The Vancouver International Film Festival ran from September 26th-October 6th and we had a large portion of our members in attendance. Along with the festival naming their award winners, we decided as a group to name our top 10 films that played. In total 47 different films were nominated by our critics and this represents the films with the most votes!
Thank you to all the members who voted and contributed to this article. Check out our Letterboxd list to add films to your watchlist.
10. Emilia Pérez
Director: Jacques Audiard Written By: Jacques Audiard, Thomas Bidegain, Nicolas Livecchi and Léa Mysius
Emilia Pérez intrigues the audience with a unique trans story and a stellar performance by this female forward lead cast. I was rooting for Emilia even when she fell back into some of her cruel and calculated ways. Presenting this story as a musical was an interesting choice, but I do think the musical numbers were a fantastic way to show what was going on inside for each of the characters. Even though this film was billed as a musical crime comedy I think musical tragedy would be more fitting.
Leanne McLaren
9. All We Imagine As Light
Director: Payal Kapadia Written By: Payal Kapadia
Payal Kapadia’s All We Imagine as Light carries a subtle weight, capturing a universal restlessness through its free-flowing narrative. Cinematographer Ranabir Das transforms Mumbai into a blue-tinged dreamscape, avoiding iconic landmarks in favor of melancholy backdrops. While the film forgoes dramatic peaks, tender performances by Kani Kusruti, Divya Prabha, and Chhaya Kadam create a gentle ode to female friendship, with its impact deepening over time. Complete with the unassuming use of liminal spaces and a graceful score, All We Imagine as Light is a fine modern example of slow cinema at its best.
Marta Djordjevic
8. Matt and Mara
Director: Kazik Radwanski Written By: Samantha Chater and Kazik Radwanski
Kazik Radwanski’s latest crafts a feature around the contrapuntal affects of its two leads, the steely, interior Deragh Campbell (for this writer’s money, one of our greatest living actresses) and the gravitationally gregarious Matt Johnson. As estranged best-friend and potential lover, Matt’s charged reintroduction into Mara’s subtly unsatisfying family life is an improvisatory marvel, making for a love triangle that crackles with live-wire immediacy. Shot in enveloping close ups by cinematographer Nicolay Michaylov, and situated in the richly inhabited world of Toronto academia, Matt and Mara is a heightened, entropic work of irresolution from one of Canadian cinema’s leading lights.
Eric Zhu
7. Happyend
Director: Neo Sora Written By: Neo Sora
Though its vision of a near-future Tokyo could qualify as dystopic, Neo Sora’s “Happyend” defines itself with a refreshing buoyancy; an infectious spirit of impudence that lifts its characters above their confines and through modest coming-of-age triumphs. Set in a high school where increased surveillance technologies minus “points” from students for infractions as minor as flipping the bird, Sora’s film takes an approach to civil unrest and changing social dynamics that is pointed in its aim at authority but also gentle and lightly comedic, committed above all to the invigorating rhythms of friendship.
Taylor Beaumont
6. Universal Language
Director: Matthew Rankin Written By: Ila Firouzabadi, Pirouz Nemati and Matthew Rankin
Universal Language is an ode to the memory of where you are from and how returning back can contrast with the reality you have in your mind. The film takes place in an alternate reality of Canada where the official languages are French, in Quebec, and Farsi, in the rest of the country. Two young girls find 500 Riels frozen in ice and work to get it out in order to pay for their classmates’ glasses he lost. Rankin in his sophomore film, crafts a Canada that is both well known to its inhabitants and feeling like it would fit in with contemporary Iran. Making a Tim Hortons a Persian tea house keeps the community hub feel while making it a whole new thing. The film is doused in sentimentality but never strays into cliche, and the script and performances are chock full with humour.
Dakota Arsenault
5. The Seed of the Sacred Fig
Director: Mohammad Rasoulof Written By: Mohammad Rasoulof
From the tremendous social commentary on the Iranian government and the protest situation of the country, at times brought to life be real life footage of the protests, Mohammad Rasoulof has crafted a truly thrilling film in The Seed of the Sacred Fig that becomes one unforgettable ride that will sit with viewers long after the credits have finished rolling.
Darren Zakus
4. Flow
Director: Gints Zilbalodis Written By: Matiss Kaza and Gints Zilbalodis
The devotion that moves churchgoers on Sunday mornings for the Lord is akin to the force that moves me for cats. Any cat, big or small, angry or adorable, real or animated, has my heart. Thus, it should come as no surprise that I was instantly, if not instinctively, attached to Gints Zilbalodis’ new film Flow. I was swept up by this speechless animated film about a cat braving the hardships of a Biblical flood. Beyond the simplicity of the animation, it was the profundity of the film’s storytelling that struck at my tear ducts. It isn’t just a film for the cat lovers or the pious, but for anyone with a pure heart’s pulse.
Todd Pengelly
3. SATURDAY NIGHT
Director: Jason Reitman Written By: Gil Kenan and Jason Reitman
What is Saturday Night? Well, it’s an electric, anxiety inducing journey through 90 minutes of chaos. It’s a great ensemble cast perfectly assembled for playing a great ensemble cast. It’s the audience laughing their asses off not because a prompter said to, but because “so you’ve heard that one before” is a banger punchline. Saturday Night is knowing the whole time how it ends but still wanting to cheer at the end anyway. It’s anything you could ask for in a comedy, whatever you could hope for from an underdog story, and everything you could want from a great night out.
Thomas Stoneham-Judge
2. Conclave
Director: Edward Berger Written By: Peter Straughan
For all its aura of holiness, the Catholic Church is made up of the same thing that every other political body is made up of: people. Conclave -named for the ceremony in which the cardinals of the church elect a new pope after the incumbent dies- is an examination of the people at the highest levels of this institution. Each of the men clad in ceremonial robes of charity, and each in their own way vying for control of one of the most powerful organizations on the planet. At the center of the story are three tremendous performances: Isabella Rossellini as the nun who looks after the men, John Lithgow as a shrewd political operator looking to win, and Ralph Fiennes -in career best form- as perhaps the only moral man among them tasked with managing the process. It’s a study in character and faith, where we draw moral lines and why, and a showcase for some of the best actors working today.
Matthew Simpson
1. Anora
Director: Sean Baker Written By: Sean Baker
Sean Baker’s latest film sees the auteur at the height of his craft, portraying a whirlwind romance brought down by exploitation and modern-day anxieties. In its depiction of the struggle to find financial security, Anora plays out like a Cinderella story through the lens of voyeurism and capitalism – until those elements begin eroding the stability of its romance. Propelled forward by Mikey Madison’s revelatory performance and Baker’s empathetic voice, Anora masterfully balances overwhelming joy with heartbreaking disappointments in one of the most entertaining films of the year.
Christopher Cross