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
Various
Various
2021-2022
Various with English subtitles
Book Tickets
Missing VIFF? Check out what's playing at the VIFF Centre
Short Forum 2: Anthropomaxx
Dogs, frogs, hogs, and more!
The Liberation
Haunted by her past, Rita (a magnificent Carrie Coon) is lured to an all-female commune by a magnetic, manipulative spiritual leader (Lily James). An unsettling yet deeply empathetic exploration of personal freedom, devotion, and control.
Image: © Bleecker Street
Tender Loving Care
Mike Leigh’s film depicts the lives of Amy and Rosie, best friends and fellow social workers, who care for the dispossessed with all the strength they have. Sometimes it's funny, tragic, and often it's balancing both, this is a work of humble compassion.
The Story of Documentary Film – The 2010s & 2020s
In The Story of Documentary Film – The 2010s & 2020s, Mark Cousins follows nonfiction into phones, GoPros, YouTube, TikTok, live streams, and feeds to look at bodily autonomy, surveillance, racism, borders, and truth after vérité.
Image: © Fire of Love, 2022, dir. Sara Dosa, Canada, USA, Sandbox Films, Cottage M, Intuitive Pictures, National Geographic Documentary Films
A Girl Unknown
In this tender, compassionate drama, we see the hardships endured by a young girl adopted in the early 1980s during China’s one-child policy. As a teenager in the 90s, she’s still fighting to find a sense of belonging and assert her worth.
Concrete Land
Filmed over eight years, Concrete Land follows the Najar family, one of Jordan’s last Afro-Palestinian-Bedouin families, as luxury villas close in on their grazing space outside Amman. Asmahan Bkerat preserves their way of life in the face of erasure.