Canadian Premiere
There’s no place like home for the holidays and the extended Balsano family gathers to celebrate Christmas Eve together for perhaps the last time. The traditional Xmas party: the ladies gossip in the kitchen, the men smoke cigars outside the garage, and the children play video games in the basement. Snapshots of rituals: games with Grandma, the fire truck adorned in colourful lights, an enormous feast, and a home video screening.
Rich with nostalgia and full of life, Tyler Taormina’s sophomore film focuses on the details that make Christmas feel like home—quickly shifting in tone and perspective to highlight private moments in a crowded house. Shot with warm colours and a soft focus by Carson Lund (whose directorial debut Eephus is also at VIFF) and featuring a stellar ensemble cast, Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point feels like a warm blanket, a fireplace, and a cup of hot cocoa (or spiked eggnog).
Taormina‘s delightful stocking-stuffer is as alive to the domesticated magic of holiday tradition as any Nat King Cole seasonal classic. From a soundtrack spackled with Sinatra and ’60s pop classics to the hyper-romantic, gauzy visuals… there is no War on Christmas here, just a wholehearted surrender to its folksy, kitschy pleasures.
Jessica Kiang, VarietyEdited
Matilda Fleming, Michael Cera, Elsie Fisher, Francesca Scorsese, Gregg Turkington, Sawyer Spielberg
USA
2024
English
At International Village
At The Rio
Book Tickets
Indigenous & Community Access
Indigenous Access Tickets Community Access Tickets Ticket Donation Requests
Credits & Director
Executive Producer
Jospeh Lipsey IV, Brock Pierce, Jason Stone, Jeremy Gardner
Producer
Tyler Taormina, Eric Berger, Kevin Anton, Rob Rice, Michael Cera, David Entin, Calogero Carucci, Krista Minto, David Croley Broyles, Duncan Sullivan, David Sabot, Oliver Toy
Screenwriter
Tyler Taormina, Eric Berger
Cinematography
Carson Lund
Editor
Kevin Anton
Production Design
Paris Peterson
Original Music
Sebastien Pan
Tyler Taormina
Tyler Taormina is a film director, screenwriter and producer based in Los Angeles, California. He is one of the leading members of Omnes Films collective. His directed works include Ham on Rye (2019) and Happer’s Comet (2022) both of which received critical acclaim. Four projects that Taormina produced are slated to premiere in 2024, including his own Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point and Eephus by Carson Lund, both of which premiered at the Directors’ Fortnight in Cannes.
Filmography: Ham on Rye (2019); Happer’s Comet (2022)
Missing VIFF? Check out what's playing at the VIFF Centre
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.
Ghost Dog: Way of the Samurai
Ghost Dog (Forest Whitaker) is an assassin, but he's also an existential loner who adheres to his personal code. Despite the thriller trappings, this is really a lampoon of that genre, and a melancholy reverie for the cultural melting pot we call home.
The Straight Story
David Lynch goes a different direction in this linear Midwestern about a septuagenarian (Richard Farnsworth) who drives nearly 400km on a lawnmower to visit his ailing brother (Harry Dean Stanton).
Mary Oliver: Saved by the Beauty of the World
Sasha Waters' documentary takes us through the life of America's best-selling late twentieth century poet, a private woman who shared her innermost thoughts and made them indispensable.
Franz
Veteran Polish filmmaker Agnieszka Holland takes the bull by the horns to craft a Kafka biopic that's Kafkaesque and then some, artfully layering scenes from Kafka's life and works along with ironic present-day footage for a truly surreal counterpoint.
American Doctor
One of the most powerful documentaries of the year, this puts us smack in the open wound that is Gaza, filtered through the eyes of three American surgeons (of Palestinian, Jewish and Zoroastrian backgrounds) compelled to do their utmost to alleviate harm.