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
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
Misericordia
Edgy, eccentric, and unapologetically queer, this film goes from drama to comedy without putting a foot wrong. Sex and murder are the subjects, and writer-director Alain Guiraudie (Stranger by the Lake) mines them for suspense and outrageous laughs.
The Stand
This rousing doc explores a 1985 dispute over logging in the Haida Gwaii. Taking us from canny retrospective commentary to the thick of the action, director Chris Auchter employs animation and a wealth of archival footage to riveting effect.
The Celebration
Our Premium Pick series affords VIFF+ Premium members the chance to share a movie of their choice. This month Edward Pascal gives us one of the key films of the late 90s, a lacerating black comedy, the most influential of the Danish Dogme 95 movement.
Resident Orca
Captured in Puget Sound in 1970, killer whale Lolita spent the next half century in a cramped tank in Seaquarium, Miami. The film follows a coalition of Lummi elders, animal lovers and philanthropists on a rescue mission to return her to the ocean.
No Other Land
Deemed by many critics one of the essential films of 2024, a multiple festival award winner and Academy Award winner for Best Documentary, No Other Land is a reminder that mass expulsion is by no means a new reality for Palestinians.