Friday, February 28
The Screening Room
7:00 pm
Saturday, March 1
The Screening Room
9:30 pm
In transforming Goethe’s 18th-century novella about a doomed love affair into the stuff of a stylish, snappy and very modern rom-com, José Avelino Gilles Corbett Lourenço performs what surely qualifies as a magic trick. The charms of the Toronto-based filmmaker and writer’s debut feature are greatly enhanced by the efforts of an exemplary cast led by British actor Douglas Booth and Canada’s own Alison Pill (ALL MY PUNY SORROWS, KCFF22). Booth plays Werther, a literary-minded young man who sees his chance for a grand romance when he meets Charlotte (Pill). Perceiving her engagement to Albert (Patrick J. Adams of Suits) as an obstacle to be overcome, Werther pursues his campaign without fully realizing the costs of his actions until too late. But rather than descend into Goethe’s gloom, Lourenço aims for a very different direction with his reinterpretation, which is as delightful as it is unpredictable.
Director: José Avelino Gilles Corbett Lourenço
Cast: Douglas Booth, Alison Pill, Iris Apatow, Amrit Kaur, Jaouhar Ben Ayed, Patrick J. Adams
Language: English
Runtime: 101 minutes
Content advisory: coarse language, sexual references
José Lourenço, director
Matt Code, producer
Matt Code is a Canadian film, television, and digital media producer, and the founder of Wildling Pictures. A 2015 graduate of the Canadian Film Centre’s Film Program, Producer’s Lab, Code has worked in various production roles, including as a producer, post-production supervisor, and production manager. He is known for his work on award-winning television programs and short films.
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