VTIFF Program Guide 2026 - Flipbook - Page 9
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FILMS A TO Z
ALL OF A SUDDEN
Directed by Ryusuke Hamaguchi
France, Japan, Germany, Belgium | 2026 |
Fiction | 196 min | French, Japanese w/
subtitles
Sponsored by Barbara McGrew
MONDAY, OCTOBER 19 | 7 PM | FH
It feels like the whole world is grieving right
now, and this running theme in many of the
year’s films extends to Japanese auteur
Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s latest opus. All of a
Sudden is a poignant snapshot of this
moment in time, but what makes this
towering film so essential, even radical, is
that it is not despairing; even as it diagrams
the no-win proposition of capitalism and its current
Winner, Best Actress
death-spiral, this poetic and philosophical movie is
(joint award),
brimming with optimism and hope. The story
2026 Cannes Film Festival
encompasses a great many things but is essentially
about two women—Marie-Lou (Virginie Efira), who
manages an assisted living facility, and Mari (Tao Okamoto), an artist with a terminal
illness (jointly awarded the prize for Best Actress at Cannes)—who form an instant,
profound connection in their brief time together. Packaged within this intimate drama is
a meditative celebration of irreducible human compassion, delivered with Hamaguchi’s
signature skill for proportion, that gently erodes your cynicism. There’s no denying that
Hamaguchi is working at a very high level right now, and this generous movie—full of
inhabited performances, theatricality, and unassuming visual mastery—is every bit the
equal of his Oscar-winner, Drive My Car. ~OO
BEN’IMANA
Directed by Marie-Clementine
Dusabejambo
Rwanda, Gabon, France, Norway
| 2026 | Fiction | 101 min |
Kinyarwanda w/ subtitles
Winner, Camera d’Or
(Best First Film),
2026 Cannes Film Festival
Sponsored by Coffee Enterprises
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 17 |
7:15 PM | BB
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 20 |
1:30 PM | BB
The atrocities perpetrated in
Rwanda in 1994, when almost a
million Tutsis were murdered by
their Hutu countrymen over the
course of 100 days, remain
almost unimaginable. But for her
first feature film, the first
Rwandan film to screen at the
Cannes Film Festival, MarieClementine Dusabejambo takes
the nightmare head-on, setting
her story amid the 2012 Gacaca courts—tribunals based in Rwandan tradition that were
tasked with finding justice and promoting reconciliation after the genocide. She focuses
on Veneranda (Clémentine Nyirinkindi), whose public forgiveness of the man who killed
her siblings touches off a firestorm within her family. Dusabejambo’s camera follows
these women as they try to figure out how to move forward, their personal histories all
tangled up with ghosts and unpunished murders. It’s a testament to the first-time
director that, even as she deals with the very worst of humanity, she portrays a
determination to find a way through. ~SM
VTIFF.ORG | VERMONT INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL 2026
AMAZOMANIA
Directed by Nathan Grossman
Sweden, Denmark, France | 2026 | Documentary | 93 min | Portuguese, Korubo,
Swedish, English, French w/ subtitles
Sponsored by Anonymous
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 17 | 12:15 PM | BB
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 22 | 7:15 PM | BB
This labyrinthine documentary interrogates the 1996 expedition of Sydney Possuelo, an
enterprising adventurer who led a journey deep into the Brazilian Amazon in search of
the elusive and much-mythologized Korubo tribe. The first half is an expertly assembled
found-footage journey, tracking the crew’s movements into the jungle. This B-roll
features all the ugliness one might expect on the margins, and Possuelo even gets his
Fitzcarraldo moment, blasting Strauss from the boat on his boombox. Eventually, they
make first contact, and it’s tense and abstract in ways that are challenging to untangle.
But the second half of the movie tries, heading back into the heart of the Amazon with
Erling Söderström, a journalist and filmmaker who was basically second in command on
the first expedition, as well as Brazilian anthropologist Barbara Arisi, to discover the
ramifications thirty years later. In the decades since, Söderström became something of a
self-styled Nigel Thornberry type, parlaying the expedition to diminishing notoriety.
Diving headlong down the rabbit hole of colonialist exploitation, Nathan Grossman’s
Amazomania is a mesmerizing takedown. ~OO
ANIMATION WORKSHOP WITH STEVE WOLOSHEN
Sponsored by Champlain College
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 25 | 10:30 AM | ATRIUM
FREE
EVENT!
Free event for all ages. Advance registration is recommended.
Internationally renowned animator Steven Woloshen returns to VTIFF with his muchloved animation workshop. An award-winning Canadian film animator and a pioneer of
drawn-on-film animation techniques, Woloshen teaches at the National Film Board of
Canada. In this workshop, participants get a film strip, choose materials, then decorate
the frames. Join us as we explore multiple approaches to camera-less filmmaking and
discover new ones along the way. Scratch, paint, or collage the surface of the strip,
which could be black, clear, or previously-shot footage. The goal is to explore, play, and
take risks with animation. After the workshop, the strips will be connected and digitized
so the full story can be presented during the festival. This activity is open to everyone
and all ages.
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