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.
Jacob Banigan
Austria
2022
English
Featured in:
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.
Missing VIFF? Check out what's playing at the VIFF Centre
Hockney
An engaging, insightful and inspiring film portrait of the late great British and California artist. He’s one of the most accessible figurative painters of the last half century, but look closer, there’s much more to David Hockney than meets the eye.
Peter Asher: Everywhere Man
A chart topping pop star as one half of Peter and Gordon, Peter Asher was brother to Jane, brother in law to Paul McCartney, ran the Beatles' Apple, produced and managed James Taylor, Linda Ronstadt, and 10,000 Maniacs, to name just a few. He did it all.
The Crying Game
Notwithstanding its famous twist, Neil Jordan's moody thriller works differently on a second viewing, and hits different in 2026, with its rich and "problematic" stew of identity politics, love, violence and desire.
Romería
An orphan from a young age, 18-year-old Marina intends to pursue a university scholarship. The application, however, requires the signatures of her paternal grandparents, compelling her to embark on a pilgrimage and seek out the family she has never met.
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)
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.