Canadian Premiere
Think you have a stressful job? Try trading places with Heike (Sabine Thalau), the overworked, underpaid manager of a cleaning crew. In addition to supervising harried workers, she does much of the same work they do: mopping, wiping, hauling, and more. She also has to placate angry clients, colleagues, and superiors, all of whom are frequently at her neck. Faced with harassment and threats from above, Heike is forced to make a hard decision regarding a vulnerable worker — one that constitutes a double betrayal and turns a good friend against her…
Director Kilian Armando Friedrich draws on his own time as a cleaner and utilizes a cast of non-professionals with similar experience. These include lead actor Thalau, who demonstrates the hardship of her labours superbly: every exhausted breath, every arduous lift, every plea or order uttered registers its cost on her body and soul. I Understand Your Displeasure is a film of urgent, intense realism, and it imbues its embattled characters with a special dignity.
Supported by
Community Partner
Sabine Thalau, Nada Kosturin, Werner Posselt, Sadibou Diabang, Nigyar Velagic
Germany
2026
In German, Croatian, Bosnian, and Turkish with English subtitles
At The Cinematheque
At Fifth Ave
Book Tickets
Indigenous & Community Access
Indigenous Access Tickets Community Access Tickets Ticket Donation Requests
Credits & Director
Producer
Ben Ulrich, Simon Bogocz, Felix Mann
Screenwriter
Kilian Armando Friedrich, Tünde Sautier, Daniel Kunz
Cinematography
Louis Dickhaut, Frederik Seeberger
Editor
Leila Fatima Keita, Kilian Armando Friedrich
Production Design
Michelle Kleist, Florian Ufer
Kilian Armando Friedrich
Kilian Armando Friedrich studied performing arts in Hildesheim and Madrid, followed by film directing with a focus on documentary in Munich and Mexico City. His documentary Nomades du nucléaire premiered at the 2023 Berlinale and won the German Short Film Award in the medium-length category. He also works as a media educator on intercultural film projects. I Understand Your Displeasure (2026) is his debut feature film.
Missing VIFF? Check Out What's Playing at the VIFF Centre
La Bola Negra
A big, old-school historical melodrama gets a thrillingly modern, queer makeover from Spanish duo Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi, who artfully juggle three gay protagonists across stories set in 1932, 1937, and 2017. Winner: Best Director, Cannes. Screening on 35mm.
The History of Concrete
After attending a workshop on pitching saccharine Hallmark movies, John Wilson tries to apply all the same best practices to his documentary about concrete. Frequently absurd and endlessly entertaining detours, asides, and digressions ensue.
The Mad Dog of Europe
The story of an unmade screenplay from the writer of Citizen Kane. In 1932, Herman Mankiewicz wrote a film that foretold the persecution of the Jews and the war in Europe. But Hollywood wouldn't take the risk and The Mad Dog of Europe was never made.
NAZA
NAZA is a codeword euphemistically used by Israeli intelligence to indicate the number of civilians it expects will be killed in an airstrike. This chilling documentary exposes the policy and process of state-sanctioned mass killings.
The Mortal Storm
In this explicitly anti-Nazi melodrama directed by Frank Borzage (Three Comrades) a year before the US entered the war, Margaret Sullavan and James Stewart fall in love as their friends and family fall prey to the rise of Hitler's Nazi party in Germany.
Three Comrades
Scripted by F Scott Fitzgerald, Three Comrades (1938) was the first US studio film to chronicle the rise of European fascism in the 30s. Three German veterans open up a repair shop and try to regain a normal life, but political extremists have other ideas.