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
The Secret in Their Eyes
This month's Talking Pictures screening is a multi-layered, poignant thriller interweaving the personal lives of a prosecution investigator (Ricardo Darin) and a judge, with a manhunt spanning twenty-five years. Stay for cookies, coffee and a chat after!
The Haunting
Directed by Robert Wise in 1963, The Haunting is a classic exercise in the suggestive power of cinema, adapted from Shirley Jackson's 1959 best-seller, The Haunting of Hill House, a provocative blend of supernatural and psychological horror.
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.
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.
