Canada
2022
In English and Spanish with English subtitles
Violence
Featured in:
VIFF Short Forum: Program 1
What kind of alchemy occurs to transform hardship into fortune? Here, the extraordinary burn brightly.
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Salón México
Cheated by her pimp, Mercedes recklessly steals his wallet and is only saved from a severe beating by the intervention of a kindly policeman. Hard-hitting social realism sits beside patriotic sentimentality and multiple red hot dance sequences.
The Kneeling Goddess
In which wealthy industrialist Arturo de Cordova purchases the titular nude sculpture of his lover (María Félix) as an anniversary gift for his innocent, adoring wife. Soon enough the wife is dead, though untangling just how and why is part of the fun.
The Blue Trail
77-year-old Tereza makes a break for the Brazilian jungle in this trippy septuagenarian fantasy, the latest from Brazilian director Gabriel Mascaro is a quirky picaresque, lushly photographed and filled with mordant humour.
Two Prosecutors
In the midst of Stalin’s purges, a naïve prosecutor sets out to investigate a prisoner’s innocence, unaware of the labyrinthine bureaucracy awaiting him. A Kafkaesque procedural thriller about the pursuit of justice in the face of corruption.
Image: © SBS Productions
Crepúsculo
A brain surgeon (Arturo de Córdova) begins to doubt his own sanity when the woman he's in love with (Gloria Marin) marries his brother — and he starts fantasizing about murder.
Credits
Producer
Sarah Shamash, Sonia Medel
Screenwriter
Sarah Shamash, Sonia Medel
Cinematography
Angie Rico
Editor
Sarah Shamash
Directors
Sonia Medel
Sonia Medel is currently a PhD Candidate in Education at the University of British Columbia and working as a lead on diverse curatorial and publishing projects. She has been promoting decolonial and intersectional feminist engagement with arts, culture, and education across the Americas for over a decade. A visibly racialized Indigenous-Afro-European descendant, Chilean-Peruvian Latina, Medel is grateful to the Coast Salish peoples and lands on which she was born and primarily develops her practices.
Sarah Shamash
Sarah Shamash is an artist, educator, and media scholar living and raising her son on unsurrendered Indigenous lands in Vancouver. Her works have been shown in curated exhibitions and film festivals internationally. She currently teaches film studies and studio-based practices at the University of British Columbia and Emily Carr University of Art + Design.



