Skip to main content
A Private Life film image; woman looking over her shoulder while opening a filing cabinet

A Private Life

Vie privée

Special Presentations

This event has passed

Rebecca Zlotowski’s comic psychodrama features Jodie Foster at her best. Foster plays Lilian Steiner, an American psychiatrist who lives and works in Paris. When a longtime patient dies from an overdose of pharmaceuticals, Steiner is shocked and distressed. She comes to suspect foul play, but who’s the killer? Is it Valérie (Luàna Bajrami-Rahmani), her patient’s daughter? Is it Simon (Mathieu Amalric), her husband? There’s no shortage of unusual facts surrounding the death, but are they genuine evidence, or is Steiner just paranoid?

Foster balances restraint and intensity beautifully throughout the film — a rare and precious gift for an actor — and she uses every bit of her talent to dramatize the role of a shrink who can’t recognize their own neuroses. Amalric and Bajrami-Rahmani are stellar, as is Daniel Auteuil as Lillian’s ex-husband and Virginie Efira as Steiner’s patient Paula. Zlotowski’s film expertly combines the amusements of satire with the pleasures of a good mystery thriller.

 

Supported by

Director

Rebecca Zlotowski

Cast

Jodie Foster, Virginie Efira, Mathieu Amalric, Daniel Auteuil, Vincent Lacoste, Luàna Bajrami

Credits
Country of Origin

France

Year

2025

Language

In English and French with English subtitles

Film Contact
18+
103 min
Action Comedy Drama Family Relations Women Directors
Les Films Velvet

Book Tickets

This event has passed.

Credits

Executive Producer

Albert Blasius

Producer

Frédéric Jouve

Screenwriter

Anne Berest

Cinematography

George Lechaptois

Editor

Géraldine Mangenot

Production Design

Katia Wyszkop

Original Music

Robin Coudert

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

Andrei Rublev

Dir. Andrei Tarkovsky
183 min

Andrei Tarkovsky's vast and vivid episodic epic tells the story of a Russian monk and painter of religious icons 1400-1428, during the time of the Tartar invasions.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

Hanging by a Wire

Dir. Mohammed Ali Naqvi
78 min

The Himalayas, Aug 22, 2023: a cable car bearing 8 passengers (six of them schoolkids) is left dangling 900 feet above the ground when two out of three cables snap. This nailbiting documentary recounts the increasingly frantic rescue attempts.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

The Sun Never Sets

Dir. Joe Swanberg
102 min

At the suggestion of her much older (divorced) boyfriend, Wendy (Dakota Fanning) takes a summer to reevaluate her life and date other people. She's reluctant at first, but then reconnects with an old flame... A gentle indie comedy from Joe Swanberg.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

Notorious

Dir. Alfred Hitchcock
112 min

In the first of a new series of collaborations with Vancouver Opera, we explore the affinities between Puccini's Tosca and Hitchcock's classic thriller, Notorious, starring Ingrid Bergman and Cary Grant.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

A Sad and Beautiful World

Dir. Cyril Aris
110 min

This Lebanese love story chronicles the romance between a level-headed businesswoman and a romantic restauranteur across several decades in wartorn Beirut. It's funny, charming, melancholy and you'll feel it all.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre
More info

Sold Out

American Doctor

Dir. Poh Si Teng
93 min

One of the most powerful documentaries of the year, this puts us smack in the open wound that is Gaza, filtered through the eyes of three American surgeons (of Palestinian, Jewish and Zoroastrian backgrounds) compelled to do their utmost to alleviate harm.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema