VTIFF Program Guide 2025 - Flipbook - Page 24
FILMS A TO Z
FH: FILM HOUSE | BB: BLACK BOX THEATER | SR: SCREENING ROOM • All at Main Street Landing Performing Arts Center, Burlington
SIRĀT
SNOW LEOPARD SISTERS
Directed by Oliver Laxe
Spain, France | 2025 | Fiction | 115 min | Spanish, French w/subtitles
Directed by Ben Ayers, Sonam Choekyi Lama, and Andrew Lynch
UK | 2025 | Documentary | 93 min | Nepali w/subtitles
Sponsored by: Ravi Venkataraman
Sponsored by: Theresa Hyland and Rick Stoner
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 21 | 7:15 PM | FH
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 21 | 4:30 PM | FH
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 25 | 7:15 PM | BB
Sometimes it’s best to go into a movie completely cold. So feel free to stop reading now.
Suffice it to say that Sirāt is an experience. Stunningly photographed on Super 16mm in
the Rambla de Barrachina in Spain, the film has a sense of scale and a raw power that
demands to be seen on a big screen. Sirāt features not one but two of the most jawdropping moments in recent film that are sure to send shock waves through the theater.
The film won the prestigious Jury Prize (and the Palm Dog for canines Pipa and Lupita) at
Cannes this year. What starts out as the story of a man, accompanied by his young son,
looking for his estranged daughter, shifts gears at a decisive moment. They join a group
of damaged ravers searching for the next party in the Moroccan desert. Radio reports
indicate that WWIII has started. Kangding Ray’s hypnotic ambient-trance soundtrack
draws you deeper and deeper beyond the point of no return. And Laxe sustains and
modulates the tension masterfully until it inevitably snaps. ~OO
The Tuesday, October 21 screening is followed by a Q&A with co-director Ben Ayers via
Zoom from Nepal.
Set in the breathtaking Dolpo region of Nepal, Snow Leopard Sisters offers a feminist
perspective on wildlife preservation. The film follows two women, Tshiring Lhamu Lama
and Tenzin Bhuti Gurung, as they work toward saving the dwindling population of snow
leopards while navigating their own personal conflicts. Told entirely through the women’s
narration, the film offers an honest insight into their experiences as women on a quest
traditionally reserved for men. For Tshiring, it’s a calling to save these leopards. For
Tenzin, it’s more complicated—snow leopards decimated her family’s goat herd, and
she has accepted the apprenticeship mostly to delay an arranged marriage. The film
brings the Himalayas to the screen in glorious fashion with cinematography that makes
the very air feel alive. ~SM
SO LONG A LETTER
Directed by Angèle Diabang Brener
Senegal | 2025 | Fiction | 104 min | French, Wolof w/subtitles
Sponsored by: Brian Ortelere and Gretchen Santamour
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 21 | 4 PM | BB
The screening is followed by a panel with representatives from the
Thiès-Burlington Sister City Program.
Ramatoulaye, headmistress of a primary school in Dakar and the mother of
seven children, has been married to Modou for 30 years and is shocked when
he decides to take a second wife, 20-year-old Binetou. A merciless battle
between tradition and modernity ensues, contrasting very different views of
women’s roles in contemporary African society, as Ramatoulaye struggles to
maintain her identity and dignity in the face of this betrayal. Drawn from the
acclaimed 1979 novel by Senegalese writer Mariama Bâ, the film marks the
feature debut of screenwriter and documentarian Angèle Diabang Brener, who
notes, “(R)eligion… is often used to justify the mistreatment of women. It’s up
to a new generation of women to carry a different message forward.” ~SM
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VTIFF.ORG | VERMONT INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL 2025
