BB

Writer-director C.J. Wallis graduated from his upbringing in Cloverdale to an impressive career behind the camera, directing and photographing videos for the likes of Fake Shark Real Zombie before getting picked up as the in-house media dude for New Orleans rapper Curren$y. He made some stops along the way to work with, among others, the Soska sisters, who’d probably approve of Wallis’s feature debut, BB, about a camgirl who gets dragged into something very unsavoury. Wallis premieres his film at the Fox Cabaret on Saturday (June 25).

My Own Private Idaho

The Cinematheque’s Shakespeare 400 series gets into some deep cuts with Gus Van Sant’s 1991 riff on Henry IV, screening Friday to Sunday (June 24 to 26). Not weird enough for you? It’s tempestuously billed with Forbidden Planet for the first two nights.

Belladonna of Sadness

This faintly porny and heavily stylized animated curio from Japan (circa 1974) gets an encore Vancouver presentation at the Rio Theatre on Saturday and Sunday (June 25 and 26), with that big screen adding some welcome size to the film’s diminutive talking penis.

Hipsters

Tales of bebopping Soviet teenagers drunk on American jazz, zoot suits, and Brylcreem—in 1955 Moscow, no less—are pretty thin on the ground. Director Valeriy Todorovskiy’s domestic blockbuster redresses the balance when Hipsters comes to the Cinematheque on Tuesday (June 28).

The Wailing

Rashes, boils, white vomit, and death (naturally) befall a rural Korean town upon the unwelcome arrival of a Japanese stranger (Ichi the Killer’s Jun Kunimura) in this wildly acclaimed, genre-exploding exercise from writer-director Hong-jin Na (The Yellow Sea). This is the film that the L.A. Times fearfully described as having a “palpable aura of evil”. Head-spinning testimonials from fans and critics alike might offer more incentive if palpable evil isn’t enough. Take your one shot at The Wailing when it comes to the Vancity Theatre for a single screening on Saturday (June 25).