Skip to main content

A Different Man

Showcase

This event has passed

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

Director
Cast

Sebastian Stan, Renate Reinsve, Adam Pearson

Credits
Country of Origin

USA

Year

2024

Language

English

Film Contact
18+

At Vancouver Playhouse

19+

At The Rio

112 min
Award Winners Comedy Drama Experimental & Avant Garde
A24, Grand Motel Films, Killer Films

Book Tickets

This event has passed.

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 headshot; A Different Man director

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

Fire

Dir. Deepa Mehta
104 min

Deepa Mehta's tender and tumultuous love story between two women, finding comfort in each other in resistance to India's patriarchal society.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

Two Women

Dir. Chloé Robichaud
100 min

In this light-hearted, emancipatory take on a classic sex farce, two neglected married women discover the joys of casual sex and get their plumbing fixed.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

Love

Dir. Dag Johan Haugerud
119 min

This warm, thoughtful piece offers shrewd comic observations on modern dating as it trains a quizzical eye on the trysts of a female doctor, Marianne (Andrea Bræin Hovig), and her colleague, a gay male nurse, Tor (Tayo Cittadella Jacobsen).

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre
Nechako: It Will Be a Big River Again
Nechako: It Will Be a Big River Again film; overhead shot of churning water

Nechako: It Will Be a Big River Again

Dir. Lyana Patrick
91 min

In the face of environmental destruction, two Nations fight to restore their river and a way of life.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

Tornado

Dir. John Maclean
91 min

Scotland in the 1790s, travelling circus samurai Tornado (Kōki) runs afoul of a band of murderous brigands led by Tim Roth and his ambitious son, Jack Lowden. Mayhem ensues.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

Fairy Creek

Dir. Jen Muranetz
86 min

Considered the largest act of civil disobedience in Canadian history, the Fairy Creek blockade led to more than 1200 arrests. What Jen Muranetz's film gives us is the story from the front line from the activists' point of view (often, from the treetops).

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre