Altered States
40
Saloum
Kicking Blood
JEAN LUC HERBULOT, SENEGAL, 2021, 84 MIN.
BLAINE THURIER, CANADA, 2021, 80 MIN.
FRI, OCT 1 SUN, OCT 3
Bipolar
QUEENA LI, CHINA, 2021, 110 MIN.
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 3 SATURDAY, OCTOBER 9 OCTOBER 1-11
9:00 PM 4:00 PM
RIO CINEMATHEQUE VIFF CONNECT
Canadian Premiere. In the Tibetan capital of Lhasa on a luxury pilgrimage, a broken-hearted musician (Chinese star Leah Dou) impulsively decides to liberate a sacred rainbow lobster from a cramped tank in hopes of returning it to the ocean. The catch? The endless kilometres of weirdness that lay between them and the water. A legitimate trip that asserts “travelling is just like dreaming,” Queena Li’s hallucinatory road movie is delightfully all over the map as it sends the Orpheus myth crashing through the looking glass. Cast Leah Dou, Giver He Prod Queena Li, Zhang Linhan, Zhang Xu, Chang Bin
9:00 PM 1:00 PM
Cast Yann Gael, Evelyne Ily Juhen, Roger Sallah, Mentor Ba Prod Pamela Diop
Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched: A History of Folk Horror
Tin Can
ALBERT BIRNEY, KENTUCKER AUDLEY, USA, 2021, 91 MIN.
SETH A. SMITH, CANADA, 2020, 103 MIN.
Canadian Premiere. When two college friends (Madeline Quinn and Betsey Brown) secure a cheap Manhattan apartment, it’s not only too good to be true but worse than they could’ve ever imagined: the suite was previously Jeffrey Epstein’s love nest and is now home to other malevolent forces. Transmitting on frequencies both sinister and comic, Dasha Nekrasova’s outrageous psychosexual thriller employs ‘70s giallo and grindhouse aesthetics to take dead aim at contemporary gender dynamics, internet culture, and power structures. Cast Betsey Brown, Madeline Quinn, Dasha Nekrasova, Mark Rapaport Prod Adam Mitchell, Mark Rapaport
SAT, OCT 2 SAT, OCT 9
9:00 PM 4:15 PM
RIO RIO
RIO RIO
Cast Alanna Bale, Luke Bilyk, Benjamin Sutherland, Ella Farlinger, Vinessa Antoine, Shaun Austin-Olsen, Rosemary Dunsmore Prod Jennifer Jonas
Strawberry Mansion
RIO RIO CONN
6:30 PM 1:00 PM
Having successively orchestrated a coup, extracted a foreign drug lord, and absconded with a gold bounty, the Bangui Hyenas find their run of good luck ends abruptly when they’re shot down over Senegal’s Sine Saloum region. Taking refuge at a holiday camp, the mercenaries instantly arouse suspicion and soon unleash something otherworldly. As supernatural chaos rains down and predatory creatures wreak havoc, Jean Luc Herbulot orchestrates an action-horror film that’s a heady mix of mysticism and mayhem.
DASHA NEKRASOVA, USA, 2021, 81 MIN.
9:00 PM 3:30 PM
FRI, OCT 8 SUN, OCT 10
When Anna (Alanna Bale), a high-on-hemoglobin vampire, becomes enchanted by Robbie (Luke Bilyk), a despondent alcoholic, she nurtures his sobriety and considers forsaking her immortality. But her newfound nurturing instincts and fascination with humanity don’t sit well with her blood-sucking brethren. Sensual and soulful, Blaine Thurier’s latest idiosyncratic genre piece explores the more metaphorical elements of vampirism with considerable inventiveness and precisely the right measure of irreverence.
The Scary of Sixty-First THU, OCT 7 SUN, OCT 10 OCT 1-11
RIO RIO
TUE, OCT 5 FRI, OCT 8 OCT 1-11
9:00 PM 9:00 PM
RIO CINE CONN
In 2035, James (Kentucker Audley) audits people’s dreams, assessing them back taxes for their fantasies. Diving into the deep end of an archive of dreams belonging to elderly Bella (Penny Fuller), he embarks on a rollicking adventure featuring seafaring rats, mythical beasts, and a younger Bella (Grace Glowicki). Transforming practically every shot into a showcase of candy-coloured sets, analog technology, and stop-motion creatures, Audley and Albert Birney have dreamt up a beguilingly absurd confection.
Racing to find a cure for a global outbreak, a parasitologist (Anna Hopkins) is abducted and awakens in a suspended animation chamber. As she kicks and screams her way to freedom—or whatever the plague has laying in wait—Tin Can trades claustrophobic tension for undiluted nightmare fuel. Seth A. Smith (The Crescent) confirms his credentials as one of genre cinema’s most singular voices with this deftly executed, undeniably deranged wedding of classic body horror and contemporary anxieties over isolation.
Cast Penny Fuller, Kentucker Audley, Grace Glowicki, Linas Phillips, Reed Birney Prod Emma Hannaway, Matisse Rifai, Sarah Winshall, Taylor Ava Shung
Cast Anna Hopkins, Simon Mutabazi, Michael Ironside, Tim Dunn, Amy Trefry, Sam Vignault, Chik White Prod Nancy Urich
KIER-LA JANISSE, USA, 2021, 193 MIN.
FRI, OCT 8 OCT 1-11
8:45 PM
RIO CONN
Tracing folk horror’s winding path from the influential likes of The Wicker Man to more recent fare like Midsommar, Kier-La Janisse has fashioned an astonishingly ambitious deep dive into every recess of one of the genre cinema’s most spiritually resonant and culturally specific strains. Assembling clips from 200 films and insights from 50 interviewees, Woodlands Dark explores how these works are deeply rooted in myriad storytelling traditions and alternately embrace and interrogate chequered histories. Prod Kier-La Janisse, Winnie Cheung
