Skip to main content
The Scout film image; two people standing at a distance in a bedroom

The Scout

This event has passed

International Premiere

Paula González-Nasser’s directorial debut rings with authenticity. Casually — albeit with an undercurrent of mounting stress — the film portrays slightly more than one day in the working life of an NYC location scout. Sofia (Mimi Davila) arrives to work late then proceeds through leafleting, awkward interviews, traffic jams, and unwanted male flirtation, always with an air of stoicism, although Davila’s performance shows the anxiety ratcheting slowly up. There are moments when Sofia is told how cool her job is, and there is indeed something appealing about the home visits, the idiosyncratic residents, and the showbiz backdrop. Very often, though, her work is a drag…

Graced with gentle, naturalistic performances, and a humour that springs from recognizability, The Scout is a film one inhabits. Sofia’s job gives the film its format: brief social interactions linked by precious time spent multitasking in transit. Each property-owner registers as a unique, fully inhabited character, and the encounters — which range from cozy to creepy — have the feel of real conversations in all their unsteadiness.

Director
Cast

Mimi Davila, Rutanya Alda, Max Rosen, Ikechukwu Ufomadu, Sarah Herrman, Alex Goldberg

Credits
Country of Origin

USA

Year

2025

Language

English

Film Contact
18+
89 min
Comedy Drama Women Directors
5th Floor Pictures

Book Tickets

This event has passed.

Credits & Director

Executive Producer

Sarah Herrman, Hannah D. Kettering, Roger Mancusi, Jess Zeidman

Producer

Ryan Martin Brown, Matthew Romanski, Paula González-Nasser

Screenwriter

Paula González-Nasser

Cinematography

Nicola Newton

Editor

Ryan Martin Brown, Byron Leon

Production Design

Alexandra Añez

Original Music

Dan Arnés

Paula González-Nasser headshot

Paula González-Nasser

Paula González-Nasser is a Colombian-born, New York-based director and producer. She is the co-founder of 5th Floor Pictures, a production collective through which she has produced short and feature films including Melina Valdez’s Weapons And Their Names (Sundance 2023) and Ryan Martin Brown’s Free Time (2024). González-Nasser is a two-time Gotham Film Week participant and a 2023 Sundance Producer’s Intensive Fellow. Her directorial debut feature, The Scout, was selected as part of the American Film Festival’s US in Progress showcase in 2024.

 

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

Left-Handed Girl

Dir. Shih-Ching Tsou
109 min

Co-written and edited by Sean Baker (Anora), Shi-Ching Tsou's heartwarming solo feature debut follows a single mom in Taipei who is too consumed with her noodle stand to keep tabs on her five-year-old daughter's burgeoning shoplifting habit.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

The Librarians

Dir. Kim A Snyder
92 min

Dispatches from the front line of America's culture wars (and ours too): librarians speak out about the war against ideas, history, freedom of expression and sexual identity, a campaign in which an open mind is the ultimate enemy.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre
More info

Sold Out

Caravaggio

Dir. David Bickerstaff & Phil Grabsky
100 min

In the latest from Exhibition on Screen, co-directors David Bickerstaff and Phil Grabsky shed light not only on Caravaggio's paintings, but his life, often kept half-hidden in the same chiaroscuro tones he shaded his masterpieces with.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

Train Dreams

Dir. Clint Bentley
104 min

A lovely, ruminative movie set in the Pacific Northwest in the first half of the last century. Robert (Joel Edgerton) is a lumberjack, a taciturn man who comes to appreciate the life slipping between his fingers.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

Little Amelie or the Character of Rain

Dir. Mailys Vallade & Liane-Cho Han
90 min

Baby Amelie believes herself to be a god. Her parents (Belgian diplomats in 60s Japan) can barely cope -- but find the perfect nanny to restore order in this delightful animated feature.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

Orwell: 2+2=5

Dir. Raoul Peck
119 min

Oscar-nominated director Raoul Peck reimagines 1984 in this urgent essay on power, language, and control. With narration by Damian Lewis, it’s a chilling portrait of how Orwell’s warnings became our reality.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre