Special newsletter: The films I saw at VIFF 2025
Trigger warning: movies!
The sound of popcorn kernels getting chomped in half, the laughing at the end of an overly sentimental Rolex commercial, a pre-screening ad about Canadian film production with George Stroumboulopoulos advertising…well, after seeing it play twice before each screening, I still can’t tell you what it was advertising exactly. I love the Vancouver International Film Festival (VIFF). This is my fourth year attending, and my second time on a press pass. If you live somewhere nearby or happen to find yourself in Vancouver in early October, I would highly recommend making it out to screenings: There are always tickets released throughout the week, they host multiple Oscar contenders every year, and a whole bunch of promising Canadian projects, too.
Three years ago, I was invited to join GALECA: The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics, the organization that puts out the yearly Dorian Awards for film and television. I’m extremely proud and lucky to be part of that group, but I wasn’t really sure what I signed up for before my inbox got flooded with links to films that weren’t out yet. Before then: Sure, I had enjoyed seeing a few screenings at VIFF, but weeks would fly by without even thinking of seeing a film. But I have a sacred duty, now — getting ready for my yearly ballot is extremely important to me! The television awards are easy because I watch and write about so much of that already — but I now try and go out of my way to keep up with buzzy films during hibernation season to craft an informed ballot, even if I’m not actively engaging in film criticism.
Don’t worry, I’m not starting a moviesscholar account any time soon. That being said, it’s always a pleasure to receive a press pass to a film festival and to write about film in adjacent ways — like my interview with Janicza Bravo last week, and an interview on its way with documentarian Brishkay Ahmed for Public Parking. Here’s what stood out to me from the 10 films I got to see this year, in order of my viewing. You can also catch up on what I saw at TIFF, and I’m on Letterboxd too.
In the Room ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ (dir. Brishkay Ahmed)
A phenomenal documentary that places its documentarian in the frame as she traces back her Afghan cultural memory by interviewing the women who made an impact: Like actress Nelofer Pazira-Fisk and Miss Afghanistan 2003 Vida Samadzai, among others. I have an interview with Ahmed coming up with a more in-depth look at the making of the doc.
It Was Just an Accident ⭐️⭐️⭐️½ (dir. Jafar Panahi)
Winner of the 2025 Palme d’Or, It Was Just an Accident features a cast of first-time actors and is a defiant punch in the face to authoritarian regimes, using a single prison guard as the stand-in for the trauma a group of unrelated individuals experienced while blindfolded and abused in Iranian detention. For some reason the film didn’t jump out for me as much as it did for others — I feel like it could have used a bigger budget to achieve what it needed to, but the film was mostly shot in secret to avoid any unwanted attention (Panahi himself has been previously jailed for criticizing the Islamic Republic’s policies in his work).
If I Had Legs I’d Kick You ⭐️⭐️⭐️ (dir. Mary Bronstein)
The feelings of hellish claustrophobia, frustration, and stress I felt watching this are obviously all by design, and Rose Byrne (who is locked for a TV Scholar Award nomination for Platonic) is fantastic.
After the Hunt ⭐️⭐️⭐️ (dir. Luca Guadagnino)
Objectively, this is probably Guadagnino’s worst film: Somewhat pretentious, not Ayo Edebiri’s best performance, a Me Too storyline that doesn’t bring anything particularly new to the table. But subjectively? Julia Roberts as a glamorous alcoholic tenure-track academic who’s just trying to push through her ulcers so she can get tenure? Something very important to me! Impeccable academic aesthetics. We should probably all just go back and watch Guadagnino’s underrated HBO series, We Are Who We Are.
Franz ⭐️⭐️⭐️ (dir. Agnieszka Holland)
A Kafkaesque biopic about Kafka feels right! The editing of this film must have been a nightmare because I could barely keep up with the non-linear arc this film was trying to tell — and there is a certain irony in showcasing all the various contemporary museums and walking tours about Kafka through a frame of exploitation when we’re sitting watching a film about him, a film that hopes to make a profit off of his life. That being said, I still enjoyed this! Gorgeous set design.
Sentimental Value ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️½ (dir. Joachim Trier)
I felt very moved by Sentimental Value, tearing up at a few scenes. My friend called it “nepo baby propaganda,” but I thought a lot about family, my sisters, the idea that your parents might know your core identity better than you think they do. I thought about depression, loneliness, who we turn to in the pits of despair. I thought about the power of art. Renate Reinsve is much better served with this material than what she was given in Presumed Innocent, I’ll say that much.
