Undefeated in the courtroom, Rita (Zoe Saldana), a Mexico City defence attorney, is enlisted to tend to the affairs of a notorious drug lord (Karla Sofía Gascón) who has grown contrite and is now completing gender affirmation surgery. Rechristened Emilia Pérez and determined to right a litany of past misdeeds, she relies on Rita to reintegrate her in the lives of her wife Jessi (Selena Gomez) and young children. However, in Emilia’s past, there is more than one score to settle; there will be blood, ballads, and dance numbers.
Several decades into his distinguished career, Jacques Audiard (A Prophet; Rust and Bone) has delivered the most outré entry in his oeuvre with this maximalist musical that’s punctuated by gunplay and buoyed by unabashed melodrama. Gascón is absolutely mesmerising to behold as a woman striving for actualization and redemption. And everyone in the ensemble is singing from the same hymn sheet, staging a cinematic spectacle that needs to be seen and heard to be believed.
Jury Prize: Official Competition, Cannes 2024; Best Actress Award: Official Competition, Cannes 2024
Imagine a world in which Stephen Sondheim made Sicario.
David Fear, Rolling Stone
Supported by
Zoe Saldana, Karla Sofía Gascón, Selena Gomez, Adriana Paz, Edgar Ramírez, Mark Ivanir
France
2024
In Spanish with English subtitles
Book Tickets
Indigenous & Community Access
Indigenous Access Tickets Community Access Tickets Ticket Donation Requests
Credits & Director
Executive Producer
Pauline Lamy
Producer
Pascal Caucheteux, Jacques Audiard, Valérie Schermann, Anthony Vaccarello, Ardavan Safaee, Jean-Pierre Dardenne, Luc Dardenne
Screenwriter
Jacques Audiard, Thomas Bidegain, Nicolas Livecchi, Léa Mysius
Cinematography
Paul Guilhaume
Editor
Juliette Welfling
Production Design
Emmanuelle Duplay
Original Music
Clément Ducol, Camille
Jacques Audiard
Born in Paris, Jacques Audiard began his career as a screenwriter in the 1980s. His directorial debut, See How They Fall (1994), won the César for Best First Film. Audiard’s A Self-Made Hero (1996) won Best Screenplay at Cannes, while Read My Lips (2002) and The Beat That My Heart Skipped (2005) received multiple César Awards. A Prophet (2009) won Cannes’ Grand Prix and Dheepan (2015) won the Palme d’Or. Audiard’s American debut, The Sisters Brothers, premiered at Venice in 2018. Emilia Pérez marks Audiard’s tenth feature film.
Filmography: See How They Fall (1994); A Self-Made Hero (1996); A Prophet (2009); Rust and Bone (2012); Dheepan (2015); Paris, 13th District (2021)
Photo by Pascal Le Segretain
Missing VIFF? Check out what's playing at the VIFF Centre
The Company of Strangers
In this Canadian gem, seven elderly women find themselves stranded when their bus breaks down in the wilderness. With only their wits, memories and some roasted frogs' legs to sustain them, this remarkable group of strangers share their life stories.
Madonna: Truth or Dare
A year in the life of Madonna at the height of her fame, touring Blonde Ambition through 1990. There's concert footage, but the movie is also daringly truthful about life behind the scenes — not that Madonna is every really off-stage.
The Leopard
Lampedusa's elegiac account of a 19th century Sicilian aristocrat, Prince Salina, fading into history is one of the pinnacles of Italian cinema, an epic which influenced the tempo and gravitas of The Godfather, Age of Innocence and The Deer Hunter.
