MVFF47 - RSVP Guide

In his scintillating directorial debut, Lin Jianjie invites us into the home of a middle-class Beijing family, where an alteration to routine disturbs the equilibrium, revealing a microcosm of socio-political intricacies in a post-one-child China. The only son of well-to-do urbanites, Wei befriends Shuo, a mysterious classmate. As the young man’s enigmatic persona leaves a strong impression on Wei and his parents, a bond forms between Shuo and the family. In particular, Wei’s cell biologist father is taken by the boy’s apparently studious nature, so different from his slacker son’s. As the relationship between Shuo and the family deepens, he begins to integrate into their household dynamic in the most precarious of ways. With shades of Joseph Losey’s The Servant and Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite, Lin embarks on a microscopic examination of the infiltration of a familial cell within a larger national membrane.

The eponymous protagonist of this dramatic and moving debut feature yearns to escape the strictures of the repressive environment of ‘90s-era rural Saudi Arabia. Residing with her aunt and younger brother in a small village after a family tragedy, Norah buys contraband magazines from the local store and dreams of returning to the city where she was raised. In a country where printed and drawn images are forbidden, she longs to find some representation of herself. Enter Nader, a tall and quiet man brought to teach at the small school. After her brother wins a class competition and brings home a drawing made by Nader, Norah decides that she will try anything to have her portrait done by this kind and gentle stranger. Winner of a Special Jury Mention in Cannes’ Un Certain Regard, the film expertly portrays the rising tensions that swirl around and between these two characters hoping to see and be seen.

“Man does not ask questions that he cannot answer.” With that bracing quote from Karl Marx, writer-director Bobby Roth (Berkeley, MVFF28) opens this thoughtful and personal documentary about what constitutes a good man. The filmmaker finds a multitude of responses along with sometimes poignant reflections to queries about masculinity, femininity, and whether we have the power to change. Roth’s deep dive into a multifaceted topic draws touching testimony from actors, among them the Bay Area’s Peter Coyote (whom Roth directed in 1984’s Heartbreakers), Ming-Na Wen, Henry Winkler, and Eric Dane; filmmakers that include MVFF favorite Rob Nilsson, Taylor Hackford, and Michael Mann; rabbis, psychotherapists, and even a lawyer. Nearly 40 people provide rich, sometimes painful, and candid answers that suggest that in order to become a good man, one must become a compassionate and reflective person first.

Expected In Person Guest

It is said that Native Americans of the Great Plains had “over 500 purposes for the buffalo body,” including lodging, clothing, bedding, and food—no part went unused. There was also a spiritual element to the tribes’ connection to these magnificent creatures. When the US and Canadian governments sought to seize traditional tribal lands, they encouraged extermination of the species to help eradicate the preexisting human populace. Within a short period, only 1,000 buffalo remained out of a population that previously numbered 30 million. This stunningly photographed documentary, narrated by recent Oscar-nominee Lily Gladstone (Killers of the Flower Moon), chronicles latter-day efforts by her Blackfoot peoples to reintroduce wild herds into landscapes that haven’t seen their like in generations. It’s a long, labored process beset by political and logistical challenges. But the spectacular views of Glacier National Park and other locations near our northern border make even that struggle a joy to behold. —Dennis Harvey
 
Directors: Ivan MacDonald, Ivy MacDonald, Daniel Glick
Initiative: Mind the Gap
Country: UK
 
Ivan MacDonald is an Emmy-winning filmmaker based in Montana. He is an enrolled member of the Blackfeet tribe. His most recent project, Murder in Bighorn, premiered at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival and was a Film Independent Spirit Award for Best Non-Scripted Television Series. He is an inaugural fellow for the Netflix and illuminative Producers Fellowship, and is also inaugural recipient of the Hulu and Firelight Kindling Fund.

Ivy MacDonald is a director, producer, screenplay writer, and cinematographer based in Montana. She is an enrolled member of the Blackfeet tribe. In late 2023 she co-wrote and co-directed her first narrative short film, Buffalo Spirit, which will premiere later this year. She also helped produce Murder in Bighorn, which premiered at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival and aired nationally on Showtime. Ivy won an Emmy for her producing work on the 2020 ESPN shot Blackfeet Boxing: Not Invisible. She is currently directing and shooting for When They Were Here.

Daniel Glick is a director, writer, producer, cinematographer, and editor. For his short film, Iniskim (2019), he was nominated for directing, producing, and photography Emmys, winning for photography. His first feature documentary film, A Place to Stand (2014) won two Telly Awards. He has directed and produced several dozen short and branded documentaries. Three of his most recent personal projects were Our Last Refuge (2017), Iniskim, and Bring Them Home/Aiskótáhkapiyaaya, all short films set on the Blackfeet Reservation that he worked on with Blackfeet tribal members.

Expected In Person Guest

Summer. Suburbia. Everyone is out having fun…except our 14-year-old hero, who in his pretentious precocity aims to write and stage the Great American Stage Drama. Even he gets distracted, however, once mom hires a hunky young handyman.

