Skip to main content
Curl Power film image; group of girls wearing a team uniform

Curl Power

Insights

This event has passed

Josephine Anderson’s uplifting documentary follows the 4KGirl$, a teenage curling team from the suburb of Maple Ridge, BC. Hannah, Brook, Amy, Ashley, and Savannah are a hardworking, tight-knit group of friends who strive to become Canadian Junior Curling Champions. Coached by three of their mothers, who are former Olympians, the girls navigate the uncertainties of their teen years — from self-esteem and body image issues to anxiety, depression, breakups, and the major transition that high school graduation entails — but see each other through it all.

Buoyed by an upbeat soundtrack and intimate camerawork, Curl Power preserves a heartwarming time capsule of its teenage subjects’ rich interior lives: their moments of levity, growth, and candid self-reflection as they test their mettle in a quintessentially Canadian sport. Highlights include mother and daughter Diane and Ashley’s profoundly touching commentary on coping with the emotional upheaval of a breast cancer experience, and the comfort to be found in quality time bonding over a shared special interest in curling.

 

Oct 3: Q&A with director Josephine Anderson; producer Mike Johnston; and Brook Aleksic, Diane Dezura & Sav Miley

Oct 5: Q&A with director Josephine Anderson; producer Mike Johnston; and Brook Aleksic, Diane Dezura, Hannah Smeed & Sav Miley

 

Presented by

Media Partner

     

Director
Featuring

Brooklyn Aleksic, Hannah Smeed, Savannah Miley, Amy Wheatcroft, Ashley Dezura

Credits
Country of Origin

Canada

Year

2024

Language

English

Film Contact
Links
18+
85 min
BC Spotlight Documentary Family Relations Q&As at VIFF Women Directors
Studio 104 Entertainment, Secret Bench Films

Book Tickets

This event has passed.

Credits & Director

Executive Producer

Mike Johnston, Josephine Anderson

Producer

Mike Johnston, Josephine Anderson

Screenwriter

Josephine Anderson

Cinematography

Claire Sanford

Editor

Alex Bohs

Original Music

Jesse Zubot, Josh Zubot

Josephine Anderson headshot; Curl Power director

Josephine Anderson

Josephine Anderson is a Canadian documentary filmmaker known for her intimate, sensorial, and imaginative work exploring themes of time, irreverence, yearning, and female experience. Josephine’s work has been shown at festivals worldwide including Tribeca and IDFA, and exhibited by The New Yorker, CBC, and the National Film Board of Canada. Josephine is a Berlinale Talent Campus alumna and a former Board Director for the Documentary Organization of Canada. Curl Power is her debut feature.

 

Missing VIFF? Check out what's playing at the VIFF Centre

Every Little Thing

Dir. Sally Aitken
93 min

If you thought Flow was an emotional rollercoaster, wait til you meet Cactus and Wasabi, baby hummingbirds fighting for their lives under the loving care of hummingbird-whisperer Terry Masear, an Angelino who makes it her mission to nurse injured birds.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

The Apprentice

Dir. Ali Abbasi
122 min

Trump: the Origin Story. It is 1973. Flashy young real estate tycoon and man about town, Donald (Sebastian Stam) meets Machiavellian mob lawyer Roy Cohn (Jeremy Strong). It is love at first sight.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl

Dir. Nick Park & Merlin Crossingham
79 min

Aardman Animation's handcrafted mix of dad jokes, slapstick, mock dramatics and understated emotion makes this return for the claymation odd couple a constant delight. The villainous Feathers McGraw is back to no good, commandeering Norbot the robot. Rated: G

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

Memories of Murder

Dir. Bong Joon-ho
132 min

Parasite director Bong Joon-ho's police procedural is the centrepiece of our retrospective and arguably his masterpiece. Certainly, among serial killer movies this one is on a par with Zodiac and The Silence of the Lambs, but more politically astute.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

Tokyo!

Dir. Bong Joon-ho, Leos Carax & Michel Gondry
112 min

As a bonus to our Bong Joon-ho series, a side trip to Tokyo! This 2008 anthology film features three mid-length films by Michel Gondry, Leos Carax, and (the best of the bunch) Bong.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

Okja

Dir. Bong Joon-ho
121 min

Bong #6: his wackiest movie, centered on a genetically modified super pig the size of a hippo. Raised by a Korean peasant farmer, prize specimen Okja is called to New York to launch its new food product. But animal liberationists mean to disrupt the show.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema