Skip to main content

Canadian Premiere

With verve and wit, director Margherita Vicario brings contemporary pop to 17th century Italy. This counter-historical film gives us the young women of Sant’Ignazio, a Catholic orphanage run by the ogre-like chapel master Father Perlina (Paolo Rossi). He’s taught his female charges music, and their weekly orchestral performances are one of the few pleasures they’re granted. Inspired by young Teresa (Galatea Bellugi), who seizes on the new-fangled pianoforte Perlina has consigned to the basement, the orchestra starts to defy their master, making pop music in secret. As Perlina prepares for a visit from the Pope, the orchestra changes its aesthetic, and the stage is set for a raucous musical rebellion…

This cheeky, delightfully inventive film addresses the dark, repressive past with a subversive spirit. Perlina is patriarchy personified, and Teresa makes for a great, liberated heroine. Gloria! offers the pleasures of strong characterization, fine acting, and catchy storytelling. Last but not least: its music, written by Davide Pavanello and Vicario herself, is rousing and delectable.

 

Grand Jury Prize: Official Competition, Seattle 2024

Director
Cast

Galatéa Bellugi, Carlotta Gamba, Veronica Lucchesi, Maria Vittoria Dallasta, Sara Mafodda

Credits
Country of Origin

Italy/Switzerland

Year

2024

Language

In Italian with English subtitles

Film Contact
18+

At Vancouver Playhouse

19+

At Fifth Avenue

106 min
Art, Music & Photography Award Winners Comedy Drama Women Directors
Tempesta

Book Tickets

Friday September 27

2:45 pm
Hearing Assistance Subtitles
Vancouver Playhouse
Book Now

Monday September 30

5:45 pm
Hearing Assistance Subtitles
Fifth Avenue Aud 3
Book Now

Credits & Director

Producer

Valeria Jamonte, Manuela Melissano, Carlo Cresto-Dina, Paolo del Brocco

Screenwriter

Anita Rivaroli, Margherita Vicario

Cinematography

Gianluca Rocco Palma

Editor

Christian Marsiglia

Production Design

Luca Servino, Susanna Abenavoli

Original Music

Margherita Vicario, Davide Pavanello

Margherita Vicario headshot; Gloria! director

Margherita Vicario

Born in 1988, Margherita Vicario is an actress and singer-songwriter who graduated from the European Academy of Dramatic Art. She released her debut EP Esercizi Preparatori and album Minimal Musical during her studies. Her thesis focused on Brecht’s use of popular music in political theater. In 2014, she toured with LEM LEM. Vicario released her second album, Bingo, in 2021 and collaborated with artists like Francesco Guccini and Elodie. In 2023, she co-wrote music and directed her first feature film, Gloria!

Showcase

See more films in this series

Soundtrack to a Coup D’Etat

Dir. Johan Grimonprez
150 min

In January 1961, seven months after Congolese independence, Patrice Lumumba is assassinated. In excavating the history of this political murder, this essay-film traces the complex and unlikely intersections of American jazz and Cold War geopolitics.

VIFF Centre - Vancity Theatre Fifth Avenue Aud 3 Vancouver Playhouse
Secret Mall Apartment
Secret Mall Apartment film image; man plays video game while woman talks on phone

Secret Mall Apartment

Dir. Jeremy Workman
91 min

The stranger-than-fiction true story of a group of artists who built and furnished a hidden apartment inside a mall, remaining undetected for years. This is an absurdly fun and surprisingly profound film about gentrification and art.

International Village 9 Fifth Avenue Aud 3 The Rio Theatre

A Different Man

Dir. Aaron Schimberg
112 min

This haunting, unclassifiable film tells the story of a facially disfigured man who is cured by a new drug therapy and given a new lease on life. Director Aaron Schimberg fuses elements of horror, melodrama, and comedy into a work of true originality.

The Rio Theatre Vancouver Playhouse

Grand Tour

Dir. Miguel Gomes
129 min

A prizewinner at Cannes, the latest from the director of Tabu is a playful Asian travelogue, set in 1918 and now, in black and white and colour, a critique of colonialism, and a journey into the history of cinema itself.

SFU Woodwards Vancouver Playhouse

Gloria!

Dir. Margherita Vicario
106 min

This cheeky, inventive film brings contemporary pop music to 17th century Italy. It’s the story of a Catholic orphanage where the girls have been taught to play orchestral music. Little does the priest know they’re composing their own tunes in secret…

Vancouver Playhouse Fifth Avenue Aud 3
Black Dog

Black Dog

Dir. Guan Hu
110 min

Set in a city on the verge of demolition, the award-winning Black Dog tells the story of a discontented ex-con and the stray dog he comes to love. Graced with panoramic imagery and the music of Pink Floyd, it’s a soulful, triumphant film.