“Basically, it’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf meets American Beauty,” says the titular figure of his magnum opus Regrets of Autumn, a searing expose of the tarnished American Dream involving alcoholism, infidelity, and abortion. Rehearsals are just starting, but one senses the playwright probably already has that Pulitzer acceptance speech prepared. Trouble is…Griffin (Everett Blunck) remains as yet a pubescent suburban middle school student whose few friends and long-suffering mother (Melanie Lynskey) are already tired of his humorless devotion to the dramatic arts. While they reluctantly bend to his will, he faces distraction from "the work" this summer when mom hires young handyman Brad (Owen Teague, Eileen), who’s like a latter-day James Dean with better abdominal definition. Surprisingly, it turns out this monosyllabic hunk has theatrical ambitions, too. Nicholas Colia’s alternately hilarious and discomfiting debut combines an eccentrically singular coming-of-age (and coming out) story with elements of poignant insight.

Expected In Person Guest

MVFF47 honoree Mikey Madison’s breakthrough performance as a sex worker who impulsively marries a Russian oligarch’s son powers Sean Baker’s latest indie marvel, Cannes’ Palme d’Or winner.

The winner of the Palme d’Or at Cannes, Sean Baker’s latest indie marvel explores a familiar subject from the writer-director—the lives of sex workers—but in a far more propulsive and, ultimately, heartbreaking manner. Mikey Madison delivers a breakthrough performance as Anora, a New Yorker working at a strip club, who meets and impulsively weds young, rich Russian Ivan (Mark Eydelshteyn). Anora’s Cinderella story seems destined for a happy ending until Ivan’s corrupt oligarch father sends his goons to annul the marriage. As it segues from screwball comedy to one-crazy-night thriller, Anora offers further proof that the auteur behind The Florida Project (MVFF40) and Red Rocket (MVFF44) has a distinctive perspective on those residing on the margins of American society, who fight to stay afloat while trying to reach their dreams. So hilarious, yet so sad—swooningly romantic, yet so sobering—the film is powered by Madison’s comedic, gripping turn. Few characters this year are more messily alive or more ferociously rendered.

Expected in person guest.

Painter and sculptor Titus Kaphar brings his sense of wonder to the big screen with this affirming debut. The writer-director delivers a wrenching and deeply felt excavation of family, particularly the bonds that exist between fathers and sons.

André Holland delivers a tour de force performance as Tarrell Rodin, a successful painter, husband, and father haunted by nightmares of childhood abuse suffered at the hands of his hard-tasking father La’Ron (John Earl Jelks in a breakthrough performance). While preparing for a new gallery installation, Tarrell encounters a rude awakening when his father suddenly reappears in his life, a development that sends him spiraling. But with the insistence of his long-suffering mother Joyce (Oscar® nominee Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor) and support of his wife Aisha (Andra Day), Tarrell confronts buried memories in his path to healing. In observing Tarrell’s complicated journey to self, the film teases out the usefulness of art as a medium for breaking the cycle of generational trauma. Radiating pain and love, tenderness and bitterness, sometimes all in the same scene, Exhibiting Forgiveness confronts the limits of unconditional love while withholding judgment of its characters.

Expected In Person Guest

In her latest film, director Andrea Arnold (Fish Tank; Cow, MVFF44) returns to the hardscrabble lives of Brits that established her career. Protagonist Bailey (newcomer Nykiya Adams) is a 12-year-old girl forced into beyond-her-age maturity by ill-equipped parents. Her dad, Bug (Barry Keoghan, Saltburn, MVFF46), is focused on his upcoming wedding while her mom lives in a seedy part of town with an abusive boyfriend. Bailey’s favorite activity is wandering the countryside, filming animals, especially birds, on her phone. When she meets a free spirit in a skirt looking for his parents and coincidentally named Bird (Franz Rogowski; Undine, MVFF43), a bond forms and an adventure begins. Adams shines in the lead role, veering from petulance to empathy with grace, and Arnold deftly develops Bailey’s burgeoning friendship with Bird to explore various tensions within adolescent life, most importantly the guidance and nurturing that folks on the cusp of adulthood need.

