Sook-Yin Lee adapts a graphic novel by her ex-boyfriend, Canadian cartoonist Chester Brown, about the end of their relationship and Brown’s subsequent decision to start paying for sex. Dan Beirne (The Twentieth Century) plays Brown, and he’s joined by a cast that includes Emily Lê as Lee stand-in Sonny and Andrea Werhun as Yulissa, the sex worker who forms a long-term bond with Brown.
Paying For It is admirably frank, and Lee is unafraid to venture into uncomfortable areas. The film is set in the 90s and aughts, and the progressive-minded curiosity of Brown, Yulissa, and Sonny casts them as well ahead of their time: their questioning of sexual conventions is daring even for 2024. Beirne plays Brown as a calm, curious adventurer who is unwilling to be held back by taboos, and Werhun shines as the ingratiating prostitute who matches his needs, both sexual and social. Lê’s Sonny is likewise a charming character, lovable for her honesty as she navigates the uncertain territory of sex in the contemporary world.
Sept 30: Q&A with director Sook-Yin Lee; actor Emily Lê; author Chester Brown; and editor Anna Catley
Oct 1: Q&A with director Sook-Yin Lee; actor Emily Lê; and author Chester Brown
Community Partner
Daniel Beirne, Emily Lê, Andrea Werhun, Noah Lamanna
Canada
2024
English
Book Tickets
Indigenous & Community Access
Indigenous Access Tickets Community Access Tickets Ticket Donation Requests
Credits & Director
Executive Producer
Dan Beirne, John Cameron Mitchell
Producer
Matt Code, Sonya Di Rienzo, Aeschylus Poulos
Screenwriter
Sook-Yin Lee, Joanne Sarazen
Cinematography
Gayle Ye
Editor
Anna Catley
Production Design
Olivia D’Oliveira
Original Music
Dylan Gamble, Sook-Yin Lee
Sook-Yin Lee
Sook-Yin Lee is a Toronto-based filmmaker, musician, actor, and broadcaster. She starred in Shortbus (2006), the ground-breaking 2SLGBTQ movie that premiered at the Cannes Film Festival. Her feature film writer and directorial debut, Year of the Carnivore (2009), premiered at TIFF. Lee won the 2014 Canadian Screen Award for Best Performance by a Lead Dramatic Actress in Jack. In 2019, she wrote and performed Unsafe for Canadian Stage, which examined questions of censorship and artistic freedom. She won Best Director and Best Picture at the 2018 Downtown Los Angeles Film Festival for Octavio is Dead! Lee co-created the experimental comedies Rest and Relax (2024) and Death and Sickness (2020, CBC Gem), as well as contributing songs to Infinity Pool (2023) and Antiviral (2012).
Filmography: Year of the Carnivore (2009); Octavio is Dead! (2018); Death and Sickness (2020); Rest and Relax (2024)
Photo by Dylan Gamble
Missing VIFF? Check out what's playing at the VIFF Centre
Palimpsest: The Story of a Name
Drawing on home movies and diaries from the 1930s, 40s, 50s and 60s, Canadian filmmaker Mary Stephen (Eric Rohmer's editor for many years) investigates the origins of her surname. After all, she was born in Hong Kong to Chinese parents. Or were they... ?
Buffalo '66
Vincent Gallo's directorial debut is an eccentric, provocative comedy which laces a poignant love story with both a sombre, washed-out naturalism and surreal musical vignettes. This one is something different...
Run Lola Run
In the hyper intense world of pre-millennial Berlin, Lola has just 20 minutes to come up with a 100,000 Deutchmarks or her boyfriend cops it. He's asking the right woman: Lola won't stop til she's saved the day... It's Speed, in the multiverse...
Saving Private Ryan
Steven Spielberg's gripping war movie was hailed as an instant classic in 1998, and he won his second Academy Award in five years for Best Director. Matt Damon takes the title role, Tom Hanks is charged with bringing him home from the front.
Searching for Satyrus
Award-winning filmmaker and photographer Rena Effendi embarks on a quest to track down the very rare Satyrus Effendi, a butterfly discovered by her father in the mountains of Aberbaijain. But what she finds is altogether more personal, and more upsetting.