel & crew
Series Media Partner
Bobbi Salvör Menuez, Amandla Stenberg, Stephen McHattie, Heidi von Palleske, Cory Lipman, Scott Thompson
Canada
2023
Altered States
English
Sexual Discrimination
Book Tickets
Indigenous & Community Access
Indigenous Access Tickets Community Access Tickets Ticket Donation Requests
Credits
Producer
Andrew Bronfman, Michael Solomon
Screenwriter
Jae Matthews
Cinematography
Bryn McCashin
Editor
Marc Boucrot & Jacqueline Castel
Production Design
Emma Doyle
Original Music
Pier Harrison
Director
Jacqueline Castel
Jacqueline Castel is an internationally award-winning director, screenwriter, and curator based in NYC. Her short film work has been featured at more than fifty festivals worldwide, including Sundance, SXSW, Rotterdam, BAMcinemaFest, Sitges, and Fantasia. She has written for and directed cult auteurs John Carpenter and Jim Jarmusch, and collaborated on a film with David Lynch for his Festival of Disruption in 2018. Castel’s work has appeared in The New York Times, The BBC, Dazed, VICE, Italian Vogue, Interview Magazine, and on AMC’s Shudder. She earned her BFA with honors at the Tisch School of the Arts at NYU. My Animal is her feature film debut.
Missing VIFF? Check out what's playing at the VIFF Centre
Your Touch Makes Others Invisible
Rajee Samarasinghe’s poetic debut, Your Touch Makes Others Invisible, blends allegory and testimony from Tamil women in war-torn Sri Lanka. Filmed secretly under military rule, it’s a haunting meditation on grief, survival, and the refusal to forget.
It Was Just an Accident
Having offered some late-night assistance to a stranger in the wake of an auto accident, a mechanic grows convinced that he recognizes the supposed stranger's voice as that of his torturer during a grueling prison spell.
6: City slickin’
Shorts from: Canada, France, Jordan, Spain, USA.
Akashi
In Mayumi Yoshida’s tender drama, struggling artist Kana journeys to Tokyo to attend her grandmother’s funeral. While there, she reconnects with her childhood love and stumbles across a family secret that prompts her to reconsider her place in the world.
Last Night in Taipei
Cheng-Chui Kuo’s drama is a lively, bittersweet ode to love and friendship. Following four friends through a night of drinking, reminiscence, and revelation, the film explores love and its discontents while paying tribute to Taipei.
The Condor Daughter
In the Bolivian Andes, a teen raised by a midwife longs to trade ancestral birth songs for a spotlight in the city. Álvaro Olmos Torrico's The Condor Daughter is a lyrical, tender story of inheritance, ambition, and the power to choose your own path.