Skip to main content
Apple Cider Vinegar film image; woman examines small marble with magnifying glass

Canadian Premiere

Upon finding the rare Antarctic mineral Weddellite in her kidney stone, a retired nature documentary narrator is inspired to return to the field to tell one last story. She invites us to join her in exploring the hidden world of stones: where Palestinian granite quarry workers unearth ancient fish fossils, and geologists in the UK linger by roadcuts to examine meteorite pieces. In Cape Verde, Fogo islanders inhabit homes partially engulfed in volcanic rock, while along the beaches of Cornwall, an artist assumes the daily task of picking up shards of plastic waste to remold into sculptures.

Buoyed by Siân Phillips’ affably soothing voiceover performance, director Sophie Benoot’s quirky hybrid essay film offers up both a micro- and macroscopic view of the mesmerizing connections between geological structures and living beings. In turns thought-provoking, droll, and affecting, Apple Cider Vinegar gently nudges the viewer to contemplate ecological grief, while training our eyes to find beauty in unexpected places.

Apple Cider Vinegar is an essay film if there ever was one, at the intersection of Chris Marker and Patrício Guzman for its philosophical gravitas and Agnès Varda and Laurie Anderson for its playfulness.

Diego Semerene, Slant Magazine

Director
Featuring

Siân Phillips

Credits
Country of Origin

Belgium/Netherlands

Year

2024

Language

In English, Arabic and Portuguese with English subtitles and open captions

Film Contact
Links
18+
84 min
Art, Music & Photography Documentary Women Directors
Inti Films, Pieter van Huystee Film

Book Tickets

Friday October 04

1:30 pm
Hearing Assistance Open Captioning Subtitles
VIFF Centre - Vancity Theatre
Book Now

Sunday October 06

6:15 pm
Hearing Assistance Open Captioning Subtitles
The Cinematheque
Book Now

Credits & Director

Executive Producer

Peter Krüger

Producer

Peter Krüger

Screenwriter

Sofie Benoot

Cinematography

Jonathan Wannyn

Editor

Sofie Benoot, Liyo Gong

Original Music

Guillaume Graux

Sofie Benoot headshot; Apple Cider Vinegar director

Sofie Benoot

Sofie Benoot (Bruges, 1985) lives and works in Brussels. Her films are patchworks of different stories, carefully assembled to reveal hidden connections. Fronterismo (2007), Blue Meridian (2010) and Desert Haze (2014) played at Visions du Réel (Switzerland), Camden International Film Festival (USA), Torino FD (Italy), and BAFICI (Argentina). Benoot teaches in the Film master’s programme at LUCA School of Arts in Brussels. She co-directed Victoria (2020), which premiered at the Berlin Film Festival and won the Caligari Prize.

Filmography: Fronterismo (2007); Blue Meridian (2010); Desert Haze (2014); Victoria (2020)

Spectrum

See more films in this series

The Universe in a Grain of Sand

Dir. Mark A. Levinson
73 min

Mark Levinson explores the synergy of art and science, mapping out revolutions in technology through a dazzling array of artwork and experimental films, celebrating the transcendent power of the imagination on a breathtaking journey through the universe.

VIFF Centre - Vancity Theatre International Village 9
*smiles and kisses you*
*smiles and kisses you* film image; man carries someone in his arms

*smiles and kisses you*

Dir. Bryan Carberry
87 min

A lonely man builds himself a girlfriend by pairing a life-size love doll with an AI chatbot. Bryan Carberry’s documentary is a haunting, romantic sci-fi parable that asks if AI can replace real human connection.

International Village 10 International Village 9

Pepe

Dir. Nelson Carlo de los Santos Arias
122 min

In 2009, a hippopotamus named Pepe, formerly a part of Pablo Escobar’s private zoo, became the first—and so far only—such animal to be killed in the Americas. In this unclassifiable, formally audacious feature, Pepe tells us his side of the story.

VIFF Centre - Vancity Theatre The Cinematheque

Realm of Satan

Dir. Scott Cummings
79 min

This experiential documentary contrasts macabre rituals with the mundane domestic lives of high-ranking members of The Church of Satan. A series of wordless vignettes that paint a non-judgmental portrait of the modern Satanist.

The Rio Theatre The Cinematheque International Village 8
Real
Real film image; woman filming herself with iPhone in a tripod

Real

Dir. Adele Tulli
83 min

Adele Tulli’s documentary explores our relationship with reality in an increasingly virtual world. Exploiting the modern ubiquity of the camera, Real embraces the uncanny beauty of virtual reality and examines technology’s place in human connection.

International Village 8

Grand Theft Hamlet

Dir. Pinny Grylls & Sam Crane
90 min

A machinima documentary about two out-of-work actors who mount a full production of Hamlet within the world of Grand Theft Auto V online. Something is rotten in the city of Los Santos; the perfect backdrop for Shakespeare’s bloodsoaked tragedy.

SFU Woodwards The Rio Theatre
Listen to the Voices
Listen to the Voices film image; boy looking out a window

Listen to the Voices

Dir. Maxime Jean-Baptiste
76 min

A powerful docudrama following a teenage boy spending the summer at his grandmother’s house in French Guiana, where he learns about his roots and connects with a community of people still reeling from the tragic loss of his uncle several years earlier.

VIFF Centre - Vancity Theatre International Village 8
The In Between
The In Between film image; two young women lying down with eyes closed

The In Between

Dir. Robie Flores
82 min

After the death of her brother, filmmaker Robie Flores is drawn back to USA/Mexico border town of Eagle Pass, and, while processing her grief, finds echoes and reverberations of her own memories in the hopes, dreams, and daily lives of the youth there.

International Village 10 VIFF Centre - Vancity Theatre

Apple Cider Vinegar

Dir. Sofie Benoot
84 min

Upon finding a rare Antarctic mineral in a kidney stone, a former nature documentary narrator guides us on a meditative trip– from volcanic Fogo Island to the granite quarries of Palestine, and beyond– to explore the often overlooked world of stones.

VIFF Centre - Vancity Theatre The Cinematheque

It’s Not Me

Dir. Leos Carax
42 min

“Where are you at, Leos Carax?” To this question, the French filmmaker assembles an unpredictable essay-film made in the spirit of the late Jean-Luc Godard—an endlessly inventive self-portrait of an artist reflecting on his place in cinema history.

VIFF Centre - Vancity Theatre