Skip to main content
Sharp Corner film image; man looking into a car at the driver

Sharp Corner

Showcase

This event has passed

Jason Buxton’s thriller stars Ben Foster as Josh, a husband and father who comes unmoored from the safety of middle-class life. When he, his wife Rachel (Cobie Smulders), and their young son Max (William Kosovic) move into a home on the outskirts of town, they discover something the realtor hadn’t flagged: the road in front of their property contains the sharp corner of the title. A deadly car accident happens on their first night of occupancy, and things get worse from there…

Less a film about physical danger than one about emotional pathology, Sharp Corner gains in power as Josh becomes increasingly obsessed with car crashes—not out of fear, as a more conventional film might portray, but rather out of a perverse attraction. Foster plays the role with just enough understatement to match the film’s mode of escalating menace, and Buxton directs with a terrific feel for social tension, escalating derangement, and the small but decisive shifts with which we can go over the edge.

 

Sept 27: Q&A with director Jason Buxton and producer Paul Barkin

Sept 28: Q&A with director Jason Buxton

Director
Cast

Ben Foster, Cobie Smulders, Gavin Drea, William Kosovic

Credits
Country of Origin

Canada/Ireland

Year

2024

Language

English

Film Contact
18+

At International Village

19+

At Fifth Avenue

110 min
Drama
Alcina Pictures, Shut Up & Colour Pictures, Kobalt Films, Workhorse Pictures

Book Tickets

This event has passed.

Credits & Director

Executive Producer

Cameron MacLaren, Kristen Figeroid, Marc Schaberg, Noah Segal, Adrian Love, Laurie May, Peter Graham, Stephen Hays, Donald Johnston, Sheila Johnston, Robert Munroe

Producer

Paul Barkin, Marc Tetreault, Jason Levangie, Jason Buxton, Susan Mullen

Screenwriter

Jason Buxton

Cinematography

Guy Godfree

Editor

Jorge Weisz

Production Design

Jennifer Stewart

Original Music

Stephen McKeon

Jason Buxton headshot; Sharp Corner director

Jason Buxton

Jason Buxton was born in England and raised in Nova Scotia. He studied film at Simon Fraser University, and holds a BFA from Nova Scotia College of Art and Design. His debut feature Blackbird (2012) won Best Canadian First Feature at TIFF.

Filmography: Blackbird (2012)

Missing VIFF? Check Out What's Playing at the VIFF Centre

The Great McGinty

Dir. Preston Sturges
82 min

Preston Sturges' first film as writer-director is an omnivorous satire on endemic political corruption, the tale of a tramp who gets his entry into politics by casting 37 votes for mayor at $2 a pop. Eventually he'll be on the ticket himself...

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre
La Bola Negra
La Bola Negra film image; man playing a trumpet

La Bola Negra

Dir. Javier Ambrossi, Javier Calvo
155 min

A big, old-school historical melodrama gets a thrillingly modern, queer makeover from Spanish duo Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi, who artfully juggle three gay protagonists across stories set in 1932, 1937, and 2017. Winner: Best Director, Cannes. Screening on 35mm.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

To Be Or Not To Be

Dir. Ernst Lubitsch
99 min

Strange but true: one of the greatest comedies of Hollywood's golden era was inspired by Hitler's annexation of Poland in 1938. Jack Benny is the renowned theatre actor whose performance of Hamlet is interrupted by the Germans.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre
The History of Concrete
The History of Concrete film image; man smoothing just-poured concrete sidewalk

The History of Concrete

Dir. John Wilson
101 min

After attending a workshop on pitching saccharine Hallmark movies, John Wilson tries to apply all the same best practices to his documentary about concrete. Frequently absurd and endlessly entertaining detours, asides, and digressions ensue.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre
More info

Sold Out

The Mad Dog of Europe

Dir. Rubika Shah
83 min

The story of an unmade screenplay from the writer of Citizen Kane. In 1932, Herman Mankiewicz wrote a film that foretold the persecution of the Jews and the war in Europe. But Hollywood wouldn't take the risk and The Mad Dog of Europe was never made.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

The Mortal Storm

Dir. Frank Borzage
100 min

In this explicitly anti-Nazi melodrama directed by Frank Borzage (Three Comrades) a year before the US entered the war, Margaret Sullavan and James Stewart fall in love as their friends and family fall prey to the rise of Hitler's Nazi party in Germany.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre