Award-winning actresses Natalie Portman and Julianne Moore are joining this year's Whistler Film Festival (WFF) by way of May December, a comedy-drama directed by Todd Haynes. The movie stars Portman as Elizabeth Berry, an actress who travels to meet a woman she is set to portray in an upcoming production. Moore plays Gracie Atherton-Yu, the subject of Berry's studies who was involved in a notorious tabloid romance two decades ago.
May December is set to make its English Canadian festival premiere in Whistler.
Also on tap is The Burning Season, a romantic drama that tracks a secret affair over seven summers featuring WFF favourites Jonas Chernick and Sara Canning, this tragic love story directed by Sean Garrity is told in a reverse narrative that challenges the audience’s preconceived ideas about the characters.
Moreover, WFF has announced the Western Canadian premiere of American Fiction, written and directed by Cord Jefferson. Based on Percival Everett’s 2001 novel “Erasure”, Jefferson's directorial debut confronts our culture's obsession with reducing people to outrageous stereotypes. Jeffrey Wright stars as Monk, a frustrated novelist who is fed up with the establishment profiting from "Black" entertainment that relies on tired and offensive tropes. To prove his point, Monk uses a pen name to write an outlandish "Black" book of his own, a book that propels him to the heart of the hypocrisy he claims to disdain.
“If you want to see this year’s likely major award winners, then Whistler is the place to be. Add in six world premieres, including two ‘sneak previews’ of major upcoming films, and this year’s Whistler Film Festival is poised to contend for the crown as the best WFF ever,” says Paul Gratton, director of programming, in a press release.
Learn more on the WFF website.
