REEL | Tony Leung Makes A 'Silent Friend' x SIFF 2026

"I want to find out what plants sense."

1-2 Special / Films We Like

Silent Friend (aka Stille Freundin), a strange but affecting historical tale by visionary Hungarian filmmaker Ildikó Enyedi, follows Hong Kong superstar Tony Leung as a Chinese neuroscientist studying a beguiling gingko tree on the grounds of a medieval German university town in 2020. It's a uniquely engrossing two-and-a-half-hour film essentially about a professor befriending an old tree through science.

VIFF 2025 | Bi Gan Dreams A Cinematic 'Resurrection'

"The secret to eternal life is to no longer dream!"

Vancouver International Film Festival

VIFF 2025—Resurrection (狂野时代 aka Wild Times), visionary Chinese artist turned filmmaker Bi Gan's ambitious dreamscape odyssey of surrealist sci-fi slow cinema, is structured into six disparate but interconnected chapters, each revolving around one of the Buddhist senses, including the "mind." Set in a far future where most people no longer dream and, as a result, can live forever, things start off in a German expressionist style before transitioning into distinct twentieth-century cinematic eras in China.

VIFF 2025 | 'Nouvelle Vague' Revives the French New Wave

"Life is short, but art is long."

Vancouver International Film Festival

VIFF 2025—Prolific Texas independent filmmaker Richard Linklater's light and casual black-and-white dramatization of the revolutionary French New Wave cinematic movement of the mid-twentieth century offers a delightfully amusing experience for cinephiles at one of film history's most influential collection of artists. Nouvelle Vague follows the humorous making of Jean-Luc Godard's first film, 1960's formally groundbreaking Breathless.

GENRE | Noémie Merlant Meets 'The Balconettes' – French Heat

"Only together we can really be ourselves."

The Forge / Nord-Ouest Films

French actress turned filmmaker Noémie Merlant (donning her best Marilyn Monroe garb) tackles rape-revenge horror-comedy in her second feature, The Balconettes (aka Les Femmes au balcon), about three women stuck in a Marseille apartment during a 46° C heatwave when an encounter with their sexy male neighbour sets off a series of unfortunate incidents.

SCREEN | Taming 'The Beast' – Léa Seydoux Purges Her Past Lives

"Fulfillment lies in the lack of passion."

Janus Films / Maison 4:3

French director Bertrand Bonello loosely adapts Henry James' 1903 novella The Beast in the Jungle into his own near-future sci-fi romantic drama. The Beast (aka La Bête) stars Léa Seydoux as Gabrielle, a woman in the process of vividly purifying her DNA in a machine that plunges her into her past lives in the years of 1910, 2014, and 2044 to purge herself of any strong emotions, traumas, or feelings and fix the present.

VIFF 2023 | The Cook, His Lover, and 'The Taste of Things'

"Happiness is continuing to desire what we already have."

Vancouver International Film Festival

VIFF 2023—Vietnamese-born French filmmaker Trần Anh Hùng embodies the remarkable romanticism of cooking, dining, and eating with and for someone you love in the sumptuously made The Taste of Things (previously titled The Pot-au-Feu and known as La Passion de Dodin Bouffant in French). This period romance satiates the screen with the simmering passion of gastronomy through its expressive performances and culinary cinematography.

VIFF 2023 | 'Anatomy of a Fall' Puts Itself on Trial

"The trial is not about the truth."

Vancouver International Film Festival

VIFF 2023—French director Justine Triet systemically unfolds a taut courtroom thriller in the Palme d'Or-winning Anatomy of a Fall (aka Anatomie d'une chute). Centred around a husband's highly suspicious death after an intense argument with his prime suspect wife, Triet carefully layers the legal psychodrama through suspense, mystery, and intrigue.

SCREEN | 'Passages' Entangles A Destructive Love Triangle

"She excites me."

Mubi / Mongrel Media

Tennessee-born independent filmmaker Ira Sachs directs a sexy French queer romantic drama about the messy beginnings and endings of modern relationships. Passages exquisitely dramatizes the passionate highs and maddening lows of two on-again, off-again toxic romances through a refreshing pansexual lens.

SCREEN | 'Return to Seoul' Searching x TIFF 2022

"Sorrow is the way of Korean men."

Toronto International Film Festival

Cambodian-French filmmaker Davy Chou explores the internal complexities of foreign adoption in the splendid French-Korean drama Return to Seoul (aka Retour à Séoul or All the People I'll Never Be). It captures a surprisingly joyous and recklessly transformative journey of a young woman's diasporic anguish.

VIFF 2022 | Léa Seydoux Awakens 'One Fine Morning'

"How could a body like yours have remained asleep for so long?"

