The Mill Valley Film Festival (MVFF47), organized by the California Film Institute, returns for its 47th edition from October 3 to 13, 2024, showcasing a dazzling array of films. The festival will feature selections from the 2024 Cannes Film Festival, the Berlin International Film Festival, and other prestigious events worldwide. A standout highlight for the French selection is the screening of EMILIA PEREZ, chosen to represent France at the 2025 Oscars!
While we have focused on films with French connections—whether through directors, actors, production, or subject matter—the festival’s programming is much broader. The French selection is supported by Villa Albertine
EMILIA PEREZ – France – Director Jacques Audiard
Double award winner with the Jury Prize and the Best Actress Award for its four starring actresses at the Cannes 2024 Film Festival 2024, this movie is a must-see.
Can a radical transformation change one’s destiny? Jacques Audiard’s (Dheepan, MVFF36) narco trans musical explores this question with a unique, wonderful blend: crime thriller-meets-exuberant musical, complete with production numbers. Zoe Saldaña, Karla Sofía Gascón, Selena Gomez, and Adriana Paz star in this story of ruthless cartel boss Manitas Del Monte, who hires lawyer Rita Moro Castro (Saldaña) to manage his sex change to become Emilia Pérez (Gascón) while his family relocates to Switzerland. Awarded Cannes’ best actress jury prize for its ensemble, the film brings women to the forefront of the traditionally male-dominated gangster movie. Audiard enhances the genre’s visual and tonal hallmarks with a liberating sense of expression through song and dance, making Emilia Pérez a standout in contemporary cinema with its engaging and compelling narrative and stellar performances. —João Federic
- SPOTLIGHT PROGRAM + RECEPTION: SATURDAY, OCT. 5 • 7:00 | SMITH RAFAEL FILM CENTER with the Cast
REGULAR SCREENING: MONDAY, OCT. 7 • 3:45PM | SEQUOIA CINEMA - Trailer
- All details
HOLY COW (Vingt Dieu) – Louise Courvoisier, France
In Louise Courvoisier’s feature film debut, a teenager’s carefree days of drinking beers and partying in the idyllic French countryside are interrupted when he must care for his 7-year-old sister and find a way to support the two of them. His solution? To craft the best Comté cheese and win 30,000 euros, along with a prestigious gold medal, at an agricultural competition. Holy Cow is a sweet and uplifting coming-of-age story, capturing the essence of friendship, first love, and the struggles of growing up without parents. Courvoisier’s masterful simplicity and authenticity bring a refreshing comedic touch to themes often steeped in drama. The film delves into youth culture, employment challenges, and the cherished traditions of cheese-making, all while highlighting the importance of family, friendship, and love. With its engaging narrative and relatable characters, this winner of the Prix de la Jeunesse at Cannes is a perfect film to enchant all audiences. —João Federici
- Oct 6th and Oct 10th, 2024
- All details
THE SEED OF THE SACRED FIG (Les graines du figuier sauvage) – France, Germany, Iran – Director Mohammad Rasoulof
Iranian writer-director Mohammad Rasoulof won the FIPRESCI prize and a special jury award at this year’s Cannes Film Festival for this gripping drama about the paranoia that slowly eats away at one Tehran family. Misagh Zareh stars as Iman, a seemingly honorable man recently promoted to investigating judge, which brings with it a hefty raise and a bigger apartment for him, his wife, and daughters. But he soon realizes he’s made a Faustian bargain—his new job requires him to sign the death warrants of protesters—which angers the women in his family. Meticulously building in tension until it becomes a harrowing thriller, the film is the latest act of defiance from Rasoulof (There Is No Evil), jailed several times by Iranian authorities for his politically outspoken films. (In fact, he fled the country to avoid imprisonment prior to _Sacred Fi_g’s premiere.) The filmmaker’s fury and sorrow suffuse his latest stunner, which brilliantly details how an oppressive regime obliterates the souls of its citizens. —Tim Grierson
- Oct 5th and Oct 6th, 2024
- All details
EVERYBODY LOVES TOUDA – France, Morocco, Belgium, Denmark, Netherlands, Director Nabil Ayouch
Nisrin Erradi dazzles as the charismatic Touda, a single mother determined to earn her living as a singer of Bedouin Aita, poetry defiantly written by women at a time when they were forbidden a voice. The challenges of her particular ambition are excruciatingly clear from the start when men, who see her only as a commodity they might purchase for cheap or take for free, sour her joy in performing. The camera moves in close as she persists, overcoming obstacles subtle and overt, not only for herself but also to give her deaf son a better life. Co-written by director Nabil Ayouch (Much Loved) and Maryam Touzani (The Blue Caftan, MVFF45), it is the latest powerful work from the longtime collaborators, whose work is always empathetic to women facing worlds hostile to their desires. In Everybody Loves Touda, they avoid sentimentality while suffusing their drama with an exuberance and complexity equaled by Touda’s songs. —Shari Kizirian
