Lucky (Terry Chen) once had a streak of fortune as wide as the sky. A tattooed former gambler, he has since settled down with a mortgage, wife, and two daughters. But it’s winter in Calgary and, with his family to look after and a fledgling electronics repair shop incurring numerous bills, he’s feeling under pressure from all sides. When he falls for a tax scam, Lucky scrambles to recover his losses and goes all in at the card table, risking his livelihood and marriage in the process. Meanwhile, his wife Noel (Oliva Cheng) and eldest daughter Grace (Conni Miu) face their own moral dilemmas…
A vibrant and essential addition to Asian-Canadian film, Lucky Star is a complex examination of a Chinese-Canadian family at a crossroads. Director Gillian McKercher helms a tense and gripping narrative about familial bonds, deceit, and sacrifice, exploring the crucial choices a person can make to change their life, for the better – or for worse.
Oct 3: Q&A with director Gillian McKercher and actors Terry Chen, Austyn van De Kamp, Conni Miu & Olivia Cheng
Oct 5: Q&A with director Gillian McKercher and actor Summer Ly
Presented by
Media Partner
Terry Chen, Olivia Cheng, Conni Miu, Andrew Phung
Canada
2024
English
Book Tickets
Indigenous & Community Access
Indigenous Access Tickets Community Access Tickets Ticket Donation Requests
Credits & Director
Executive Producer
Terry Chen, Olivia Cheng, Sidney Chiu
Producer
Guillaume Carlier, Amanda Verhagen, Matt Drake, Nicola Waugh
Screenwriter
Gillian McKercher
Cinematography
Charles Hamilton
Editor
Xi Feng
Production Design
Dale Marushy
Original Music
Rebecca Bruton, Meredith Bates
Gillian McKercher
Gillian McKercher is a Canadian writer, director, producer, and co-founder of Kino Sum Productions. Before she dedicated herself entirely to cinema, she worked in engineering and the DIY Calgary arts scene. Gillian’s work often explores family, labour, and the intersection of energy and the environment. Her first feature film as writer/director, Circle of Steel, won an Audience Award at the 2018 Calgary International Film Festival. She developed her sophomore feature, Lucky Star, while a resident at the Canadian Film Centre with the support of the CFC/Netflix Project Development Accelerator and Harold Greenberg Fund.
Filmography: Circle of Steel (2018)
Missing VIFF? Check out what's playing at the VIFF Centre
Mistura
This foodie film from Peru tells the story of a newly single socialite reinventing herself — and the local cuisine — after her husband has left her for a younger woman. Along the way, she finds support from unexpected places...
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.
GoodFellas
The ultimate crash and burn movie, Scorsese's exhilarating gangster film is infused with the excitement of fast cash, girls, guns and drugs. Yet this brazenly amoral movie also captures the brutality, betrayal, and spiritual void of the criminal world.
Reservoir Dogs
Quentin Tarantino announced himself to the world with this ingeniously fractured heist movie, carved into character-centric chapters, riffing breezily on pop culture, but counterpointing all this with blood-soaked intensity.