Kunsel (Tenzin Kunsel) is an introverted young woman living in the Tibetan immigrant community of west Toronto, where she commits petty theft and spies on her neighbours through a camcorder. However, when newcomer Passang (Sonam Choekyi) moves into the neighbourhood with her much older husband, Kunsel is gradually drawn out of her solitary, watchful existence. The presence of a dhikuti — a communal lending practice in which participants contribute a fixed monthly sum to be redistributed back to community members — adds a $200,000 payout to an already volatile mix of intrigue and betrayal.
Titled after the apartment complex address around which the film is set, Kunsang Kyirong’s auspicious debut feature is a richly detailed portrait of Toronto’s Tibetan Canadian community, as well as a fascinating character study of two women alienated in more ways than one. Reminiscent of the icy post-Hitchcockian thrillers of Claude Chabrol, this is the rare film whose enigmas only deepen as it unfolds.
Oct 3 & 5: Q&A
Presented by
Media Partner
Tenzin Kunsel, Sonam Choekyi, Tsering Bawa, Lobsang Tenzin, Tsering Gyatso, Tsering Dolma
Canada
2025
In Tibetan and English with English subtitles
Book Tickets
Credits & Director
Executive Producer
Dan Montgomery, Madeleine Davis, Joaquin Cardoner
Producer
Joaquin Cardoner, Kunsang Kyirong, Kristina Wong
Screenwriter
Kunsang Kyirong
Cinematography
Nikolay Michaylov
Editor
Brendan Mills
Production Design
Dialla Kawar
Original Music
Tashi Dorji
Kunsang Kyirong
Kunsang Kyirong is a filmmaker and artist. Her films integrate documentary methods into fiction, often exploring the impacts of immigration on culture and human relationships. Her film Dhulpa (2022), shot inside a laundry facility in Canada, was produced by the Canada Council for the Arts and won the Jury Prize at the Festival du Nouveau Cinéma. She is currently working on an exhibition with the Museum of Anthropology, UBC.
Filmography: Dhulpa (2022)
Missing VIFF? Check out what's playing at the VIFF Centre
NAZA
NAZA is a codeword euphemistically used by Israeli intelligence to indicate the number of civilians it expects will be killed in an airstrike. This chilling documentary exposes the policy and process of state-sanctioned mass killings.
The Sandbox
Borders are the faultlines of the world. Kenya-Jade Pinto's doc examines how modern surveillance technology, bio-metrics and AI are combining to make land and sea borders as impenetrable as air travel, and suggests the unspoken cost is our own humanity.
Atonement
A former Marine suffering from PTSD seeks a meeting with the Iraqi family to which he did great wrong ten years earlier in the Gulf War. Atonement navigates challenging, politically-charged psychological territory with diligence and sensitivity.
The Pervert's Guide to Ideology
Slavoj Zizek re-teams with director Sophie Fiennes for another wildly entertaining romp through the crossroads of cinema and philosophy. From The Sound of Music to Titanic, Jaws to The Dark Knight, Zizek offers new ways to understanding Hollywood.
The Pervert's Guide to Cinema
The Pervert's Guide to Cinema takes the viewer on an exhilarating ride through some of the greatest movies ever made (Hitchcock, Lynch, Tarkovsky et al). Serving as guide is Slavoj Zizek, the superstar Slovenian philosopher and psychoanalyst.
You Had to Be There
In a strange quirk of fate, the legendary Toronto '72 production of the musical comedy Jesus hit Godspell launched a constellation of comedy stars, all unknown at the time but now known to us as Martin Short, Eugene Levy, Dave Thomas, Victor Garber, et al