VTIFF Program-Guide 2024 - Flipbook - Page 24
FILMS A TO Z
FH: FILM HOUSE | BB: BLACK BOX THEATER | SR: SCREENING ROOM • All at Main Street Landing Performing Arts Center, Burlington
UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE
Directed by Matthew Rankin
Canada | 2024 | Fiction | 89 min | Farsi, French w/subtitles
VERMIGLIO
Directed by Maura Delpero
Italy, France, Belgium | 2024 | Fiction | 119 min | Italian w/subtitles
Sponsored by: Deborah Schapiro and Louis Polish; Vermont Italian Cultural Association
Sponsored by: Anna Blackmer
SHOWTIMES
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 22 | 7:15 PM | FH
Canadian experimental filmmaker Matthew Rankin’s sophomore feature film, which has
already been chosen as Canada’s Oscar contender, is set “somewhere between Tehran
and Winnipeg.” That should give you some idea of the absurdist satirical tone that Rankin
is aiming for in this adventurous work inspired as much by Mohsen Makhmalbaf as
hometown hero Guy Maddin. The film weaves together a collection of seemingly
disparate tall tales: Negin and Nazgol find money frozen in ice and try to claim it;
Massoud, a guide in Winnipeg, leads a confused and disoriented tour group; and
Matthew (played by the director himself) quits his unfulfilling job as a provincial
government wonk in Quebec to travel back to his mother in Winnipeg. Set in a fantasy
version of Canada, where Persian and French are the two official languages and
loneliness is the common currency, this gentle comedy is eccentric and open hearted,
and marks Rankin as a talent to watch on the international stage. ~OO
SHOWTIMES
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 23 | 4 PM | FH
Romantic, tragic, and beautiful, Maura Delpero’s Vermiglio is a captivating period piece
with a wonderful feel for its place and time. Every scene is composed as a sonnet,
beautifully photographed in desaturated, painterly tones, and filled with emotion. Toward
the end of the Second World War, in a high, remote mountain village in the Italian Alps,
the arrival of a refugee soldier alters the dynamics of an isolated community. Told in four
chapters, each set in a different season, this affecting, quiet film is a masterful exercise
in subtlety and absence. The waning war is far away but always felt; each character is
trying to conceal their personal shame and trauma; letters with news from those who
have left are never delivered. At the center is a large family, headed by a stern, conflicted
patriarch who runs the village’s school. When his eldest daughter, Lucia, falls for the
young Sicilian soldier, everything starts to change for the family, and Delpero tracks each
family member with patience and a rare sensitivity as they are carried by forces beyond
their control. ~OO
WHO BY FIRE
(COMME LE FEU)
Directed by Philippe Lesage
Canada, France | 2024 | Fiction | 161 min | French w/subtitles
Sponsored by: Gay Regan; Québec Delegation
SHOWTIMES
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 25 | 3:15 PM | BB
Cabin fever is rarely as mesmerizing as it is in Who By Fire, the latest from respected
Québécois writer-director Philippe Lesage. Albert and Blake were once successful
filmmaking partners—the former as writer and the latter as director—before creative
and philosophical differences drove them apart and set them on different career paths.
After years of estrangement, Albert plus three teenage guests—Albert’s son, daughter,
and son’s best friend—are invited for an extended getaway at Blake’s grand cabin in the
woods. As the wine flows freely, and long-simmering resentments rise to the surface, the
mood frequently shifts on a dime. Whether that leads to a deeply personal shouting
match or a cathartic free-for-all dance party to the B-52’s’ “Rock Lobster” is always
unpredictable. Isolated in the lush beauty of the French wilderness with a stockpile of
hunting rifles, surging adolescent hormones, oversized egos, plentiful alcohol,
unexpected guests, and bottomless animosity, what could go wrong? ~OO
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VTIFF.ORG | VERMONT INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL 2024
