The lives of a musician and a police detective unexpectedly dovetail in Marie Kreutzer’s (Corsage, MVFF45) latest provocative drama when a search warrant for a filmmaker’s hard drives upends the life of his wife. Philip (Laurence Rupp) declares his innocence to musicologist and performance artist Lucy (Léa Seydoux, The French Dispatch, MVFF44), but each protestation reveals more deceptions as the investigation unfolds into his participation in a shocking corner of the dark web. While Lucy reels from the revelations and their impact on her young son, lead investigator Elsa (Jella Haase) confronts her own challenges as her dementia-ridden father harasses his caretakers. In their parallel experiences, Lucy and Elsa encounter the haunting and vivid travails of male privilege and entitlement, gaslighting, and patriarchal cruelty as they navigate a fragile landscape where home hides some of the worst manifestations of sexism and misogyny. With excellent support from Catherine Deneuve as Lucy’s mother. —Sterling Hedgpeth
Heavy adult content: Sensitive viewers be advised

The evening’s Spotlight Program will feature the presentation of the Mind the Gap Award to director Marie Kreutzer and the MVFF Award to Léa Seydoux.

Marie Kreutzer will receive the Mind the Gap Award for her direction of Gentle Monster. The Austrian filmmaker, whose previous feature Corsage was Austria's submission for the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film, brings the same unflinching precision to Gentle Monster, a Cannes Competition selection that turns a difficult, deeply personal subject into a portrait of love tested by betrayal. Her fearless approach to storytelling continues to expand what's possible for women behind the camera.

Léa Seydoux will be presented with the MVFF Award for Fearless Performance in Gentle Monster. A magnetic screen presence for over two decades, with credits spanning Blue Is the Warmest Colour, Spectre, and The French Dispatch, Seydoux brings striking depth and raw vulnerability to one of the most demanding roles of her career as a wife confronting the unraveling of everything she believed about her husband.