- Oct 6th and October 8th, 2024
- All details
WILD DIAMOND (Diamant Brut) – France, Director Agathe Riedinger
Wild Diamond explores the relentless pursuit of fame through the eyes of Liane, a fiery 19-year-old. Living with a dysfunctional mother and caring for her younger sister in the sun-drenched town of Fréjus, Liane is determined to escape grim reality. Her weapon of choice? Beauty. With a fierce resolve and harboring the belief that desirability equals power, she shapes herself to become irresistible. Her life takes a dramatic turn when she auditions for Miracle Island, a reality show she sees as her ticket to validation and love. Shot in an immersive 4:3 aspect ratio, the film draws you into Liane’s world, capturing the intensity of her gaze and the desperation behind her Instagram-perfect facade. Agathe Riedinger’s empathetic direction in her feature debut reveals the raw, often painful, reality of a young woman caught between the harshness of life and the seductive allure of superficial success. Wild Diamond is a gripping exploration of identity, self-worth, and the cost of being seen. —João Federici
- Oct 7th and Oct 10th, 2024
- All details
DAHOMEY – FRANCE, SENEGAL, BENIN • 2024 • 68 MINS – Director Mati Drop
French-Senegalese filmmaker Mati Diop follows up her sensational narrative debut Atlantics with this imaginative and pointed hybrid documentary about artistic repatriation and colonialism that took the top prize at the 2024 Berlin Film Festival. In presenting the story of 26 antiquities returned to Benin (which contained the Kingdom of Dahomey) by its former colonizer, France, the film sensuously details the packing up and shipping of these cultural artifacts in coruscating fashion. There’s the work of the curators in both countries sending, receiving, and detailing the work; there’s Beninese students’ impassioned reaction to this “too-little-too-late” French apologia; and then there’s the imagined dialogue from one of the pieces, a magisterial wood-carved statue of King Gezo, as he travels back to his homeland. Brimming with insight and inferred hope for future reparations, Diop memorably depicts this perhaps small but nevertheless singular moment of cultural exchange and apology. —Rod Armstrong
In French with English subtitles
- Oct 11th, and Oct 12th, 2024
- Details
ALL WE IMAGINE AS LIGHT – France / India – Director Payal Kapadia
Crafted with visual poetry and emotional empathy, this 2024 Cannes Film Festival Grand Prix winner from MVFF Mind the Gap Award honoree Payal Kapadia shines a light on three nurses as they negotiate love and life in the teeming Mumbai metropolis. Prabha has a husband living overseas, her younger roommate Anu is carrying on a secret relationship with a Muslim boy, and Parvati plans to leave the big city after her husband dies. Without the support of men, these women forge bonds of mutual support while dispensing much-needed information and advice to their female patients. Cinematographer Ranabir Das tracks their days from work to home with a shimmering beauty, especially in the nighttime scenes. As the film moves from city to country in its second half, the women’s relationships shift and deepen as Kapadia finds the small but wondrous epiphanies in everyday lives. —Rod Armstrong
- SPOTLIGHT PROGRAM + RECEPTION: FRIDAY, OCT. 11 • 7:00 | SMITH RAFAEL FILM CENTER
- REGULAR SCREENING: SATURDAY, OCT. 12 • 7:00PM | BAMPFA
- Trailer
- All details
BIRD , Director Andrea Arnold – UK, US, FRANCE, GERMANY • 2024 • 119 MINS
In her latest film, director Andrea Arnold (Fish Tank; Cow, MVFF44) returns to the hardscrabble lives of Brits that established her career. Protagonist Bailey (newcomer Nykiya Adams) is a 12-year-old girl forced into beyond-her-age maturity by ill-equipped parents. Her dad, Bug (Barry Keoghan, Saltburn, MVFF46), is focused on his upcoming wedding while her mom lives in a seedy part of town with an abusive boyfriend. Bailey’s favorite activity is wandering the countryside, filming animals, especially birds, on her phone. When she meets a free spirit in a skirt looking for his parents and coincidentally named Bird (Franz Rogowski; Undine, MVFF43), a bond forms and an adventure begins. Adams shines in the lead role, veering from petulance to empathy with grace, and Arnold deftly develops Bailey’s burgeoning friendship with Bird to explore various tensions within adolescent life, most importantly the guidance and nurturing that folks on the cusp of adulthood need. —Rod Armstrong
- Friday October 4 & Sunday October 6th
- Trailer
- All details
If you are not familiar with the MVFF, be careful, tickets sell out quickly : general public tickets on sale starting September 18th: ticket sales here
MVFF47 Bay Area Screening Venues:
SMITH RAFAEL FILM CENTER 1118 4th St, San Rafael
SEQUOIA CINEMA 25 Throckmorton Ave, Mill Valley
OUTDOOR ART CLUB 1 Blithedale Ave, Mill Valley
THE LARK 549 Magnolia Ave., Larkspur
BAMPFA 2155 Center St, Berkeley
Thank you Mill Valley Film Festival, thank you California Film Institute!
