Filmmaking is an exercise in persuasion, and sight plays a crucial part in compelling storytelling. Integral to filmmakers are visual effects, making the most bizarre and impossible landscapes real. Manifesting in the spectacle of colossal creatures, fantastical worlds, and reanimations of the past, visual effects open up windows into worlds beyond our own.

This year’s Perspectives Film Festival: Breakthroughs in Cinema celebrates both the optical grandeur and the meticulous visual craftsmanship that continues to shape the future of cinema. We invite you to see past the surface of these films, at the hidden machinations that bring them to life.