Pillion ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ (dir. Harry Lighton)
A24’s “dom-com” starring Alexander Skarsgard and Harry Melling is phenomenal and raunchy. It explores a dom-sub relationship without any of the clichés you’re used to seeing in that genre. The film held me in ambiguity for a lot of it — making you question whether or not the rules of engagement in this relationship (being forced to sleep on the floor, basically being an in-house cook and cleaner) are actually bringing Melling’s character pleasure, only to be reinforced that although it’s all consensual, it’s a complicated grey area. Unfortunately, sometimes, the things that bring us pleasure aren’t necessarily the things that are good for us. Maybe the benefits outweigh the pain, until it doesn’t. It achieved some on-screen gay nuances I have rarely seen in any medium. Pretty raunchy, too.
Sound of Falling ⭐️⭐️ (dir. Mascha Schilinski)
I took an experimental film class in undergrad and studied the works of Kenneth Anger and Maya Deren, avant-garde work that is incredibly important to the canon of film. Outside of that academic framing, I don’t particularly want to watch a film in that style for almost three hours. Tracing four different timelines all in the same house in Germany, there wasn’t enough actual plot for me to hang on to here — but there is a real sense of foreboding throughout, sexual assault, trauma, and what I’m sure is a lot of German cultural context that went over my head.
Christy (dir. David Michôd) ⭐️⭐️½
Honestly, Razzies for half of these performances unfortunately. Merritt Wever’s Southern drawl was giving camp, but not worthy of that title for playing such a homophobic character. I didn’t know anything about Christy Martin and her boxing career, but a closeted lesbian story is not what I expected! The highs were high and the lows were very low. The actual boxing was engaging and exciting; her home life deeply depressing while also bordering on bad Lifetime movie. Kind of the perfect role for Sweeney to take in the midst of all her own controversy, and she’s one of the few real stand-outs here.
Sirāt (dir. Oliver Laxe) ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️½
My closing film at VIFF was definitely the most memorable. A film that takes such a big leap in its second half that my entire body was so tense leaving Vancouver’s charming Rio Theatre. What stayed with me in the days following was its score — move over, Challengers. The thumping, bass-heavy, trance rave music by Berlin-based producer Kangding Ray that embodies the film perfectly: A dangerous hedonistic escape. I couldn’t stop thinking about how artists around us keep releasing massive dance albums in the post-Brat era and how that is our sonic landscape while we see shots of a flattened Gaza on our feed. It’s easy to think that the horrors of war are something only happening far away, before it’s on your doorstep ready to interrupt your dance party.
Out of all the movies I’ve seen across both festivals, this is the one I would run to the movie theatre to see — a visual and sonic experience that I don’t think could be adequately reproduced at home, unless you have a massive setup worthy of a rave. If Neon promotes this properly, it could be one of the biggest movies of the fall/winter.
Other films at VIFF 2025 I wanted to see but didn’t get a chance to: Mile End Kicks (dir. Chandler Levack), No Other Choice (dir. Park Chan-wook), Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie (dir. Matt Johnson), Left-Handed Girl (dir. Shih-Ching Tsou), Rental Family (dir. HIKARI), Nouvelle Vague (dir. Richard Linklater), The Mastermind (dir. Kelly Reichardt), Palestine 36 (dir. Annemarie Jacir), Jay Kelly (dir. Noah Baumbach)
Coming up next:
Oct 15: Murdaugh: Death in the Family (Hulu, S1)
Oct 16: Ghosts (CBS, S5)
Oct 16: The Diplomat (Netflix, S3)
Oct 16: Romantics Anonymous (Netflix, S1)
Oct 16: Devil in Disguise: John Wayne Gacy (Peacock, S1)
Oct 17: Boston Blue (CBS, S1)
Oct 17: Mr. Scorsese (Apple TV+, S1)
Oct 19: Hal & Harper (Mubi, S1)
Oct 19: Haha, You Clowns (Adult Swim, S1)
Oct 22: Harlan Coben’s Lazarus (Prime Video, S1)
Oct 22: The Monster of Venice (Netflix, S1)