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It's Not Me film image; off-coloured photo of person sitting on bed

Spectrum

Series Trailer

Image: It’s Not Me, VIFF 2024

A collection of innovative nonfiction filmmaking

While our Insights selections change the way we see the world, Spectrum’s nonfiction fare sends us crashing through the looking glass. This is an opportunity to witness Shakespeare staged in the seedy recesses of a notorious video game, visit the secret and sometimes surprisingly mundane sanctums of Satanists, and consider colonialism from the perspective of one of Pablo Escobar’s pet hippos. And while there is much lyricism and visual eloquence to be found here, Leos Carax’s latest isn’t so much a cinematic essay as an outright eruption.

It’s Not Me

Dir. Leos Carax
42 min

“Where are you at, Leos Carax?” To this question, the French filmmaker assembles an unpredictable essay-film made in the spirit of the late Jean-Luc Godard—an endlessly inventive self-portrait of an artist reflecting on his place in cinema history.

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Apple Cider Vinegar

Dir. Sofie Benoot
84 min

Upon finding a rare Antarctic mineral in a kidney stone, a former nature documentary narrator guides us on a meditative trip– from volcanic Fogo Island to the granite quarries of Palestine, and beyond– to explore the often overlooked world of stones.

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Realm of Satan

Dir. Scott Cummings
79 min

This experiential documentary contrasts macabre rituals with the mundane domestic lives of high-ranking members of The Church of Satan. A series of wordless vignettes that paint a non-judgmental portrait of the modern Satanist.

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Real

Dir. Adele Tulli
83 min

Adele Tulli’s documentary explores our relationship with reality in an increasingly virtual world. Exploiting the modern ubiquity of the camera, Real embraces the uncanny beauty of virtual reality and examines technology’s place in human connection.

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*smiles and kisses you*

Dir. Bryan Carberry
87 min

A lonely man builds himself a girlfriend by pairing a life-size love doll with an AI chatbot. Bryan Carberry’s documentary is a haunting, romantic sci-fi parable that asks if AI can replace real human connection.

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The Universe in a Grain of Sand

Dir. Mark A. Levinson
73 min

Mark Levinson explores the synergy of art and science, mapping out revolutions in technology through a dazzling array of artwork and experimental films, celebrating the transcendent power of the imagination on a breathtaking journey through the universe.

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Listen to the Voices

Dir. Maxime Jean-Baptiste
76 min

A powerful docudrama following a teenage boy spending the summer at his grandmother’s house in French Guiana, where he learns about his roots and connects with a community of people still reeling from the tragic loss of his uncle several years earlier.

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Pepe

Dir. Nelson Carlo de los Santos Arias
122 min

In 2009, a hippopotamus named Pepe, formerly a part of Pablo Escobar’s private zoo, became the first—and so far only—such animal to be killed in the Americas. In this unclassifiable, formally audacious feature, Pepe tells us his side of the story.

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The In Between

Dir. Robie Flores
82 min

After the death of her brother, filmmaker Robie Flores is drawn back to USA/Mexico border town of Eagle Pass, and, while processing her grief, finds echoes and reverberations of her own memories in the hopes, dreams, and daily lives of the youth there.

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Grand Theft Hamlet

Dir. Pinny Grylls & Sam Crane
90 min

A machinima documentary about two out-of-work actors who mount a full production of Hamlet within the world of Grand Theft Auto V online. Something is rotten in the city of Los Santos; the perfect backdrop for Shakespeare’s bloodsoaked tragedy.

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