Morals are being challenged on many fronts. The protagonists in this program of short films are all faced with difficult moral choices and they don’t always make the right decisions.
Q&A Oct 3 & Oct 5
This short film program includes the following films:
The Silent Ones
Basile Vuillemin, France/Belgium/Switzerland (20 min)
At the end of an unsuccessful fishing trip, a small trawler’s desperate captain and crew ultimately agree they have to do something risky, but potentially lucrative, to change their fortune.
Solar Eclipse
Alireza Ghasemi, Raha Amirfazli, France/Iran (15 min)
A teen girl and her two friends and are off for an afternoon in the largest park in Teheran to photograph a rare total solar eclipse.
A Moral Man
Paul and Simon Wade, UK (19 min)
A right-to-die evangelist must wrestle with his faith and morality when his latest client turns out to be not what she claimed.
For Real
Ernest Lorek, Poland (19 min)
A young man’s house party takes an unexpected turn when his gangster neighbour breaks into his apartment.
Perspective
Alaa Algburi, Iraq/Jordan (10 min)
A symbolic examination of how men treat women in most of the Middle East from a young woman’s perspective.
The Lone Wolf
Filipe Melo, Portugal (24 min)
A talk show radio host has chosen emotions as his theme for tonight’s show, which proves surprisingly banal until he gets a call from an old friend.
Community Partner
Various
Various
2021-2022
Various with English subtitles
Domestic Violence, Gender or Sexual Discrimination, Sexual Violence, Child Abuse
Book Tickets
Missing VIFF? Check Out What's Playing at the VIFF Centre
La Bola Negra
A big, old-school historical melodrama gets a thrillingly modern, queer makeover from Spanish duo Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi, who artfully juggle three gay protagonists across stories set in 1932, 1937, and 2017. Winner: Best Director, Cannes. Screening on 35mm.
The History of Concrete
After attending a workshop on pitching saccharine Hallmark movies, John Wilson tries to apply all the same best practices to his documentary about concrete. Frequently absurd and endlessly entertaining detours, asides, and digressions ensue.
The Mad Dog of Europe
The story of an unmade screenplay from the writer of Citizen Kane. In 1932, Herman Mankiewicz wrote a film that foretold the persecution of the Jews and the war in Europe. But Hollywood wouldn't take the risk and The Mad Dog of Europe was never made.
The Mortal Storm
In this explicitly anti-Nazi melodrama directed by Frank Borzage (Three Comrades) a year before the US entered the war, Margaret Sullavan and James Stewart fall in love as their friends and family fall prey to the rise of Hitler's Nazi party in Germany.
NAZA
NAZA is a codeword euphemistically used by Israeli intelligence to indicate the number of civilians it expects will be killed in an airstrike. This chilling documentary exposes the policy and process of state-sanctioned mass killings.
Three Comrades
Scripted by F Scott Fitzgerald, Three Comrades (1938) was the first US studio film to chronicle the rise of European fascism in the 30s. Three German veterans open up a repair shop and try to regain a normal life, but political extremists have other ideas.