The Lighthouse

The Lighthouse

Nominated for an Academy Award for Best Cinematography, The Lighthouse is a mesmerizing descent into madness and myth, crafted by visionary filmmaker Robert Eggers. Following his acclaimed debut The Witch, Eggers returns with a claustrophobic psychological thriller steeped in folklore, isolation, and the elemental power of the sea.

Set in the late 19th century, the film follows two lighthouse keepers—Thomas Wake (Willem Dafoe) and Ephraim Winslow (Robert Pattinson)—tasked with maintaining a remote outpost on the storm-lashed New England coast. As their solitude stretches into weeks, paranoia and obsession begin to erode the boundary between sanity and delirium. The men’s power struggle unfolds in hypnotic black-and-white imagery, rendered in stark 35mm by cinematographer Jarin Blaschke, whose work earned international acclaim.

Eggers’ meticulous direction and period-perfect dialogue immerse the viewer in a world both gritty and surreal, where myth and reality blur like fog over the ocean. The film’s oppressive atmosphere, haunting score, and electrifying performances by Dafoe and Pattinson combine to create an experience as unsettling as it is mesmerizing.

Premiering at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival (Directors’ Fortnight), The Lighthouse has been celebrated as a masterwork of modern horror and a meditation on isolation, masculinity, and the consuming nature of obsession. It’s a film that traps its audience, as its characters, in the flickering glow of madness and mystery.

Screening With:

Waters of March

Canadian Shorts Showcase

Waters of March is the classic written by Tom Jobim and performed by jazz singer Stacey Kent. The delicately rendered animated drawings tell the ever-changing story of loss and hope. 

3 mins
Canada, 2019
Dir. Elizabeth Lewis
Language: English

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