All You Can Eat Buddha
Ian Lagarde

All You Can Eat Buddha || Ian Lagarde
Feature || Canada || 2017 || 84 minutes
Wednesday June 6 || 7 PM || Neptune Scotiabank Stage Theatre || $10/$12

Vacation comes early this year in the form of Ian Lagarde’s debut feature, All You Can Eat Buddha, which takes place on a sunny all-inclusive island resort. Ludovic Berthillot stars as Mike, a guest at El Palacio who arrives alone and plans on an indefinite stay. He plods around in paradise, sates his senses with buffet food and gaudy entertainment, but something isn’t quite right in this unsettling utopia. Though the film was shot in Cuba, the fictional setting remains nameless and Lagarde’s script and direction conjure an eerie reality out of inscrutable performances and slick, hallucinatory visuals. Somewhere between cosmic comedy and Dharmic dream, All You Can Eat Buddha is an absurd and thought-provoking rumination on spirituality and consumption that is both recognizable and repellent in equal measure.

A Q&A with Ian Lagarde will follow the screening.

Ian Lagarde grew up on film sets as a child actor, before making a definitive move behind the cameras. He has directed seven short films, a feature documentary about America's obsession with lawns and splits his time between cinematography and film directing. All You Can Eat Buddha is his first feature as a writer-director.