Rita (Carrie Coon), a woman haunted by the weight of her past, encounters Ricki (Lily James), a magnetic, manipulative spiritual leader, and abandons her family to follow the persuasive guru to an all-female commune. But when her daughters Ella (Bella Ramsey) and Jo (Odessa Young) arrive unexpectedly and become drawn into the group’s seductive world, Rita is forced to choose between the family she left behind and the life she believes can save her.
Drawing on his grandmother’s experiences as a Holocaust survivor, director Guy Nattiv crafts a gripping and psychologically complex account of the ends one might go to in a bid to liberate themselves from trauma and experience a semblance of salvation. Featuring an absolutely riveting performance from Coon, The Liberation is an unsettling yet deeply empathetic thriller that explores the themes of personal freedom, devotion, and control to devastating effect.
Sit down with Carrie Coon at her VIFF Talk, The Close-Up: In Conversation with Carrie Coon, on Oct 4.
Supported by
Carrie Coon, Lily James, Bella Ramsey, Odessa Young, Tracy Letts, Jaime Ray Newman
USA
2026
English
Book Tickets
Indigenous & Community Access
Indigenous Access Tickets Community Access Tickets Ticket Donation Requests
Credits & Director
Executive Producer
Daniel Bekerman, Jordan Hart, Neil Mathieson, Leonid Lebedev, Jessica Lacy, Andrew Karpen, Kent Sanderson, Ben Ross, Rami Yasin, Bryan Meng, Terence Chan
Producer
Julia Lebedev, Eddie Vaisman, Oren Moverman, Jaime Ray Newman, Guy Nattiv
Screenwriter
Guy Nattiv, Noa Berman Herzberg
Cinematography
Tudor Vladimir Panduru, Fabian Gamper
Editor
Yuval Orr, Sabine Hoffman
Production Design
Brian Kane
Original Music
Dascha Dauenhauer
Guy Nattiv
Guy Nattiv is an internationally acclaimed writer, director, and producer. His work includes SKIN, the Academy Award-winning short film and its FIPRESCI Prize-winning feature adaptation, GOLDA starring Helen Mirren, and TATAMI, which premiered at Venice and was acclaimed as a landmark collaboration.
Filmography: Skin (2018); Golda (2023); Tatami (2023)
Photo by Matt Kalish
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.