SFU Woodwards Vancouver Playhouse
Sharp Corner
Sharp Corner film image; man looking into a car at the driver

Sharp Corner

Dir. Jason Buxton
110 min

This superb psychological thriller stars Ben Foster as Josh, a man who comes unmoored from the safety of middle-class life. The problems start with a car accident in front of his new house, and soon our protagonist is on the verge of losing everything…

Fifth Avenue Aud 3 International Village 10

Caught by the Tides

Dir. Jia Zhangke
111 min

Over two decades, across China’s rapidly changing landscape, two lovers meet and part and meet again. In this magisterial film, Jia Zhangke refracts the twenty-first century through a reflexive, retrospective look at his era-defining filmography.

International Village 10 Fifth Avenue Aud 3 Vancouver Playhouse
Happyend
Happyend film image; people in AR footage with messages appearing above their heads

Happyend

Dir. Neo Sora
113 min

Neo Sora (Ryuichi Sakamoto: Opus) fuses teen high school comedy and political protest to winning effect in this raucous, creative, and poignant "story of the near future." It features earthquakes, digital surveillance, thumping techno music, and more...

Vancouver Playhouse Fifth Avenue Aud 3
No Other Land
No Other Land film image; man lying on a rocky terrain

No Other Land

Dir. Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal, Yuval Abraham & Rachel Szor
96 min

For Basel Adra, a Palestinian activist from the southern West Bank, the fight against the mass expulsion of his community has been a lifelong struggle. Filmed vérité-style over five years, this is a sobering look at the realities of Israeli occupation.

SFU Woodwards Fifth Avenue Aud 3

Universal Language

Dir. Matthew Rankin
89 min

In a wintery, Farsi-speaking city that’s equal measures Winnipeg and Tehran, storylines entangle and the concepts of space, time, and identity grow increasingly opaque. Inventive and absurd, Rankin's poetic fable reminds us that Winnipeg is a wonderland.

Fifth Avenue Aud 3 International Village 10

Matt and Mara

Dir. Kazik Radwanski
80 min

Featuring terrific performances from Deragh Campbell and Matt Johnson, this is a film that buzzes with vitality. In exploring the fraught, ambiguous relationship between two writers, director Kazik Radwanski produces indelible, deeply relatable moments.

SFU Woodwards International Village 10
Flow
Flow film image; cartoon cat sitting in a city

Flow

Dir. Gints Zilbalodis
84 min

In this wordless and gorgeously atmospheric animated feature, a solitary black cat survives a tsunami and must confront his fear of water whilst sailing through a flooded world with a group of misfit animals. An enchanting adventure film for all ages.

Vancouver Playhouse VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

Dahomey

Dir. Mati Diop
67 min

The return of stolen cultural artifacts to the Republic of Benin is the inspiration for Mati Diop's Berlin Golden Bear prize winner, which fuses dreamy metaphysics and incendiary political commentary on issues of restitution and self-determination.

SFU Woodwards Vancouver Playhouse

Paying For It

Dir. Sook-Yin Lee
85 min

Sook-Yin Lee adapts a graphic novel by her ex-boyfriend Chester Brown about the end of their relationship and Brown’s decision to start paying for sex. Brave, bracing, and funny, this is a film unafraid to explore sexuality in all its complexity.

The Rio Theatre Fifth Avenue Aud 3

Shepherds

Dir. Sophie Deraspe
113 min

Mathyas abruptly quits his marketing job in Montreal and goes to France with the romantic notion of becoming a shepherd. He's in for a rude awakening... Sophie Deraspe’s film is an elemental epic of personal growth.

Fifth Avenue Aud 3 SFU Woodwards
Blue Sun Palace
Blue Sun Palace film image; woman strokes man's face while he holds a microphone

Blue Sun Palace

Dir. Constance Tsang
117 min

In the heart of Flushing, New York’s largest Chinatown, three working-class immigrants eke out a meager living. When together, there's an easy intimacy—until tragedy strikes, leaving a painful absence in its wake.

VIFF Centre - Vancity Theatre The Cinematheque
Dying
Dying film image; people at a table in a restaurant

Dying

Dir. Matthias Glasner
180 min

With death looming for both elders of the Lunies clan, their estranged children are forced to meet once more, while dealing with their own tumultuous personal lives. Age-old enmities resurface in this raw and invigorating family saga.

Fifth Avenue Aud 3 International Village 10

A Traveler's Needs

Dir. Hong Sangsoo 홍상수
90 min

Isabelle Huppert and VIFF mainstay Hong Sangsoo reunite for a whimsical, winning tale of culture-clash. She plays a French tutor at large in a South Korean city; he deploys his usual mixture of suggestive repetition, oddball humour, and humble profundity.

SFU Woodwards Vancouver Playhouse