SCREEN | Smuggling 'Little Lorraine' x WFF 2024

"I think what they miss the most is showering together."

Whistler Film Festival

Based on crimes committed in 1986, Little Lorraine dramatizes the real-life international offshore cocaine smuggling operation that engulfed the titular Cape Breton seaside fishing village in Nova Scotia. Singer-songwriter (and co-screenwriter) Adam Baldwin previously wrote about the true-crime story in his 2022 single "Lighthouse in Little Lorraine," with its music video successfully serving as a proof-of-concept for the subsequent film.

SCREEN | Revisiting 'Godspell' – 'You Had to Be There' x WFF 2025

"It was the most joyous show to do."

Whistler Film Festival

New York-based filmmaker Nick Davis revisits the legendary 1972 Toronto company production of the Stephen Schwartz hippie musical Godspell, known for its lasting legacy of featuring some of the biggest names in Canadian comedic talent, in his documentary, You Had to Be There: How the Toronto Godspell Ignited the Comedy Revolution, Spread Love & Overalls, and Created a Community That Changed the World (in a Canadian Kind of Way).

VIFF 2025 | 'Mile End Kicks' Relives the Age of Indie Sleaze

"I can't date two guys in the same band."

Vancouver International Film Festival

VIFF 2025—Toronto-born entertainment writer turned filmmaker Chandler Levack continues to mine her own youthful personal experiences as she revisits the indie sleaze music scene (circa 2011) in her winning sophomore film, Mile End Kicks. Starring Euphoria actress Barbie Ferreira as a young music critic from Ontario who moves to Montreal's vibrant Mile End neighbourhood of artists to write a book about Alanis Morissette before becoming sidetracked after falling for a struggling indie rock band.

VIFF 2025 | Park Chan-wook Refuses to Make 'No Other Choice'

"There's nothing I won't do."

Vancouver International Film Festival

VIFF 2025—No Other Choice (aka Eojjeolsugaeopda), acclaimed South Korean auteur Park Chan-wook's sharp economic thriller satire, uses the threat of murder as an amusing metaphor for how capitalist structures pit workers against each other. It's a stark but absurdist conception of a desperate future where the suburban family's dreams of an idyllic everyday existence are quickly fading away.

VIFF 2025 | 'Wake Up Dead Man' Resurrects Another 'Knives Out' Mystery

"Telling the truth can be a bitter herb."

Vancouver International Film Festival

VIFF 2025—Glass Onion writer/director Rian Johnson and his southern-fried detective actor Daniel Craig reteam for their third investigation in the whodunit sequel, Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery. Co-starring a revelatory Josh O'Connor as arguably the true lead of the film, Johnson takes a detour into the religious thriller genre as he layers his ensemble murder mystery riff with thematic elements of faith, redemption, and resurrection.

VIFF 2025 | George Clooney Pays Tribute to 'Jay Kelly'

"I'm grateful I got to see the end before it ended."

Vancouver International Film Festival

VIFF 2025—The unofficial Mayor of Hollywood, George Clooney, stars as an aging movie star contemplating his life and legacy in the movies, away from his actual family, in renowned dramatist Noah Baumbach's latest comedy, the unimaginatively titled Jay Kelly. Prepare yourself for a stage-like, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind-style look at past relationships where another successful, rich white man went wrong by alienating his loved ones, to only end up being surrounded by people he employs.

SCREEN | Britt Lower Shelves the 'Darkest Miriam' x CFF 2025

"I will call you darkest Miriam from now on."

Game Theory Films

Sophomore writer/director Naomi Jaye adapts the experimental novel The Incident Report by Canadian poet Martha Baillie in the introspective romantic drama Darkest Miriam. Starring Britt Lower as the understated eponymous Toronto librarian, the quietly ponderous film is a naturalistic exploration of social anxieties in public spaces.

SCREEN | Pamela Anderson Retires 'The Last Showgirl' x WFF 2024

"Las Vegas used to treat us like movie stars."

Whistler Film Festival

Vancouver Island native Pamela Anderson makes her on-screen starring role comeback (after her 2022 Broadway stage debut in Chicago) in third-generation filmmaker Gia Coppola's melodic, working-class Las Vegas indie drama. The Last Showgirl deromanticizes a past collective sense of "old Vegas" and its previously idealized facade of sexy glamour.

GETAWAY | The Library by The Macallan x Four Seasons x Whistler

Whistler—(November 26, 2024) Late last month, press were invited up to the Four Seasons Resort Whistler for a quick but refreshing day trip to visit the 4-star luxury hotel's many amenities while also checking out the newly reopened The Library by The Macallan, an intimate whisky and cocktail pop-up bar, back for its second year.

REEL | 'September 5' Relives the Munich Massacre x WFF 2024

"They're all gone."

Whistler Film Festival

September 5 dramatizes the horrific 1972 Munich massacre hostage crisis at the 1972 Summer Olympics in West Germany from the perspective of the ABC Sports newsroom's real-time live coverage. Swiss director Tim Fehlbaum tries to set aside political history in order to relive the real-life events raw in the moment from an outside viewpoint.

