Canadian Premiere
Jim Jarmusch is a master of short form cinema, evidenced not only by the diner compendium Coffee and Cigarettes, but in his early films Down by Law, Mystery Train, and Night on Earth, each of which wrapped simple vignettes into a pungent narrative bouquet. So it seems fitting that the erstwhile Young Turk of the 1980s indie scene should return to this format in his 70s, reuniting with Down by Law–star Tom Waits, who plays a reclusive father visited by his grown children (Adam Driver and Mayim Bialik) in the first of three filially minded tales.
In the second episode, Cate Blanchette and Vicky Krieps play sisters visiting their novelist mother (Charlotte Rampling) in Dublin, while in the triptych’s final segment Indya Moore and Luka Sabbat play twins called back to their Paris apartment to address a family tragedy. Subtle and understated, wry and moving, Father Mother Sister Brother is Jarmusch at his best: minimalist with an unerring eye for the essence of things.
Golden Lion, Venice 2025
Oct 10: Intro by cinematographer Frederick Elmes
Media Partner
Jim Jarmusch
Tom Waits, Adam Driver, Mayim Bialik, Charlotte Rampling, Cate Blanchett, Vicky Kriep
USA/Ireland/France
2025
In English and French with English subtitles
At Vancouver Playhouse
At The Rio
Book Tickets
Credits
Producer
Joshua Astrachan, Carter Logan, Atilla Salih Yücer, Charles Gillibert, Richard Bolger
Screenwriter
Jim Jarmusch
Cinematography
Frederick Elmes, Yorick Le Saux
Editor
Affonso Gonçalves
Production Design
Mark Friedberg, Marco Bittner Rosser
Original Music
Jim Jarmusch, Anika
Missing VIFF? Check out what's playing at the VIFF Centre
All That's Left of You
Jordan's submission for the Academy Awards, All That's Left of You makes the most of its epic format to chronicle seven decades of Palestinian history while tracking the psychological impact of cycles of exile and oppression on three generations.
L'Étranger
Recreating 1940s Algeria in vivid, high contrast black and white cinematography, L'Etranger is erotic, enigmatic and brutal in equal measures, a masterful screen version of Albert Camus's insoluble classic of existential alienation.
Sentimental Value
A once-revered director crashes back into his family’s lives, eager to recruit his daughter for a film role. When she declines, he finds a new muse in an eager but unpolished Hollywood star, sending his botched reconciliation spiraling into chaos.
The Mother and the Bear
Johnny Ma’s film stars Kim Ho-jung as a Korean woman who flies to Winnipeg when her immigrant daughter is hospitalized there. This crowd-pleaser plays up cultural differences to hilarious effect and offers a touching take on mother-daughter tension.
Islands
In this sly, engrossing mystery, a dissolute English tennis coach in a Canary Islands holiday resort falls under suspicion when the husband of a beautiful guest disappears after a night of heavy drinking...
