Canadian Premiere
Diagnosed with bilateral sensorineural progressive hearing loss in the first grade, Charo Mato became fully deaf by the age of 23, and received cochlear implants against her parents’ wishes. Structured with eight distinct stories and questions, Mato’s autobiographical documentary flits between childhood stories and digressive memories, the scientific and medical explanations of hearing loss and implants, and poetic ruminations on the nature of life and language. Mato uses the film to process her own experience, interweaving home videos of her childhood with the stories and lives of people she’s interviewing for the film, and exploring the stories and lives of the d/Deaf and hard of hearing while resisting a monolithic experience. A beautiful, highly personal film processing and celebrating the experiences of those with hearing loss.
Q&A Oct 4 & Oct 6
Argentina/Uruguay
2021
In Spanish with English subtitles
Book Tickets
Missing VIFF? Check out what's playing at the VIFF Centre
The Teacher
In this potent thriller, English teacher Basem witnesses the murder of a teenager by a Israeli settler. While the subsequent investigation rolls slowly towards a foregone conclusion, the teacher is caught up in a parallel kidnapping case...
Bob Trevino Likes It
When her toxic, narcissistic dad cuts her out of his life, Lily Trevino looks him up on Facebook and happens across his namesake, Bob (John Leguizamo), a gentle, genial contractor who lives nearby, and who proves an altogether better dad...
The Encampments
When pro-Palestine protests took hold of Columbia last year, the filmmakers were there from the beginning. This documentary charts the mounting tensions between students and the administration, as the protests were picked up across North America.
Shepherds
Mathyas quits his marketing job in Montreal and goes to France with the romantic notion of becoming a shepherd. He's in for a rude awakening... Based on a true story, Deraspe's stirring film plays spiritual uplift off against some 3000 sheep and a donkey.
Our Lady of the Nile
Veronica and Virginia are inseparable friends at an elite Catholic boarding school, Our Lady of the Nile, but what binds them together is the very thing that separates them forever. We are in Rwanda, 1973, and tribal tensions are simmering ominously.
Faces
Ten years after his landmark debut, Shadows, John Cassavetes returned to the indie model, self-financing this wrenching portrait of the sexual mores and miseries of American middle class. Gena Rowlands is luminous as Jeannie, the film's emotional barometer.
Credits
Executive Producer
Charo Mato, Eugenia Olascuaga
Producer
Charo Mato, Eugenia Olascuaga, Valentina Baracco
Screenwriter
Charo Mato
Cinematography
Tomás Ridilenir
ANIM
Juan Cavia, Juan Pablo Sandoval, Roxana Vazquez
Editor
Camila Muhafra
Original Music
Maximiliano Silveira
Director
Charo Mato
Charo Mato is a filmmaker who studied Image and Sound Design at the Universidad de Buenos Aires (FADU-UBA). She has been a fellow of the Sundance Documentary Film Program and Talents Buenos Aires. Her first documentary, 8 Stories About My Hearing Loss, is supported by Instituto Nacional de Cine y Artes Audiovisuales (INCAA), Instituto Nacional del Cine y el Audiovisual del Uruguay (INCAU), and Sundance. The film premiered at the Buenos Aires International Documentary Film Festival (FIDBA) and won best film at the Construir Cine – Festival Internacional de Cine Sobre el Trabajo (International Labour Film Festival).