Visibly unsettled from the film’s early frames, Berlin-based piano student Laura (Paula Beer) is further shaken by a fatal car crash during a trip to the country. Physically unhurt but emotionally unstable, Laura is taken in by a local woman, Betty (Barbara Auer), with whom she develops an easy rapport. But when Laura meets Betty’s husband and son, she soon finds herself in an increasingly strange family situation.
With this eerie, enigmatic psychodrama, German director Christian Petzold returns to the Hitchcockian inspiration present in Phoenix (VIFF 2014), this time adding a gentle twist to the uncanny doublings of Vertigo (1958) by layering on the familial disquiet of Shadow of a Doubt (1943). A standout at the Directors’ Fortnight sidebar at Cannes, Miroirs No. 3 marks Petzold’s fourth collaboration with Paula Beer (Transit, Undine, Afire), who turns in a performance at once inscrutable and emotionally resonant. Titled after a composition by Maurice Ravel, the film is a masterful study of grief and the unusual things we do to cope with it.
Community Partner
Paula Beer, Barbara Auer, Matthias Brandt, Enno Trebs
Germany
2025
In German with English subtitles
At SFU Woodwards
At Fifth Avenue
Book Tickets
Credits & Director
Producer
Florian Koerner von Gustorf, Michael Weber, Anton Kaiser
Screenwriter
Christian Petzold
Cinematography
Hans Fromm
Editor
Bettina Böhler
Production Design
K.D. Gruber
Christian Petzold
Christian Petzold was born in Hilden in 1960. After studying German and theater at the Free University of Berlin, he studied film at the German Film and Television Academy Berlin (DFFB), directing his first feature film in 1995. Petzold’s film The State I Am In (2000) won Gold at the German Film Awards, and he was awarded the Berlinale Silver Bear for Best Director in 2012 for Barbara. His most recent film, Afire, won the Berlinale Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize in 2023.
Filmography: Ghost Trilogy (2000-2007); Jerichow (2008); Love in Times of Oppressive Systems Trilogy (2012-2018); Undine (2020); Afire (2023)
Photo by Marco Krueger
Missing VIFF? Check out what's playing at the VIFF Centre
Round Midnight: Ardeshir Plays Dexter Gordon
Loosely based on Bud Powell's time in Paris, Round Midnight (131 mins) is maybe the greatest of all films about jazz thanks to the towering performance of real-life jazz great Dexter Gordon. Saxophonist Ardeshir channels Gordon's vibe in his live set.
Montreal, ma belle
In this Valentine to discovering love later in life, the ever-elegant Joan Chen plays Feng Xia, a 53-year-old Chinese immigrant and mother in Montreal whose world is turned upside down when she meets and falls in love with a young Quebecoise.
Sirât
A desperate father (Sergi Lopez) searchers for his missing daughter through the spiritual wasteland of the Moroccan desert. An unforgettable sensory powerhouse, Sîrat will have you riveted and rattled for hours after the end credits have rolled.
Mr. Nobody Against Putin
Nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary, and Special Jury Prize Winner, Sundance, 2025, this exposé shot by a Russian primary teacher shows how the Putin propaganda machine works to militarize children.