When the first manned mission to Mars hits turbulence due to personality clashes amongst the crew, the higher-ups devise a high concept solution: create a simulacrum of the spacecraft, stock it with five surrogates who possess the same personalities as the feuding astronauts, and have them re-enact the events occurring light minutes away. And so it is that David (Steve Laplante), a P.E. teacher, achieves an approximation of his childhood dream to journey to the stars. And while he earnestly believes he’s making a difference, it seems far more likely that he’s being made the butt of some cosmic joke. Is it possible to find your purpose when you’ve been stripped of all of your agency?
Marking the long-awaited return of Stéphane Lafleur (Tu dors Nicole), Viking never speculates whether there’s intelligent life on Mars. However, it certainly contends that there’s rampant absurdity here on Earth. To use the parlance of the film, Lafleur’s cast displays “complete commitment to the mission” by dialing into the film’s deadpan wavelengths and mining poignancy from this folly.
Special Mention for Best Canadian Feature Film (Amplify Voices), TIFF 2022
Steve Laplante, Larissa Corriveau, Fabiola N. Aladin, Hamza Haq, Denis Houle, Marie Brassard
Canada
2022
In French and English with English subtitles
Book Tickets
Missing VIFF? Check Out What's Playing at the VIFF Centre
You Had to Be There
In a strange quirk of fate, the legendary Toronto '72 production of the musical comedy Jesus hit Godspell launched a constellation of comedy stars, all unknown at the time but now known to us as Martin Short, Eugene Levy, Dave Thomas, Victor Garber, et al
House of Hope
"House of Hope" is the name of a Waldorf elementary school near Jerusalem in the occupied West Bank, founded by Manar and her husband Milad. This documentary follows their efforts to go about their lives before, during, and after the events of October 7.
Knife: The Attempted Murder of Salman Rushdie
Alex Gibney's doc relates the near-lethal attack on Salman Rushdie in 2022, the writer's painful rehab and recovery, and his reflections on life before, during and after the publication of The Satanic Verses.
The Sandbox
Borders are the faultlines of the world. Kenya-Jade Pinto's doc examines how modern surveillance technology, bio-metrics and AI are combining to make land and sea borders as impenetrable as air travel, and suggests the unspoken cost is our own humanity.
Atonement
A former Marine suffering from PTSD seeks a meeting with the Iraqi family to which he did great wrong ten years earlier in the Gulf War. Atonement navigates challenging, politically-charged psychological territory with diligence and sensitivity.
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.
Credits
Producer
Luc Déry, Kim McCraw
Screenwriter
Stéphane Lafleur, Eric K. Boulianne
Cinematography
Sara Mishara
Editor
Sophie Leblond
Production Design
André-Line Beauparlant
Original Music
Organ Mood, Christophe Lamarche-Ledoux, Mathieu Charbonneau
Director
Stéphane Lafleur
Stéphane Lafleur is a filmmaker, musician, and film editor. His first feature film, Continental, un film sans fusil (2007), had its world premiere at the Venice International Film Festival’s Venice Days section and won the Citytv Award for Best Canadian First Feature Film at TIFF. En terrains connus (2011) won the Ecumenical Jury Prize at the Berlinale, Best Narrative Feature at the Los Angeles Film Festival, and the Grand Jury Prize at the Taipei Film Festival. Tu dors Nicole (2014), his third feature, premiered in the Directors’ Fortnight at Cannes and screened at TIFF and other film festivals.
Filmography: Continental, un film sans fusil (2007); En terrains connus (2011); Tu dors Nicole (2014)