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Island of Freedom film image, director Petr Januschka

International Shorts: Connect/Disconnect/Reconnect

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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

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

Diane

Dir. Kent Jones
95 min

This month's 55+-friendly Talking Pictures screening is a sympathetic, nuanced portrait of a kindly, generous widow (Mary Kay Place) whose son is an addict. Stay for a coffee, cookies, and a chat.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

Late Fame

Dir. Kent Jones
96 min

Based on a novella by Arthur Schnitzler (Eyes Wide Shut) this is a sly, poignant comedy about vanity and art from director Kent Jones, starring Willem Dafoe as a mailman belatedly acclaimed for a book of poetry he wrote in his youth.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

Memory of Princess Mumbi

Dir. Damien Hauser
80 min

In 2093, a filmmaker arrives in the African village of Umata, where he meets Princess Mumbi, a woman torn between love, legacy, and the future of storytelling. It's a fabulous genre-blending fable about memory, invention and cinematic resistance.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

Rosetta

Dir. Luc Dardenne, Jean-Pierre Dardenne
93 min

A teenager tries to change her dire circumstances in this overwhelming naturalistic drama from the Dardenne brothers, winner of the Palme d'Or and Best Actress awards at Cannes, 1999.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre
Lessons of Darkness
Lessons of Darkness film image; smoke pillars rising from the ground

Lessons of Darkness

Dir. Werner Herzog
54 min

Werner Herzog's unforgettable documentary reveals the unfolding disaster of the Kuwaitian oil fields in flames in 1991 as a sweeping inferno of mesmerizing power.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

Beau Travail

Dir. Claire Denis
93 min

Inspired by Herman Melville's Billy Budd, Claire Denis' transfixing Beau Travail is set in East Africa. Sgt Galoup (Denis Lavant) reflects on his time in the French Foreign Legion, and the impact of the handsome Sentain (Gregoire Colin).

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre