TORI AND LOKITA

ADVANCE TICKET SALES END at 5:00 PM on 10/25. Additional tickets will be sold at the door.
A young boy (Tori) and a teenage girl (Lokita), who have left their home countries of Cameroon and Benin to make a new life in Belgium, navigate a range of challenging experiences. Whether finding jobs on the black market or working to send money back to their families, their friendship provides a bond that helps them survive. Hoping to get their papers to remain in the country, they soon find that there are an array of forces stacked against them. Clinging to the hope of a better life, their struggle is a gripping testament to the power of the human spirit and the courage of their relationship. 2022, Belgium, 88 minutes, in French with English Subtitles.

Winner of the 75th Anniversary Prize at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival, by two-time Palme d’Or winners Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne.

Join a discussion after the film with Stefany Ovalles, Esq., the Director of Immigration Legal Services & Compliance at the Center for Safety and Change, where she works with survivors of human trafficking, domestic violence and sexual assault and helps them obtain immigration relief.

“Tori and Lokita is an almost unbearably tense, lo-fi thriller that carries with it a stern, solemn moral weight. Long into a storied career, the Dardennes are making work as relevant and probing as ever.” – Vanity Fair

“Schils and Mbundu keep the film’s feet firmly on the ground, delivering a hefty emotional punch built in equal measure on empathy, admiration and anguish.” – The Observer

“It’s remarkably assured material, impeccably played and with restless political undercurrents, from two film-makers operating at a seemingly effortless pace.” – Times (UK)

“The Dardennes’ spare style can be mistaken for simplicity. Simple is a strange word for the moral knots of what the children must do to survive… And at the heart of it all is another enduring concern of the brothers: the fate of goodness.” – Financial Times

“It’s another deeply humane parable of life on the margins in Belgium’s hardscrabble suburbs, engaging and heartbreaking in equal measure.” ­ – Time Out

“The Dardennes are too honest to conceal their despair at the state of the world. They also know that the voicing of that despair can be its own small expression of hope.” – Los Angeles Times

“In 88 succinct and effective minutes, it sketches a heartbreaking portrait of young refugees clinging to each other in a Europe that is far from welcoming.” – TheWrap

“A film that could have settled for being a masterclass in technique, but instead goes deeper, exploring questions of artistry, authorship, legacy.” NPR

“Had The Christophers just been a cross-generational punch-up, the sort of flinty showdown designed to throw off pleasurable sparks, you’d still walk away content. It remains a conduit for two of the best performances you’ll see all year.” – David Fear, Rolling Stone

“The Christophers is largely a comedy, but it’s also about all that we gain and lose with age, and about how we sometimes need young people to bring us back to ourselves.” – Stephanie Zacharek, TIME

“Having lost the inspiration that guided him to greatness, Julian is an artist who can no longer paint, and Lori is an artist who has lost all confidence in there being a place for her work in the larger world. For all the undercurrents about fame, commodification, and reputation that flow through The Christophers, at its core is a more plaintive lament about what it feels like to love something that doesn’t love you back.” – Alison Willmore, Vulture

“Go see The Christophers. Show up, and support a tiny, talky experiment that has no relationship to IP or sequels or box-office projection. It’s not a perfect movie, but it’s also never, as Lori grudgingly notes about Julian’s work, uninteresting. And in this cultural moment, that’s an authentic win.” – Elizabeth Weitzman, Time Out

“The Christophers is a work of criticism that deftly distinguishes different approaches to criticism.” ­– Justin Chang, The New Yorker 

“Brims with hilarious dialogue, lightly satirical observations of a culture that treats art as a commodity, and satisfying payoffs to a number of story elements planted early on.” – Seth Katz, Slant Magazine

“In the end, this film about artists becomes a work of art in its own right. The more you look at it, the more its many components reveal themselves to you.” – Chase Hutchinson, The Wrap

“Ian McKellen plays Julian Sklar, a sardonic art legend who meets his intellectual match in frank preservationist Lori Butler (Michaela Coel). In a test of wits and wills held mostly in a single-setting, Soderbergh pushes both characters to return to their former passions through philosophical conversations that reflect his own career.” – Robert Daniels, Screen International

“It bats about ideas pertaining to art, commerce, ownership and legacy with dexterous aplomb and boasts two equally superb leads who make the material crackle.” – David Rooney, The Hollywood Reporter

“The Christophers is a talky, at times incredibly funny, comedy drama with plot reversals that make it feel like it’s on the verge of a thriller. It doesn’t end up there, at least not strictly, but it’s unpredictable enough to never make us entirely sure just where it’s heading.” – Benjamin Lee, Guardian

“There’s no room for anything shy of genius in The Christophers, a crackling original drama about artistic legacy in all its facets, directed by Steven Soderbergh , from a script by Ed Solomon (No Sudden Move) and starring two top-notch English actors of wildly different backgrounds and styles, Ian McKellen and Michaela Coel, at the top of their respective games.” – Peter Debruge, Variety

“With Ian McKellen in superbly crotchety form and Michaela Coel exuding chilly cunning, it’s further proof that Soderbergh remains one of American Cinema’s most inimitable, and adventurous, auteurs. – Nick Schager, The Daily Beast