Every year VIFF Centre showcases the short film nominees across three categories: Best Live Action Short, Best Animated Short, and Best Short Documentary. While feature films seem to stretch longer and longer and audiences remain hungry to binge endless TV series, these mini masterpieces remind us that brevity is the soul of wit, and less can be more. This year’s live action shorts include films from India, South Africa, the USA, the Netherlands, and Croatia about rhinos, robots, and testing times.
The Man Who Could Not Remain Silent, Nebojša Slijepčević and Danijel Pek, Croatia, 13 min: A passenger train from Belgrade to Bar is stopped by paramilitary forces in an ethnic cleansing operation, in a dramatization of the Štrpci massacre of 1993
Anuja, Adam J. Graves and Suchitra Mattai, US/India, 22 min: Nine-year-old Anuja works in a garment factory with her older sister Palak. When she’s given the opportunity to take an exam that could get her into a boarding school, she must make a tough choice about her future.
I’m Not a Robot, Victoria Warmerdam and Trent, Netherlands/Belgium, 22 min: After repeatedly failing Captcha tests, a music producer named Lara becomes obsessed with a disturbing question: could she be a robot?
A Lien, Sam Cutler-Kreutz and David Cutler-Kreutz, USA, 15 min: On the day of their green card interview, a young couple confronts a dangerous immigration process.
The Last Ranger, Cindy Lee and Darwin Shaw, South Africa, 28 min: A young South African girl, Litha, is being introduced to game reserve by the last remaining ranger when they are ambushed by poachers, leading to a battle to protect the rhinos.
Various
Various
2024
Various
Book Tickets
Indigenous & Community Access
Indigenous Access Tickets Community Access Tickets Ticket Donation Requests
Also Playing
The Fugitive Kind
Sidney Lumet's movie brings together two of the greatest actors of the period, Brando and Anna Magnani, reason enough to check out this underrated poetical drama about a handsome musician who washes up in a small southern town.
Georgia O'Keeffe: the Brightness of Light
Drawing on her copious correspondence and the world's leading scholars, this is a definitive documentary on the life and work of "the mother of American Modernism."
Fairy Creek
Considered the largest act of civil disobedience in Canadian history, the Fairy Creek blockade led to more than 1200 arrests. What Jen Muranetz's film gives us is the story from the front line from the activists' point of view (often, from the treetops).
Super Happy Forever
This beguiling film depicts a man’s return to the Japanese seaside town where he met his now-deceased wife five years earlier. He tries to relive the past, and in the film's final section -- a flashback to 2018 -- the audience is afforded that privilege.