Skip to main content
Arco film image; animated girl clinging to someone who has light beaming from their forehead

Arco

This event has passed

The spirits of Hayao Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli run clear and deep in this limpid, hand-drawn animated feature from French comic book artist and illustrator Ugo Bienvenu. Set in the year 2075, technology has eclipsed a natural world afflicted by environmental crises. Yet, this is not the dystopian sci-fi we might expect. Iris is a young girl predominantly raised by a live-in robot, Mikki. Chasing a rainbow through the woods, she comes across Arco, a boy who’s stolen a time-travelling suit from his scientist parents and crash-landed in Iris’s time. Can Iris help him get back to the future?

Three things stand out above all in Bienvenu’s film: its unsentimental yet hopeful vision; the director’s love of bold primary colours (especially in Arco’s rainbow suit); and Arnaud Toulon’s sweeping, emotional score. This is a sweet, futuristic fantasy.

 

Community Partner

     

Director
Cast

Natalie Portman, Alma Jodorowsky, Swann Arlaud, Vincent Macaigne, Louis Garrel

Credits
Country of Origin

France

Year

2025

Language

English

Film Contact
18+
88 min
Action Animation
Remembers, MountainA France, France 3 Cinéma

Book Tickets

This event has passed.

Credits & Director

Executive Producer

Audrey Tondre

Producer

Félix de Givry, Sophie Mas, Natalie Portman, Ugo Bienvenu

Screenwriter

Félix de Givry, Ugo Bienvenu

Cinematography

Ugo Bienvenu

ANIM

Adam Sillard

Editor

Nathan Jacquard

Production Design

Fabio Besse

Ugo Bienvenu headshot

Ugo Bienvenu

Filmography: Maman (2013); L’entretien (2019)

Photo by Remembers – MountainA

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

Two Prosecutors

Dir. Sergei Loznitsa
119 min

In the midst of Stalin’s purges, a naïve prosecutor sets out to investigate a prisoner’s innocence, unaware of the labyrinthine bureaucracy awaiting him. A Kafkaesque procedural thriller about the pursuit of justice in the face of corruption.

Image: © SBS Productions

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

The Blue Trail

Dir. Gabriel Mascaro
86 min

77-year-old Tereza makes a break for the Brazilian jungle in this trippy septuagenarian fantasy, the latest from Brazilian director Gabriel Mascaro is a quirky picaresque, lushly photographed and filled with mordant humour.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

Calle Málaga

Dir. Maryam Touzani
116 min

Seventy-nine-year-old María Ángeles lives independently in Tangier's Spanish quarter. When her daughter pressures her into selling her apartment, she refuses to give in, finding in her old age a new resilience and an unexpected romantic connection.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema
El Suavecito
El Suavecito film image; group of people gathered in a room

El Suavecito

Dir. Fernando Méndez
99 min

Victor Parra is Roberto, "el Suavecito", the smoothie. Sprinkling his Spanish with slang and English, and sporting a Zoot suit, he's a gangster-wannabe, an obnoxious macho who isn't quite as tough as he likes to make out...

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

Krystle dos Santos + Dawn Pemberton: Meet Me at Vie's + Union Street

Dir. Jamila Pomeroy
154 min

Enjoy a sneak preview of Krystle dos Santos's upcoming musical celebration of the Hogan's Alley Black community in Strathcona, with songs performed by Krystle and Dawn Pemberton, followed by Jamila Pomeroy's documentary Union Street.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

Él (This Strange Passion)

Dir. Luis Buñuel
93 min

A seemingly genteel and highly reputable gentleman reveals his true nature on his wedding night in this searing melodrama from surrealist Luis Buñuel, one of the most shocking films from his Mexican period.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema