Skip to main content
The Hands of Ida film image; text on blue screen

The Hands of Ida

This event has passed

Join us for an exclusive screening of The Hands of Ida, the only known copy of a repudiated TV movie written by Gerry Atwel and directed by the visionary Guy Maddin. Rumoured to have been destroyed in a black magic ceremony, this film aired only once on CKND TV in Winnipeg in 1995. Thanks to Paul Anthony, one of the film’s actors, who taped it off television, we can present it to you in all of its degraded glory.

What can you expect (but not possibly be prepared for)?
A woman named Ida endures a brutal assault where her hands are removed, sparking the rise of a female vigilante group targeting male assailants by cutting off their penises. Portraying a reality where men must be escorted by women to ensure their safety after dark.
“I am the anger of women,
You are the instruments of justice.
We are the hands of Ida.”

Preceded by:
Hollywood (North) Babylon: Paul Anthony Tells All!
Winner of nine Outstanding Actor Awards, Paul Anthony is probably best known for playing The Rainbow Raider on the television series The Flash. He will open the evening with a series of showbiz stories while screening various never-before-seen clips from his diverse career. Highlights include: his awkward first role on James Cameron’s Dark Angel; a challenging death scene in Larry Clark’s Masters of Horror; an embarrassing misunderstanding with Keenen Ivory Wayans that cost him a part in White Chicks; and a deleted (never aired) sex scene with Alan Cumming and Pam Grier on The L Word.

Presenter
Director
Country of Origin

Canada

Year

1995

Language

English

18+
60 min

Book Tickets

This event has passed.

Presenter

Paul Anthony headshot

Paul Anthony

Paul Anthony, a recipient of the BC Entertainment Hall of Fame Award, has performed in over 60 film and television projects including iZombie, Riverdale, Blade: Trinity, SUCK, A Gun to the Head, Stargate, the Emmy Award-winning Traffic and, of course, Guy Maddin’s The Hands of Ida. He is also the creator and host of the critically acclaimed Paul Anthony’s Talent Time, a live comedy/variety/talk show and public access TV program. The Globe & Mail’s Mathew Hays hailed it as “the most innovative…and inspired show” he has seen in years. An edited version of Paul Anthony’s Talent Time is available for binge-watching on TalentTime.biz.

Director

Guy Maddin headshot; Rumours director

Guy Maddin

Guy Maddin has directed thirteen feature-length movies in a career spanning over thirty years. For the past decade, he has worked exclusively in directorial partnership with Evan and Galen Johnson, creating The Forbidden Room (2015), The Green Fog (2017), and the internet interactive Seances (2016). During his solo helming years, Maddin mounted around the world over seventy performances of his films, Cowards Bend The Knee (2002), Brand Upon The Brain (2006), and My Winnipeg (2007) in productions featuring live elements – orchestra, sound effects, song and narration. His screenplay and film-story collaborators include Nobel Laureate Kazuo Ishiguro and poet John Ashbery. In America, his movies Archangel (1990) and The Heart Of The World (2000) won National Society of Film Critics Awards for Best Experimental Film.

Filmography: The Saddest Music in the World (2003); Brand Upon the Brain! (2006); My Winnipeg (2007); The Forbidden Room (2015)

Missing VIFF? Check out what's playing at the VIFF Centre

Short Forum 2: Anthropomaxx
The End film image; stop motion anthropomorphic animals ordering from a cafe counter

Short Forum 2: Anthropomaxx

112 min

Dogs, frogs, hogs, and more!

International Village 8
The Liberation
The Liberation film image; woman leading a group of people down a street

The Liberation

Dir. Guy Nattiv
124 min

Haunted by her past, Rita (a magnificent Carrie Coon) is lured to an all-female commune by a magnetic, manipulative spiritual leader (Lily James). An unsettling yet deeply empathetic exploration of personal freedom, devotion, and control.

Image: © Bleecker Street

Lindsay Family Stage at Granville Island
Tender Loving Care
Tender Loving Care film image; three women chatting by a window

Tender Loving Care

Dir. Mike Leigh
107 min

Mike Leigh’s film depicts the lives of Amy and Rosie, best friends and fellow social workers, who care for the dispossessed with all the strength they have. Sometimes it's funny, tragic, and often it's balancing both, this is a work of humble compassion.

Vancouver Playhouse The Rio Theatre
The Story of Documentary Film – The 2010s & 2020s
The Story of Documentary Film film image; man walking into a black smoking battleground

The Story of Documentary Film – The 2010s & 2020s

Dir. Mark Cousins
181 min

In The Story of Documentary Film – The 2010s & 2020s, Mark Cousins follows nonfiction into phones, GoPros, YouTube, TikTok, live streams, and feeds to look at bodily autonomy, surveillance, racism, borders, and truth after vérité.

Image: © Fire of Love, 2022, dir. Sara Dosa, Canada, USA, Sandbox Films, Cottage M, Intuitive Pictures, National Geographic Documentary Films

International Village 9 SFU Woodwards
A Girl Unknown
A Girl Unknown film image; woman crouching by a child on the beach

A Girl Unknown

Dir. Zou Jing
128 min

In this tender, compassionate drama, we see the hardships endured by a young girl adopted in the early 1980s during China’s one-child policy. As a teenager in the 90s, she’s still fighting to find a sense of belonging and assert her worth.

SFU Woodwards International Village 8
Concrete Land
Concrete Land film image; person sitting on a grassy hill

Concrete Land

Dir. Asmahan Bkerat
101 min

Filmed over eight years, Concrete Land follows the Najar family, one of Jordan’s last Afro-Palestinian-Bedouin families, as luxury villas close in on their grazing space outside Amman. Asmahan Bkerat preserves their way of life in the face of erasure.

Alliance Francaise