Canadian Premiere
Thirty-something Marina is going about her life as a dutiful daughter, girlfriend and teacher when she wakes up one day to a completely new face. She promptly cuts herself off from friends and colleagues while pouring through personal and family archives to make sense of the surreal development. But with no practical solution in sight, she must contend with this new person staring back in the mirror. And suddenly, a world of possibility opens up. In her sophomore feature outing, Melisa Liebenthal (The Pretty Ones, IFFR 2016) continues to prod our image-obsessed culture with a, now signature, lighthearted touch. Once again using her own image as a starting point, she notably expands on her storytelling repertoire and crafts a textured study of one’s sense of identity that taps into both our collective nightmares and fantasies. She deftly plays with hybrid narrative and visual techniques while drawing from anthropological references, resulting in a delightfully cheeky thesis on the power of appearances.
C.I.C.A.E. Award, Berlin 2023
October 5 & 7: Q&A with director Melisa Liebenthal
Presented by
Rocío Stellato, Vladimir Durán, Camila Toker, Roberto Liebenthal, Irene Bosch, Federico Sack
Argentina
2022
Vanguard
In Spanish with English subtitles
Book Tickets
Indigenous & Community Access
Indigenous Access Tickets Community Access Tickets Ticket Donation Requests
Credits
Executive Producer
Eugenia Campos Guevara, Agustín Gagliardi
Producer
Eugenia Campos Guevara
Screenwriter
Agustín Godoy, Melisa Liebenthal
Cinematography
Inés Duacastella
Editor
Florencia Gómez García
Original Music
Inés Copertino
Director
Melisa Liebenthal
Melisa Liebenthal’s work reflects on identity and its relation to the construction of an image. Her films explore and combine different materials with humor and playful spirit, from documentary and visual experimentation to narrative fiction, always keeping a lively awareness of the specificity of each type of image. Liebenthal is a film graduate at Universidad del Cine in Argentina and at Le Fresnoy – Studio National des Arts Contemporains in France. She specialized in Editing and Dramatic Structure with professor Miguel Pérez in Argentina, and in Essay-Film at Escuela Internacional de Cine y Televisión (EICTV) in Cuba. She is a Berlinale Talents (2021) and FID Campus (2018) alumni.
Filmography: The Pretty Ones (2016)
Missing VIFF? Check out what's playing at the VIFF Centre
Late Fame
Based on a novella by Arthur Schnitzler (Eyes Wide Shut) this is a sly, poignant comedy about vanity and art from director Kent Jones, starring Willem Dafoe as a mailman belatedly acclaimed for a book of poetry he wrote in his youth.
Memory of Princess Mumbi
In 2093, a filmmaker arrives in the African village of Umata, where he meets Princess Mumbi, a woman torn between love, legacy, and the future of storytelling. It's a fabulous genre-blending fable about memory, invention and cinematic resistance.
Lessons of Darkness
Werner Herzog's unforgettable documentary reveals the unfolding disaster of the Kuwaitian oil fields in flames in 1991 as a sweeping inferno of mesmerizing power.
Beau Travail
Inspired by Herman Melville's Billy Budd, Claire Denis' transfixing Beau Travail is set in East Africa. Sgt Galoup (Denis Lavant) reflects on his time in the French Foreign Legion, and the impact of the handsome Sentain (Gregoire Colin).