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
NAZA
NAZA is a codeword euphemistically used by Israeli intelligence to indicate the number of civilians it expects will be killed in an airstrike. This chilling documentary exposes the policy and process of state-sanctioned mass killings.
My Undesirable Friends: Part II — Exile
Julia Loktev's follow up to last year's film about dissident journalists in Moscow tracks the reporters as they are forced into exile across a four year period, but still striving to counterbalance state propaganda as Putin pursues the war in Ukraine.
Once Upon a Time in Harlem
Once Upon a Time in Harlem splices together footage shot by William Greaves in 1972 of a group of Harlem Renaissance luminaries in conversation at Duke Ellington’s townhouse. The film is a living archive of memory, disagreement, style, and Black genius.
Knife: The Attempted Murder of Salman Rushdie
Alex Gibney's doc relates the near-lethal attack on Salman Rushdie in 2022, the writer's painful rehab and recovery, and his reflections on life before, during and after the publication of The Satanic Verses.
Possible Love
Lee Chang-dong’s first film since Burning (2018) is a sardonic, slow-burning satire about two couples: a documentary filmmaker married to a wealthy businessman, and a working-class family struggling to make ends meet after the husband has been laid off.
You Had to Be There
In a strange quirk of fate, the legendary Toronto '72 production of the musical comedy Jesus hit Godspell launched a constellation of comedy stars, all unknown at the time but now known to us as Martin Short, Eugene Levy, Dave Thomas, Victor Garber, et al