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Hardly Working film image, co-directors Total Refusal (Susanna Flock, Robin Klengel, Leonhard Müllner, Michael Stumpf)

Hardly Working

North American Premiere

Total Refusal returns to MODES with new work following 2020’s dazzling live performance of Operation Jane Walk, and their anti-war masterpiece, How to Disappear. In the moments when the algorithm of their existence shows inconsistencies, the Non-Playable Characters (NPCs) of the popular action-adventure game, Red Dead Redemption, break out of their routines momentarily to display their faultiness and present something touchingly human.

Director
Cast

Jacob Banigan

Credits
Country of Origin

Austria

Year

2022

Language

English

Film Contact
Links
21 min

Featured in:

Perforated Realities film image, director Gustaf Broms

MODES 3

Whimsical, questioning and utterly absorbing, a collection of animated work delving into worlds of wonder, subversion, and Marxist mystery. These works are fun and some re-construct ideas of animation, paying homage to experimentalists who came before.

 

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Mistura

Dir. Ricardo de Montreuil
97 min

This foodie film from Peru tells the story of a newly single socialite reinventing herself — and the local cuisine — after her husband has left her for a younger woman. Along the way, she finds support from unexpected places...

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

Before Sunrise

Dir. Richard Linklater
101 min

An American backpacker (Ethan Hawke) meets a French girl (Julie Delpy) on the train to Vienna. They decide to spend the next 14 hours together until it's time for his flight. They walk and talk. This brief encounter will mark the rest of their lives.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

Mary Oliver: Saved by the Beauty of the World

Dir. Sasha Waters
91 min

Sasha Waters' documentary takes us through the life of America's best-selling late twentieth century poet, a private woman who shared her innermost thoughts and made them indispensable.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

La Haine

Dir. Mathieu Kassovitz
97 min

This angry French thriller about alienated kids (a skinhead, an Arab, and an African) in the working class outskirts of Paris plays like a cross between Do the Right Thing and Mean Streets. French cops turned their backs on the red carpet at Cannes.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

Another World

Dir. Tommy Kai Chung Ng
112 min

This hit anime from Hong Kong gives us an unpredictable, sometimes darkly karmic tale taking place on either side of the afterlife involving a headstrong princess with bad karma and the spirit guide who tries to help her get on a better path.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

Glory

Dir. Kristina Grozeva, Petar Valchanov
101 min

In this timely Bulgarian satire, a railway linesman discovers millions of banknotes beside the train tracks. When he reports the money rather than pocketing it, it sets off a darkly hilarious chain of events.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

Credits

Screenwriter

Total Refusal

Cinematography

Total Refusal

Editor

Total Refusal

Original Music

Adrian Haim

Director

Total Refusal (Susanna Flock, Robin Klengel, Leonhard Müllner, Michael Stumpf) group shot, Hardly Working co-directors

Total Refusal (Susanna Flock, Robin Klengel, Leonhard Müllner, Michael Stumpf)

The pseudo-marxist media guerilla collective Total Refusal explores and practices strategies for artistic intervention in contemporary computer games. They work with tools of appropriation and rededication of game resources. Their films and performances were presented among others at the Berlinale and at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. They received the award for Best Short Documentary Film at the 2020 Diagonale Festival of Austrian Film.