Skip to main content
Island of Freedom film image, director Petr Januschka

International Shorts: Connect/Disconnect/Reconnect

This event has passed

The films in this shorts program are all about connections. People connecting with one another, dealing with change, or rediscovering a part of themselves and their past.

 

Q&A Oct 2 & Oct 4

 

This short film program includes the following films:

Bye Bye
Amélie Bonnin, France (25 min)

A man who left his native Normandy to build a bigger life for himself in Paris returns to his hometown, where he runs into an old flame.

 


A Different Place
Sophie Black, UK (14 min)

On a clandestine date, a 40-something woman battling with her identity embarks on a journey of rediscovery that she cannot ignore nor fully encompass.

 


Island of Freedom
Petr Januschka, Czech Republic (27 min)

It’s 1981 in Czechoslovakia, and a young man surprisingly reunites with his teen love on board a charter flight to Cuba.

 


The Ceremony
Lisle Turner, UK (10 min)

Written by Iman Qureshi, The Ceremony is a searingly honest take on non-binary marriage, with a twist.

 


The Cormorant
Lubna Playoust, France (23 min)

A mother and son live in a secluded house on an isolated island, where memory merges with the present, intertwining two moments of their lives—youth and maturity.

 


Magnified City
Isaku Kaneko, Japan (12 min)

In a ruined city, a wandering Magnifying Glass Human encounters a secret society of Projector Humans with grand plans to reconnect to the past in a surviving mountaintop theatre.

 

Community Partner

Director

Various

Country of Origin

Various

Year

2021-2022

Language

Various with English subtitles

18+
111 min
Shorts

Book Tickets

This event has passed.

Missing VIFF? Check out what's playing at the VIFF Centre

Agatha's Almanac

Dir. Amalie Atkins
86 min

Shot over six years on vibrant 16mm film, Agatha’s Almanac is an artful documentary portrait of filmmaker Amalie Atkin’s octogenarian aunt, who has fashioned herself an endearingly simple and self-sustaining lifestyle on her Manitoba farm.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

Monica's News

Dir. Pamela Gallant
84 min

Set in a conservative Catholic village in Nova Scotia in the early 1970s, Pamela Gallant's assured debut feature is the coming of age story of a precocious nine-year-old who stumbles across a clue to a murder on her paper route.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

Lunatic: The Luna Vachon Story

Dir. Kate Kroll
104 min

Kate Kroll's doc is a touching tribute to wrestling legend Luna Vachon, who redefined women's wrestling but struggled with her own demons outside the ring.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre
Modern Whore
Modern Whore film image; woman sitting at the foot of a bed

Modern Whore

Dir. Nicole Bazuin
80 min

In director Nicole Bazuin's cheeky, stylized documentary, Modern Whore-memoirist Andrea Werhun (Paying for It) recounts her experiences as an escort and stripper in Toronto, debunking misconceptions about the world’s oldest profession.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

Castration Movie Anthology 1: Traps

Dir. Louise Weard
275 min

Louise Weard's underground movie is a talk-a-thon in two chapters and four hours: a sex worker contemplates having her testicles removed, and a movie production assistant pitches himself right out of a job, and other misadventures in Vancouver life.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

Starwalker

Dir. Corey Payette
116 min

Corey Payette's musical Starwalker blends drag spectacle, Indigenous storytelling, and soaring emotion in a film that celebrates chosen family and the liberating magic of performance.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre