Eight Vancouver Film Festival Titles That Deserve a Closer Look

The 45th Vancouver International Film Festival (VIFF) featured some high-profile titles, including Jesse Eisenberg’s “The Debut,” which has been generating awards buzz for star Julianne Moore, and Martin McDonagh’s closing-night black comedy “Wild Horse Nine,” starring John Malkovich and Sam Rockwell. Peter Farrelly’s “I Play Rocky” took home the Audience Award in the Special Presentations category.

Yet beyond the marquee titles, VIFF’s lineup spanned 76 countries and offered plenty of discoveries from established auteurs and emerging filmmakers alike. From Matthew Rankin’s experimental take on Brian Mulroney to Tizza Covi’s portrait of an aging blues musician facing eviction, these eight narrative and documentary films approached familiar subjects from unexpected angles or offered a glimpse into lives rarely captured on film.

“The Loneliest Man in Town” (Tizza Covi and Rainer Frimmel, Be For Films, Austria, Panorama)

A melancholy and deeply nostalgic portrait of an aging Vienna-based blues musician who is the only holdout tenant of an about-to-be-demolished apartment building where he had spent his entire life. As he says goodbye to his home and possessions — which include vintage blues records, memorabilia and an out-of-tune piano — he ponders the prospects of a new beginning elsewhere, even as he’s firmly in the last chapter of his life.

“Ladies and Gentlemen, Brian Mulroney” (Matthew Rankin, NFB, Canada, Showcase)

Probably one of the most psychedelic and unconventional historical documentaries in recent memory. Rankin forgoes talking heads entirely, instead remixing archival footage, animation, and music to trace Mulroney’s rise to power in what feels like an experimental vintage fever dream. Rather than examine the late Canadian prime minister’s political impact and legacy, the film explores how his image was built and how his party transformed along the way.

“The Only Living Pickpocket in New York” (Noah Segan, Sony Pictures Classics, U.S., Special Presentations)

John Turturro plays an aging pickpocket whose old-school craft is becoming obsolete in a cashless world. After targeting the wrong mark, he finds himself entangled in a dangerous situation with a crime family and is forced to race against a clock to save his disabled wife. Segan uses the crime thriller genre to tell a deeper story about the nature of progress and how the world moves on, leaving certain people behind along with the shared values, ways of life and technologies they once trusted. With its melancholy jazz score, it’s an elegy to a New York that’s slipping away.

“School for Defectors” (Jeremy Workman, South Korea, U.S., Showcase)

This hopeful documentary follows teenagers attending Jangdaehyun School in Busan, which helps the children of North Korean defectors to navigate life in South Korea. As they struggle to adjust, many deal with insecurity, shame, trauma and discrimination. The school works to give them confidence, purpose, meaning and a sense of belonging, while also helping them understand what their parents fled. For a number of students, the full story of their family’s escape is revealed for the first time on camera.

“Minotaur” (Andrey Zvyagintsev, Mubi, France, Germany, Latvia, Special Presentations)

Zvyagintsev meticulously constructs a window into the life of Gleb, the CEO of a Russian transport company who occupies a sleek modern home with his wife and son, but there’s a clear disconnect between them. When Gleb discovers his wife’s infidelity, it sends him on a particularly dark path, with moments of morbid humor intertwined. In the background, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is on-going, and the military is scrambling for recruits. The town’s mayor pressures Gleb and other executives to hand over employees for the draft. His household becomes a microcosm of a broader societal moral decay, fuelled by detachment, indifference, corruption, complacency and the pursuit of comfort. A Cannes Festival Grand Prix winner.

“Once Upon a Time in Harlem” (William Greaves, David Greaves, Neon, U.S., Insights)

Imagine being a fly on the wall at a dinner party attended by some of the most influential figures in Black cultural life. In 1972, filmmaker William Greaves gathered artists and intellectuals associated with the Harlem Renaissance for an intimate dinner party at Duke Ellington’s home, capturing their conversations on 16mm. Now completed by his son, David Greaves, this documentary offers an intimate time capsule of a generation’s wit, debates and unmistakable style — inviting audiences to spend an evening in the company of history.

“The Flight” (Soran Mardookhi, NFB, Canada, Showcase)

The downing of Ukraine International Airlines Flight PS752 in January 2020 killed all 176 people aboard, many of them Iranian Canadians. The incident devastated the families of the victims and shook the Iranian diaspora. Mardookhi follows three grieving Iranian-Canadian families who seeking answers and accountability from the Islamic Republic of Iran years after tragedy. Through stories the victims become more than just names in a news report or a statistic, but rather individuals whose absence continues to affect those left behind.

“Diary of a Chambermaid” (Radu Jude, Ritual Films, France, Romania, Showcase)

Jude’s modern twist on Octave Mirbeau’s novel follows Gianina (Ana Dumitrașcu), a Romanian migrant working as a live-in housekeeper and nanny for a wealthy family in present-day Bordeaux. Her young daughter waits at home in Romania, growing more upset with each video call and each postponed promise of a return. At her employers’ recommendation, Gianina also joins an amateur stage production of “The Diary of a Chambermaid,” with scenes from its rehearsals interspersed throughout the film. The film is built on juxtapositions: the care she gives her employers’ son versus the FaceTime sessions she can offer her own daughter. An elegant French home against rural Romania. The performative progressive speeches by her employers in contrast to how Gianina is actually viewed. And her outwardly warm, accommodating demeanour while the thoughts she shares with her mother or mutters under her breath are rather different.