Initiative: Mind the Gap
Country: UK, US, France, Germany

The kings of stoner comedy drive through the desert, remembering the good times and rehashing decades-old arguments, searching for a place called “The Joint.” One is a Canadian Chinese musician who recorded songs for Motown. The other is a Mexican American from LA who moved to Vancouver, BC, to avoid the draft and make pottery. Fate—and an improv group based in a topless bar—brought Tommy Chong and Richard “Cheech” Marin together to become the “hard-rock comedy” team Cheech & Chong. Framed within that contemporary road trip interspersed with plenty of archival material, David Bushell’s profile of the most successful stand-up duo of the 1970s and ’80s charts their rise from hippie-club headliners to countercultural icons with chart-topping albums to movie stars, before the combo of ego, fame, and an imbalance of power made their career temporarily go up in smoke. You couldn’t ask for a funnier, more moving documentary on the guys who invented, like, pot humor, man! —David Fear

Los reyes de la comedia de fumetas recorren el desierto, recordando los buenos tiempos y repitiendo discusiones de hace décadas, mientras buscan un lugar llamado "The Joint". Uno es un músico chino-canadiense que grabó canciones para Motown; el otro es un mexico-americano de Los Ángeles que se mudó a Vancouver, BC, para evitar el reclutamiento y dedicarse a la cerámica. El destino (y un grupo de improvisación con sede en un bar de topless) unió a Tommy Chong y Richard “Cheech” Marin, convirtiéndolos en el equipo de comedia de “hard rock” Cheech & Chong. Enmarcado en ese viaje por carretera e intercalado con abundante material de archivo, el retrato que David Bushell presenta del dúo de comediantes de stand-up más exitoso de los años 1970 y 1980 traza su ascenso desde estrellas de clubes hippies hasta íconos contraculturales con álbumes en las listas de éxitos y películas exitosas, antes de que la combinación de ego, fama y desbalance de poder hiciera que su carrera se esfumara temporalmente. ¡No podrías pedir un documental más divertido y conmovedor sobre los tipos que inventaron el humor de marihuana, hombre! —David Fear
 
Premiere status: West Coast 
Initiative: Vive El Cine
 
Director: David Bushell made his directorial feature film debut with the SXSW 2024 World Premiere of Cheech & Chong’s Last Movie. He previously directed one of Vimeo’s favorite films of the decade, the short Jim Carrey: I Needed Color (2017). Bushell’s producing credits include Billy Bob Thornton’s Academy-award winning film Sling Blade (1996), and Get Him to the Greek (2010), which he produced alongside Judd Apatow. He is an executive producer on Academy Award®-winning films Eternal Sunshine of Spotless Mind (2004) and Dallas Buyers Club (2013). Bushell was named one of Variety’s “10 Producers to Watch.” He currently resides in Los Angeles.

Expected In Person Guest

MVFF47 honoree Mikey Madison’s breakthrough performance as a sex worker who impulsively marries a Russian oligarch’s son powers Sean Baker’s latest indie marvel, Cannes’ Palme d’Or winner.

The winner of the Palme d’Or at Cannes, Sean Baker’s latest indie marvel explores a familiar subject from the writer-director—the lives of sex workers—but in a far more propulsive and, ultimately, heartbreaking manner. Mikey Madison delivers a breakthrough performance as Anora, a New Yorker working at a strip club, who meets and impulsively weds young, rich Russian Ivan (Mark Eydelshteyn). Anora’s Cinderella story seems destined for a happy ending until Ivan’s corrupt oligarch father sends his goons to annul the marriage. As it segues from screwball comedy to one-crazy-night thriller, Anora offers further proof that the auteur behind The Florida Project (MVFF40) and Red Rocket (MVFF44) has a distinctive perspective on those residing on the margins of American society, who fight to stay afloat while trying to reach their dreams. So hilarious, yet so sad—swooningly romantic, yet so sobering—the film is powered by Madison’s comedic, gripping turn. Few characters this year are more messily alive or more ferociously rendered.

It’s been less than 10 years since Mikey Madison made her feature debut at 16, playing the titular lead in American indie Liza, Liza: Skies Are Grey. Since then she has continued to build her career with notable roles as Pamela Adlon’s daughter in the FX series Better Things, Manson Family member Sadie in Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood, the Ghostface killer in the latest iteration of Scream, and most recently, as Natalie Portman’s friend in the Apple+ crime series Lady in the Lake. But she has created her biggest splash and put herself in awards season contention with her vibrant role as a sex worker involved with an oligarch’s son in Sean Baker’s Palme d’Or-winning Anora.

Our spotlight on Mikey Madison and Anora includes honoring her with an MVFF Award, marking the latest step in a burgeoning and brilliant career.

Anora:The winner of the Palme d’Or at Cannes, Sean Baker’s latest indie marvel explores a familiar subject from the writer-director—the lives of sex workers—but in a far more propulsive and, ultimately, heartbreaking manner. Mikey Madison delivers a breakthrough performance as Anora, a New Yorker working at a strip club, who meets and impulsively weds young, rich Russian Ivan (Mark Eydelshteyn). Anora’s Cinderella story seems destined for a happy ending until Ivan’s corrupt oligarch father sends his goons to annul the marriage. As it segues from screwball comedy to one-crazy-night thriller, Anora offers further proof that the auteur behind The Florida Project (MVFF40) and Red Rocket (MVFF44) has a distinctive perspective on those residing on the margins of American society, who fight to stay afloat while trying to reach their dreams. So hilarious, yet so sad—swooningly romantic, yet so sobering—the film is powered by Madison’s comedic, gripping turn. Few characters this year are more messily alive or more ferociously rendered.