
Edward (Sebastian Stan) is a facially disfigured man who leads a life of self-consciousness and awkward social encounters. His new neighbour Ingrid (Renate Reinsve) is an aspiring playwright, and for a moment it looks like he might have a chance at romance with her; alas, she rejects him. Soon after, Edward begins an experimental drug therapy that cures his affliction and allows him to assume a new identity. Years later, he discovers that Ingrid has written a play based on the two of them and decides to audition incognito. However, his bids at self-assurance are undermined by an extroverted stranger (Adam Pearson) who is exceedingly comfortable in his own skin.
Aaron Schimberg’s wicked satire dares to provoke responses as varied as anxiety, compassion, and amusement, often in combination rather than easy separation. Besides its finely calibrated plotting, evocative performances, and haunting imagery, A Different Man is distinguished by its resistance to easy classification: it embraces the ironies of comedy and the derangements of horror, but when all is said and done it stands defiantly alone.
Silver Bear for Best Leading Performance, Berlin 2024
Media Partner
Sebastian Stan, Renate Reinsve, Adam Pearson
USA
2024
English
At Vancouver Playhouse
At The Rio
Book Tickets
Indigenous & Community Access
Credits & Director
Executive Producer
Sebastian Stan, Aaron Schimberg
Producer
Christine Vachon, Vanessa McDonnell, Gabriel Mayers
Screenwriter
Aaron Schimberg
Cinematography
Wyatt Garfield
Editor
Taylor Levy
Production Design
Anna Kathleen
Original Music
Umberto Smerilli

Aaron Schimberg
Aaron Schimberg lives in New York, USA. He made two commercially disastrous features, but the second one, Chained for Life (2018), was well-received by critics. A Different Man (2024) is his third film.
Filmography: Go Down Death (2013); Chained for Life (2018)
Missing VIFF? Check out what's playing at the VIFF Centre
No Other Land
Deemed by many critics one of the essential films of 2024, a multiple festival award winner and Academy Award winner for Best Documentary, No Other Land is a reminder that mass expulsion is by no means a new reality for Palestinians.
The Way, My Way
All manner of pilgrims flock to France and Spain to walk the 800 km Camino de Santiago. One such is Bill, a stroppy sexagenarian Australian filmmaker who's determined to do the Camino with minimal prep, a dickey leg, and no firm idea why.
Resident Orca
Captured in Puget Sound in 1970, killer whale Lolita spent the next half century in a cramped tank in Seaquarium, Miami. The film follows a coalition of Lummi elders, animal lovers and philanthropists on a rescue mission to return her to the ocean.
Misericordia
Edgy, eccentric, and unapologetically queer, this film goes from drama to comedy without putting a foot wrong. Sex and murder are the subjects, and writer-director Alain Guiraudie (Stranger by the Lake) mines them for suspense and outrageous laughs.
The Stand
This rousing doc explores a 1985 dispute over logging in the Haida Gwaii. Taking us from canny retrospective commentary to the thick of the action, director Chris Auchter employs animation and a wealth of archival footage to riveting effect.