Vancouver International Film Festival

VIFF 2022—French auteur Mia Hansen-Løve crafts another heartbreakingly real yet breezy romantic drama. Starring Léa Seydoux as a young widowed single mother, the partially autobiographical One Fine Morning (aka Un beau matin) tells a bittersweet, slice-of-life Parisian tale revolving around a passionate extramarital affair.

SCREEN | Seeking an Abortion in 1960s France – A 'Happening'

"I'd like a child one day but not instead of a life."

IFC Films / Wild Bunch

Sophomore filmmaker Audrey Diwan adapts French author Annie Ernaux's semi-autobiographical novel/memoir about a bright young literature student facing an unwanted pregnancy while desperately seeking out a dangerous abortion when it was still illegal in a post-war 1963 France. Happening (aka L'Événement) is an unfortunately timely expression of just how essential family planning and a woman's ability to choose whether or not to give birth are to the basic fundamental human rights necessary to a functional society.

SCREEN | Chasing Volcanoes – 'Fire of Love' Erupts x DOXA 2022

"It's two young volcanologists dancing on the edge of a volcano."

DOXA Documentary Film Festival

Fire of Love documents the extraordinary lives of married French volcanologists Katia and Maurice Krafft, who were trailblazing pioneers obsessed with capturing footage of active volcanoes before dying tragically in a pyroclastic flow on Mount Unzen in Japan in 1991. Director Sara Dosa uses the quirky couple's own decades worth of material compiled to tell their incredible real-life story of love and lava.

VIFF 2021 | Back to the Past – 'Petite Maman' Makes Friends

"I'm glad we met."

Vancouver International Film Festival

VIFF 2021—French filmmaker Céline Sciamma crafts a beautifully poignant slice-of-life love letter to mother/daughter relationships in her cinematic children's fable, Petite Maman. Filmed with minimal sets, locations, and actors for a scant but very fruitful 72-minute running time, the film is quite possibly the sweetest tale of childhood wonder ever, with its balance of adult themes like grief and loss.

GENRE | Julia Ducournau Shifts Gears – 'Titane' x TIFF 2021

Toronto International Film Festival

A car model with a metal plate in her head has graphic sex with a car, gets pregnant, goes on a murderous rampage, then hides out by gaslighting a grieving father and pretending to be his missing son. Palme d'Or-winning Raw filmmaker Julia Ducournau writes and directs easily the wildest, most audacious film of the year. Titane ("Titanium") dives into the physical nature of gender through surrealist body horror imagery and the female form.

IMBIBE | Vancouver International Wine Festival 2020

Waterfront—(February 27 and 29, 2020) The 42nd annual Vancouver International Wine Festival wrapped up not too long ago to much of the usual fanfare and enjoyment. As always, every year, VIWF wined and dined thousands of attendees at its various tastings, pairing meals, and signature events across the city.

VIFF 2019 | 'Portrait of a Lady on Fire' Burns Bright

"I believed you braver."

Vancouver International Film Festival

VIFF 2019—French filmmaker Céline Sciamma's burning historical romantic drama about painting and forbidden love is a striking work of female desire. Portrait of a Lady on Fire (aka Portrait de la jeune fille en feu) sensationally recreates its eighteenth-century period setting in a remote seaside mansion during a week where four different women must advance their own motivations.

VIFF 2018 | Keira Knightley Rewrites 'Colette'

"Are you Claudine or are you Colette?"

VIFF 2018—Keira Knightley stars in the eponymous literary biopic of the famed Parisian novelist behind the Claudine series. Sufficed to say, Colette is pretty much exactly what you'd want from a period costume drama starring the British actress.

FEAST | Chef's Dinner x Grey Goose Marché x Edible Canada

Granville Island—(June 25, 2017) Grey Goose Canada's annual summertime dinner and cocktail soirée took place at Edible Canada bistro this time around, with a Marché themed affair inspired by the fresh ingredients found at local marketplaces.

IMBIBE | Grey Goose x Sunset Soirée x Cecil Green Park House

UBC—(August 3, 2017) Grey Goose Canada threw another one of their annual summer vodka cocktail parties—this year's theme was a Parisian-inspired Sunset Soirée—at Cecil Green Park House on the University of British Columbia campus last week.

REEL | Christopher Nolan Battles 'Dunkirk'

"Wars are not won by evacuations."

There are no German soldiers in Dunkirk. Celebrated auteur Christopher Nolan has twisted his trademark filmmaking style to meticulously craft a self-contained war drama about the titular 1940 World War II evacuation (code-named Operation Dynamo). Dunkirk is a sweeping, ambitiously told thriller and time-fractured triptych, told through soldiers at ground level (one week), by sea (one day), and by air (one hour).