The 33rd annual Vancouver International Film Festival (September 25 to October 10, 2014) will once again welcome some of the world’s finest films to one of the most beautiful cities on the planet. For 16 days, almost 350 films from over 70 countries will delight Vancouver film lovers. The festival organizers are thrilled to make our first announcement of some of the truly exceptional films that we’ll be showcasing this fall.
They include the following Cannes prize-winning Latin American films:
Jauja
Argentina / Denmark / France / Mexico / Germany / Brazil
Director: Lisandro Alonso
Lisandro Alonso returns with a gorgeous, 19th-century-set existential exploration. Viggo Mortensen is a Danish engineer who heads into the Patagonian wilderness in search of his missing daughter. “This hallucinatory head-trip Western remains unmistakably Alonso’s film… a metaphysical road movie in which origin and destination are markedly less important than the journey itself.” —Variety
Winner, FIPRESCI Prize, Un Certain Regard, Cannes 2014.
Wild Tales (Relatos salvajes)
Argentina/Spain
Director: Damián Szifrón
For sheer entertainment value, you’ll be hard-pressed to beat this outrageous anthology film. One of Cannes’ most buzzed about discoveries, Damián Szifrón’s third feature plays like a calling card from a preposterously talented newcomer, it’s so chock-full of crazy ideas and verve. “Delicious, horrible, scary and scabrous… Szifrón brings off a very difficult trick: making something genuinely funny and genuinely scary at the same time.” —Guardian
Good People (Gente de bien)
Colombia
Director: Franco Lolli
It’s Christmas in Bogotá and 10-year-old Eric has been caught stealing. Finding it in her heart to forgive him, Eric’s victim likewise invites the impoverished boy into her palatial mansion. As she demonstrates how a “decent” family lives, Franco Lolli’s incisive debut illustrates that the holiday spirit is no match for class divides. “An engrossing, sensitive and admirably nuanced social drama.” —Hollywood Reporter
Also:
To Kill a Man (Matar a un hombre)
Chile / France
Director: Alejandro Fernández Almendras
Beautifully wrought and meticulously controlled, Alejandro Fernández Almendras’ drama follows a bullied man as he wrestles with the moral implications of revenge… “A terrifically tense first half culminates in a truly brilliant scene… [and it] all ends with a dramatic pop as sharp as the first of only two gunshots in this menacing, morally agnostic film.”—Guardian
Winner, World Cinema Grand Jury Prize: Dramatic, Sundance 2014.
Manos Sucias
Colombia / USA
Director: Josef Wladyka
Two young Colombian men, stymied by a dearth of legitimate job opportunities, decide to run drugs up the coast in a fishing boat… “Shot on location in and around Buenaventura, the movie has a frantic, gritty energy attuned to its characters’ frustrations… It’s a fierce snapshot of reckless behavior enacted by helpless men.”—Indiewire.
Winner, Best New Narrative Director; Audience Award runner-up, Tribeca 2014.
Marmato
Colombia / USA
Director: Mark Grieco
Canadian Premiere
Colombian miners find their livelihoods and way of life threatened when a Canadian mining company sets up shop in their small town and targets the immense gold deposit that lies under their humble homes. Mark Grieco’s stirring documentary “impressively presents a beautifully shot (the views from the houses over the surrounding valleys are stunning) portrait of resistance…”—Screen.
Winner, Grand Jury Prize: Documentary, Seattle 2014.
Red Knot
USA / Argentina
Director: Scott Cohen
Canadian Premiere
Forsaking a traditional honeymoon, newlyweds Peter (Mad Men’s Vincent Kartheiser) and Chloe (Olivia Thirlby) book passage on a research vessel bound for Antarctica. As seasickness sets in, romantic bliss sours and Scott Cohen’s astonishingly assured, elegantly shot debut sets course for troubled, Polanski-indebted waters. “A quiet stunner of a drama…”—Hollywood Reporter.
Winner, Grand Jury Prize: Best New American Cinema, Seattle 2014.
And…
Asteroid (Asteroide)
Mexico
Director: Marcelo Tobar
Wed. Oct 1, 9:30 pm, Intl Village 10
Sat. Oct 4, 11:15 am, Intl Village 10
Tue. Oct 7, 4:15 pm, Cinematheque
After personal problems send free spirit Cristina (Sophie Alexander-Katz) scurrying for the comforts of her family home, her taciturn ex-addict brother’s relationship with a new girlfriend threatens the orphan siblings’ fragile peace… “Sibling rivalry is kept at a low, slow simmer in [Marcelo Tobar’s] fractiously intimate family drama… Thanks to flinty performances… it’s a film of subtle but not insubstantial emotional rewards.”—Variety
August Winds (Ventos de Agosto)
Brazil
Director: Gabriel Mascaro
Sun. Sep 28, 6:30 pm, Intl Village 8
Tue. Sep 30, 2:00 pm, Rio
Fri. Oct 3, 4:00 pm, Intl Village 8
North American Premiere
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Lyrical, sensual and poetic, yet grounded in a bracing naturalism that speaks to Brazilian documentarian Gabriel Mascaro’s roots, August Winds tells the tale of a young couple who discover a skull while diving for octopus. It’s a prismatic evocation of seaside life in the rural tropics. “…a beautiful meditation on life and death… a striking accomplishment…”—Indiewire
The Womb (El Vientre)
Peru
Director: Daniel Rodríguez Risco
Mon. Sep 29, 3:30 pm, Intl Village 9
Wed. Oct 1, 5:45 pm, Intl Village 9
Fri. Oct 3, 3:00 pm, Cinematheque
A monstrous case of manipulation lies at the heart of Daniel Rodríguez Risco’s stylish psychothriller. Obsessed with having a child, 45-year-old widow Silvia (Vanessa Saba) tricks the naïve Mercedes (Mayella Lloclla) into accepting a room in her home and arranges a meeting with young handyman Jaime (Manuel Gold). When Mercedes gets pregnant, Silvia will stop at nothing to claim the baby…