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
Indigenous Access Tickets Community Access Tickets Ticket Donation Requests
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
NAZA
NAZA is a codeword euphemistically used by Israeli intelligence to indicate the number of civilians it expects will be killed in an airstrike. This chilling documentary exposes the policy and process of state-sanctioned mass killings.
The Sandbox
Borders are the faultlines of the world. Kenya-Jade Pinto's doc examines how modern surveillance technology, bio-metrics and AI are combining to make land and sea borders as impenetrable as air travel, and suggests the unspoken cost is our own humanity.
Atonement
A former Marine suffering from PTSD seeks a meeting with the Iraqi family to which he did great wrong ten years earlier in the Gulf War. Atonement navigates challenging, politically-charged psychological territory with diligence and sensitivity.
The Pervert's Guide to Ideology
Slavoj Zizek re-teams with director Sophie Fiennes for another wildly entertaining romp through the crossroads of cinema and philosophy. From The Sound of Music to Titanic, Jaws to The Dark Knight, Zizek offers new ways to understanding Hollywood.
The Pervert's Guide to Cinema
The Pervert's Guide to Cinema takes the viewer on an exhilarating ride through some of the greatest movies ever made (Hitchcock, Lynch, Tarkovsky et al). Serving as guide is Slavoj Zizek, the superstar Slovenian philosopher and psychoanalyst.
You Had to Be There
In a strange quirk of fate, the legendary Toronto '72 production of the musical comedy Jesus hit Godspell launched a constellation of comedy stars, all unknown at the time but now known to us as Martin Short, Eugene Levy, Dave Thomas, Victor Garber, et al