BUFF: Happy Face

(2018) dir. Alexandre Franchi [Canada; 100 min]

Desperate to become less shallow, Stan, a handsome 19-year-old, deforms his face with bandages and attends a support group for disfigured people after he learns his cancer-ridden mother will undergo invasive facial surgery.

But when he’s exposed as an impostor, Stan strikes a deal with Vanessa, the domineering workshop leader: he stays with the group, and in exchange he trains them on how to use their facial differences as a weapon against our beauty-obsessed culture.

HAPPY FACE is filmed with real persons with facial differences playing fictionalized versions of themselves.

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