REEL | Daniel Craig Feels 'Queer' for Longing x WFF 2024

"I want to talk to you without speaking."

Whistler Film Festival

Former James Bond superstar Daniel Craig makes his prestige gay indie film turn for Italian auteur Luca Guadagnino's transfixing screen adaptation of William S. Burroughs' mid-century novella, Queer, a 1950s Mexico City-set period romance written in 1952 and published in 1985. It's a heartbreakingly raw portrait of unrequited expat "junkie" love between two men.

SCREEN | Ben Foster Turns A 'Sharp Corner' x WFF 2024

"I thought this was our dream house."

Whistler Film Festival

Set and shot in Nova Scotia, Sharp Corner, Halifax-based writer/director Jason Buxton's second feature film is based on the short story of the same name by Winnipeg journalist Russell Wangersky and follows a family in crisis after their move to the suburbs for a gripping existential midlife thriller.

VIFF 2024 | From Winnipeg to Tehran – Finding A 'Universal Language'

"Winnipeg is a strange destination for tourism."

Vancouver International Film Festival

VIFF 2024—Winnipeg meets Tehran, frozen in the mid-'80s, seems like a strange choice for Universal Language (aka Une langue universelle), a surrealist Canadian fable that acts as a creative tribute to Iranian New Wave cinema and life. Told in a deadpan tone reminiscent of the experimental filmmaker Matthew Rankin's usual quirky aesthetic, the Farsi-language film tells a warm Persian tale that has a familiar yet foreign design to its parallel universe setting.

SCREEN | Speaking Irish – 'Kneecap' Raps It Up

"Every word of Irish spoken is a bullet fired for Irish freedom."

Sony Pictures Classics / Mongrel Media

Controversial West Belfast hip-hop trio Kneecap, known for rapping republican lyrics in their native Irish language, star in their own titular biographical film about their rise to fame and infamy. Set in 2019, British-Irish filmmaker Rich Peppiatt directs the plainly titled Kneecap with an energetic, riotous verve to its provocative, explicitly anti-UK material of rebellion.

REEL | 'American Fiction' on Black Voices x WFF 2023

"I just think it's essential to listen to Black voices right now."

Whistler Film Festival

Former journalist turned veteran television writer Cord Jefferson makes his directorial debut in the irreverent literary satire American Fiction, based on the 2001 novel Erasure by author Percival Everett. Starring Jeffrey Wright as a struggling middle-aged author and professor, Jefferson uses our narrow views of the Black experience against us to mine a steady stream of biting racial humour.

REEL | Bradley Cooper Conducts 'Maestro' x WFF 2023

"You're going to die a lonely, old queen!"

Whistler Film Festival

A Star is Born filmmaker Bradley Cooper once again directs himself in the Leonard Bernstein period biopic Maestro, co-produced by cinematic legends Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg. Cooper crafts a complex portrait of the famed composer and conductor who had a tumultuous personal life amidst the highs of his professional accomplishments within the context of a difficult but loving marriage.

SCREEN | Natalie Portman Studies 'May December' x WFF 2023

"This is just what grown-ups do."

Whistler Film Festival

Celebrated indie filmmaker Todd Haynes directs the comically meta melodrama May December, loosely inspired by the Mary Kay Letourneau scandal of the 1990s, starring Natalie Portman (also a producer) and Julianne Moore as an actress doing research and the controlling real-life tabloid subject of the former's latest film project.

SCREEN | Jon Hamm Finds A 'Corner Office' x WFF 2022

"A smile disarms your opponent."

Whistler Film Festival

Filmed in Vancouver, commercial filmmaker Joachim Back directs a moustached Jon Hamm, who also narrates, in the surrealist workplace satire Corner Office, based on the acclaimed Kafkaesque novel The Room by Swedish author/actor Jonas Karlsson. When Hamm's corporate paper pusher, Orson, finds a secret door to a lavish (possibly magical) room no one else can see, his behaviour starts to go off the rails in the eyes of his colleagues.

GENRE | Margaret Qualley Sells 'Sanctuary' x WFF 2022

"It's because you're a pervert."

Whistler Film Festival

New York indie filmmaker Zachary Wigon directs a chillingly unpredictable two-hander of a psychological thriller starring Margaret Qualley and Christopher Abbott as an unconventional dominatrix blackmailing her insecure hotel empire heir client in Sanctuary. Set during an emotionally intense session, the charismatic pair go back and forth sublimely in a twisty roleplay that goes beyond its stage-like theatrical setting.

SCREEN | Seducing 'Midnight at the Paradise' x WFF 2022

"Every relationship requires a healthy dose of delusion."

Whistler Film Festival

Toronto-based Japanese-Canadian actress Vanessa Matsui makes her feature directorial debut in the infidelity drama, Midnight at the Paradise. Her film focuses on the relationship between two interracial couples who collide over the course of a night of sexual chemistry and delusion when an encounter outside the titular Paradise Theatre reignites old sparks.