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Ponto Final film image, director Miguel López Beraza

International Shorts: Personal Journeys

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The films in this shorts program are all about discovery. Beautiful and thought-provoking voyages of internal and external discovery that honour relations and history, while encountering stimuli that promote a new understanding of self.

 

Q&A Oct 4 & Oct 6

 

This short film program includes the following films:

Before Birth
Álex Mena, Carmen Jiménez, Spain (20 min)

A documentary/diary film that focuses on one of the directors, Álex Mena, who journeys to her grandmother’s village looking for a closure never realized after she died.

 


Firecracker Bullets
Chad Charlie, USA (14 min)

In this personal documentary, Indigenous comedian Chad Charlie goes to participate in the Standing Rock occupation and has a transformative experience.

 


Ponto Final
Miguel López Beraza, Spain/Portugal (23 min)

The director returns to his parents’ home and talks them into playing roles in a film he is making, addressing delicate personal and familial subjects in the process.

 


Will You Look at Me
Shuli Huang, China (20 min)

A 25-year-old gay man returns to his hometown in China after film school, and reflects how his coming out as gay affected (and continues to affect) his mother.

 


For You Today the Light of the Sun Will Not Shine
Andrea Bordoli, Switzerland (19 min)

Two construction workers wander through a hybrid natural-industrial zone by day and night, exploring and discovering seemingly insignificant details.

 


Empire of My Melodious Mind
Jeannette Louie, USA (9 min)

The odds and ends within a single cabinet spark an interior rumination of the self, family, and culture that form the identity of an American-born Asian woman.

 

Community Partner

Director

Various

Country of Origin

Various

Year

2021-2022

Language

Various with English subtitles

18+
105 min
Shorts

Book Tickets

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

There's Still Tomorrow

Dir. Paola Cortellesi
118 min

A critical and box office sensation in Italy, Paola Cortellesi's triumphant directorial debut is the tale of a Roman housewife in 1946, who stands up against the routine sexist abuse she suffers. Funny, heartbreaking and inspiring.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

The Way, My Way

Dir. Bill Bennett
93 min

All manner of pilgrims flock to France and Spain to walk the 800 km Camino de Santiago. One such is Bill, a stroppy sexagenarian Australian filmmaker who's determined to do the Camino with minimal prep, a dickey leg, and no firm idea why.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

The Stand

Dir. Christopher Auchter
95 min

This rousing doc explores a 1985 dispute over logging in the Haida Gwaii. Taking us from canny retrospective commentary to the thick of the action, director Chris Auchter employs animation and a wealth of archival footage to riveting effect.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

Resident Orca

Dir. Sarah Sharkey Pearce & Simon Schneider
97 min

Captured in Puget Sound in 1970, killer whale Lolita spent the next half century in a cramped tank in Seaquarium, Miami. The film follows a coalition of Lummi elders, animal lovers and philanthropists on a rescue mission to return her to the ocean.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

No Other Land

Dir. Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal, Yuval Abraham & Rachel Szor
96 min

Deemed by many critics one of the essential films of 2024, a multiple festival award winner and Academy Award winner for Best Documentary, No Other Land is a reminder that mass expulsion is by no means a new reality for Palestinians.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

Misericordia

Dir. Alain Guiraudie
103 min

Edgy, eccentric, and unapologetically queer, this film goes from drama to comedy without putting a foot wrong. Sex and murder are the subjects, and writer-director Alain Guiraudie (Stranger by the Lake) mines them for suspense and outrageous laughs.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre