VTIFF Program-Guide 2024 - Flipbook - Page 9
FH: FILM HOUSE | BB: BLACK BOX THEATER | SR: SCREENING ROOM • All at Main Street Landing Performing Arts Center, Burlington
FILMS A TO Z
AGENT OF HAPPINESS
Directed by Arun Bhattari and Dorottya Zurbo
Bhutan | 2024 | Documentary | 93 min | Dzongkha and Nepali w/subtitles
Sponsored by: Rena Koopman; Science on Screen®
ALL WE IMAGINE AS LIGHT
SHOWTIMES
MONDAY, OCTOBER 21 | 4:15 PM | BB
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 27 | 2 PM | FH (SCIENCE ON SCREEN EVENT)
Directed by Payal Kapadia
India | 2024 | Fiction | 118 min | Malayalam, Hindi and Marathi w/subtitles
Sponsored by: Lisa Schamberg and Pat Robins
How do we quantify happiness? In Bhutan, the self-proclaimed happiest country in the
world, they have a mathematical formula for it. In the lovely and fascinating Agent of
Happiness, directors Arun Bhattari and Dorottya Zurbo follow two government
Happiness Agents as they trek through the Himalayas, assessing people’s contentment,
even as their own could use a boost. Agent of Happiness has no axe to grind with the
current system, though it does suggest that there may be nuance to our feelings that
can’t quite be harnessed by a 1-10 scale. Instead, it focuses on people, mostly our
agents, Amber and Guna, but also the many other people along their staggeringly
beautiful Himalayan route. Gorgeously shot, quirky, and full of heart. Agent of Happiness
is a thoroughly winning film. ~SM
A Science on Screen presentation, this film also features a talk from UVM professor Dr.
Chris Danforth, who has developed a real-time sensor for global happiness called the
Hedonometer using online interactions. He’ll talk about his team’s work with happiness,
and compare it with what we’ve seen in the film.
An initiative of the Coolidge Corner Theatre, with
major support from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation
SHOWTIMES
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 18 | 7 PM | FH
The Grand Prix winner at Cannes, Payal Kapadia’s remarkable film finds poetry and
profundity in the everyday, creating magic from a tale of two nurses navigating life in a
teeming Mumbai. Given her unerring eye for imagery, and her ability to get beyond the
surface and dig into the core of her characters, it’s hard to believe that this is just
Kapadia’s second film. It’s one of the year’s best pictures, hands down. The nurses are
roommates of slightly different ages, and, though very different, they build a relationship
after a rocky start, finding commonality in such mundane items as a housecat and a rice
cooker. They each struggle with work and personal relationships—and, for a while, each
other—as they seek to build meaningful lives in a dense city. Magnificently
photographed by Ranabir Das, Mumbai glitters, heaves, and glows all around them. At
times, it provides an almost fantastical setting, lit by fairy lights and fireworks. It’s one of
the great film depictions of a city as a character in the story. In fact, it’s almost sad to
leave when the two women head for the coast, but the magic only gets more intense at
the shoreline. ~SM
AMAL
Directed by Jawad Rhalib
Belgium | 2023 | Fiction | 107 min | French, Arabic w/subtitles
Sponsored by: Lorna-Kay Peal; Eleanor Lanahan
SHOWTIMES
MONDAY, OCTOBER 21 | 7:15 PM | BB
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 24 | 4:15 | FH
Amal, the latest from Moroccan-Belgian director Jawad Rhalib, works as both an urgent
philosophical dilemma and a tightly-wound thriller. It drops us in the middle of a
secondary school class body that is starkly divided and introduces a catalyst that
inflames this volatile setting. Set in Brussels, the school where idealistic, progressive
teacher Amal works is an oasis in a conservative Muslim community. When one student
is accused of homosexuality, dangerous views and violent rhetoric breach the neutral
territory of the school grounds. Amal finds herself on the front lines, trying to instill both
compassion and logic in students who are being indoctrinated and radicalized by a
hard-line religion teacher. Lubna Azabal (Incendies, The Blue Caftan) holds the center as
the eponymous character, a defiant educator willing and sometimes eager to provoke.
Intellectually curious but also righteously humane, Amal is a sharp, tense treatise that
comes to a fine point. ~OO
VTIFF.ORG | VERMONT INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL 2024
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