Skip to main content
The Birthday Party film image

The Birthday Party

Il compleanno di Enrico

North American Premiere

At the height of the Y2K scare, young Francesco is confronted with some new realities when he attends his friend Enrico’s birthday party at a remote country home.

 

This short is playing before the feature film Bitten.

Director
Cast

Nicola Cannarella, Matthias Tormen, Denis Fasolo, Elia Luciani, Luisa Trigilla

Credits
Country of Origin

Germany/France/Italy

Year

2023

Language

In Italian with English subtitles

Film Contact
18+
18 min

Credits

Producer

Cecilia Trautvetter, François-Pierre Clavel

Screenwriter

Francesco Sossai

Cinematography

Giulia Schelhas

Editor

Francesco Sossai

Original Music

Non voglio che Clara

Director

Francesco Sossai headshot

Francesco Sossai

Francesco Sossai was born in the Italian Dolomites area. He started filming short films at an early age. He moved to Rome where he graduated in English and German Literatures. He was then admitted at the DFFB – German Television Film Academy in Berlin. His first feature length film “Altri Cannibali” celebrated its world premiere at PÖFF 2021 where it was awarded as „Best First Feature“. The film subsequently had its Italian premiere at the 39th Torino Film Festival and was screened worldwide in numerous other festivals. Francesco is currently working on his second feature „Le città della pianura“, a coproduction between Italy and France. He lives in Veneto, Italy.

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

Vancouver Opera Presents Dangerous Liaisons

Dir. Stephen Frears
119 min

Vancouver Opera General Director Tom Wright and Director of Engagement Ashley Daniel Foot introduce a special screening of Stephen Fears' Academy Award-winning sex and revenge comedy, based on the 1792 novel by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

It Was Just an Accident

Dir. Jafar Panahi
105 min

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.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre
More info

Sold Out

Sentimental Value

Dir. Joachim Trier
135 min

A once-revered director crashes back into his family’s lives, eager to recruit his daughter for a film role. When she declines, he finds a new muse in an eager but unpolished Hollywood star, sending his botched reconciliation spiraling into chaos.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

The Mother and the Bear

Dir. Johnny Ma
100 min

Johnny Ma’s film stars Kim Ho-jung as a Korean woman who flies to Winnipeg when her immigrant daughter is hospitalized there. This crowd-pleaser plays up cultural differences to hilarious effect and offers a touching take on mother-daughter tension.

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

L'Étranger

Dir. François Ozon
122 min

Recreating 1940s Algeria in vivid, high contrast black and white cinematography, L'Etranger is erotic, enigmatic and brutal in equal measures, a masterful screen version of Albert Camus's insoluble classic of existential alienation.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre