With the 2024 Vancouver International Film Festival starting up, here are five films we are most excited about seeing. Check back to see our reviews and wrap up podcast after the festival! Previews are by both Pierre Frigon and Dakota Arsenault and indicated as such.
Directed By: Lin Jianjie
Starring: Zu Feng, Guo Keyu, Sun Xilun
Synopsis: Lin Jianjie’s film starts with a tense ambiguity: when Wei hits Shuo in the head with a basketball during gym class, is it an accident or a malicious act? The incident draws the two high school students together, with a remorseful Wei inviting the taciturn Shuo over to his house. It’s there that Shuo meets Wei’s parents, and over the course of more visits, they come to value him over their own son…
Why I’m Excited: I’m very intrigued by the last sentence of the synopsis. For context, this movie occurs during the period of time under the one-child policy in China. I think the psychology behind the mindset of citizens at the time, could play very intensely with the relationship between parent and child. – PF
Directed By: Aaron Schimberg
Starring: Sebastian Stan, Renate Reinsve, Adam Pearson
Synopsis: Edward is a facially disfigured man who leads a life of self-consciousness and awkward social encounters. His new neighbour Ingrid is an aspiring playwright, and for a moment it looks like he might have a chance at romance with her; alas, she rejects him. Soon after, Edward begins an experimental drug therapy that cures his affliction and allows him to assume a new identity. Years later, he discovers that Ingrid has written a play based on the two of them and decides to audition incognito. However, his bids at self-assurance are undermined by an extroverted stranger who is exceedingly comfortable in his own skin.
Why I’m Excited: This has a really intriguing cast first and foremost. Sebastian Stan is a bit hit or miss for me, but still is a solid actor and I appreciate the risks he takes. Renate Reinsve turned in one of my favourite performances from the last few years in The Worst Person in the World and Adam Pearson had a small but memorable part in Under the Skin. It sounds like the movie will be balancing several different genres and will likely shine a light on physical disabilities that too often are ignored or mocked in art. – DA
Directed By: Abderrahmane Sissako
Starring: Nina Melo, Chang Han, Wu Ke-xi
Synopsis: After turning down her unfaithful fiancé at the altar, Aya leaves the Ivory Coast and starts a dreamy new life at a gourmet tea shop in Guangzhou, China. As her employer Cai teaches her the ancient art of the tea ceremony, a sensual romance brews between them. But Cai is haunted by an unrealized dream: to be reunited with his estranged daughter Eva in Cape Verde, the child of an affair he kept hidden from his ex-wife Ying. Must he keep a lid on his relationship with Aya too?
Why I’m Excited: I find it rare to see a romantic pairing that brings conflict of age and also different cultural backgrounds. Seems there’s a lot to play with here, and after learning that it’s based on a real couple, I’d love to see how they balance the realism with the dramatic. – PF
Directed By: Sook-Yin Lee
Starring: Dan Beirne, Emily Le, Andrea Werhun
Synopsis: Sook-Yin Lee adapts a graphic novel by her ex-boyfriend, Canadian cartoonist Chester Brown, about the end of their relationship and Brown’s subsequent decision to start paying for sex.
Why I’m Excited: The whole backstory behind this movie is incredibly interesting. I think Lee, capturing the perspective of her ex-boyfriends real life coping with their break up, in her own way provides such a layered set up for what I’m sure will be a very emotionally vulnerable movie, for both Lee and Chester Brown. – PF
Directed By: Malcolm Washington
Starring: Samuel L. Jackson, John David Washington, Ray Fisher, Danielle Deadwyler
Synopsis: We are in Pittsburgh, 1936. Boy Willie shows up unannounced at the home of his widowed sister, Berniece. He brings with him a friend — Lymon — a truckload of watermelons, and a plan to capitalize on the ornately carved piano that sits, neglected, in the living room. Berniece, however, is having none of it.
Why I’m Excited: This is the third film that Denzel Washington is producing based on plays written by August Wilson (after Fences and Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom) and here he gives the reins to his youngest child Malcolm to make his directorial debut and starring his eldest son John David. While I didn’t particularly love both Fences and Black Bottom as I found them too stagey, I appreciate their importance and have enjoyed the world getting to know Wilson’s work better. Denzel plans to bring all ten plays in the “Pittsburgh Cycle” to the screen, so expect seven more films after this one. – DA
