WFF 2022: "Corner Office"

Corner Office is a gentle black comedy about office culture, with the slightly surreal feel of an extended episode of Black Mirror. Read more

Michael Hayward's Blog

VIFF 2022: "Cesária Évora"

A documentary by Ana Sofia Fonseca, on the life of the beloved Cape Verdean singer, who many knew as the Barefoot Diva. Read more

Michael Hayward's Blog

VIFF 2022: "Holy Spider"

An extremely dark film directed by Ali Abbasi and starring Zar Amir Ebrahimi, based on actual events: a serial killer who was active in the years 2000 to 2001 in the holy city of Mashhad, Iran. Read more

Michael Hayward's Blog

VIFF 2022: "Call Jane"

A feature film about the fight for abortion rights, directed by Phyllis Nagy, dramatizing the inner workings of the Jane Collective, a feminist organization active in the Chicago area between 1969 and 1973. Read more

Michael Hayward's Blog

VIFF 2022: "Maigret"

Another take on George Simenon's classic French police detective, this film is a slow-paced, melancholic pleasure, directed by Patrice Leconte, with Gérard Depardieu as Jules Maigret. Read more

Michael Hayward's Blog

VIFF 2022: "The Hermit of Treig"

Ken Smith has lived in isolation for more than 40 years, on the shores of Loch Treig, in the Scottish Highlands. Read more

Michael Hayward's Blog

VIFF 2021: "The In-Laws (Tesciowie)"

A Vantablack-dark comedy from Poland. A wedding ceremony doesn't go quite as planned, and the wedding reception that follows goes—slowly, but inevitably—off the rails. Read more

Michael Hayward's Blog

VIFF 2021: "Bergman Island"

Mia Hansen-Løve’s film is a kind of "meta movie." Set on the island of Farö in the Baltic Sea, it takes a playful and affectionate look at the legacy and the enduring influence of Ingmar Bergman and his films. Read more

Michael Hayward's Blog

VIFF 2021: "Benediction"

Terence Davies' first feature film in five years is a heartbreaking, and heartfelt, portrait of British poet Siegfried Sassoon. Read more

Michael Hayward's Blog

VIFF 2021: "Taming the Garden"

Since 2016, billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili has been buying up and relocating ancient trees to furnish a private park. This mournful and elegiac documentary illustrates how money, and political influence, can literally remake a world. Read more

Michael Hayward's Blog

VIFF 2021: "Bye Bye Morons (Adieu les cons)"

A quirky comedy from French actor (Avenue Montaigne) and director (9 Month Stretch) Albert Dupontel. A suicidal IT genius and a blind archivist help a dying woman trying to locate the child she gave up for adoption. Read more

Michael Hayward's Blog

Review: "Tove" at VIFF

A bio-pic on Tove Jansson: artist, writer, free spirit, and creator of the beloved Moomins. Read more

Michael Hayward's Blog

VIFF 2020: "Tales of the Lockdown"

Proving that some good can come from a pandemic, this omnibus film from Spain features five delightfully dark tales "directed by five leading Spanish filmmakers under quarantine conditions." Read more

Michael Hayward's Blog

VIFF 2020: "The Pencil"

In this forceful critique of contemporary Russia, director Natalya Nazarova shows a young woman's attempt to resist thuggery in an industrial town in northern Russia. Read more

Michael Hayward's Blog

VIFF 2020: "Uncle"

On a Danish farm, a young woman works alongside her uncle, who has been handicapped by a stroke. Though they rarely talk, and the routine of their days seems unlikely to change, a quiet drama slowly begins to unfold. Read more

Michael Hayward's Blog

VIFF 2020: "Last and First Men"

Adapted from Olaf Stapledon's early science fiction novel, this stark and striking film from Icelandic composer Jóhann Jóhannsson extrapolates us through 2 billion years, into mankind's far future and ultimate fate. Read more

Michael Hayward's Blog

VIFF 2020: "Super Frenchie"

A profile of Matthias Giraud, a professional "ski-baser" and risk-taker, whose passion is to ski down steep slopes at speed with a parachute on his back, and then launch himself into space. Read more

Michael Hayward's Blog

VIFF 2020: "My Rembrandt"

A fascinating glimpse into the lives of those few who, driven by "nostalgia, heritage, beauty, obsession and [...] the satisfaction of exclusive ownership", have the desire—and the means—to own a painting by Rembrandt. Read more

Michael Hayward's Blog

Review: Christopher Nolan's "Tenet"

Time flows backwards as well as forwards in this intricate new techno-thriller, the first major theatrical release in the COVID-19 era, from the director of Memento and Inception. Read more

Michael Hayward's Blog

Review: "The Two Popes"

A two-hour docu-drama that attempts to do for the papacy what The Crown has done, accidentally or deliberately, for the British royal family: humanize an institution that is desperately in need of an image makeover. Read more

Michael Hayward's Blog

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