Through formal experimentation based on the artist’s personal struggle with gender identity, a singular self has been split into two.
Supported by
Media Partner
Community Broadcast Partner
Community Partner
Taliesin Mason-McCrea
Canada
2022
English
Flashing/Strobing Lights
Featured in:
VIFF Short Forum: Program 2
Fear, doubt, and loneliness give way to pleasure, empowerment, and reclamation—or, is it the other way around?
Missing VIFF? Check out what's playing at the VIFF Centre
Breaking the Waves
Kicking off our 2026 Pantheon series of the greatest films ever made, Lars von Trier's 1996 masterpiece is a devastating melodrama featuring an indelible performance from Emily Watson as the woman whose love for her husband knows no bounds.
The Track
In the middle of a mountain forest above Sarajevo, three boys train for the Olympics in a bullet-ridden luge track abandoned since the 1984 Winter Games. An ambitious, hopeful look at the next generation striving to overcome the sins of their fathers.
Yunan
In this haunting mood piece, Munir is a middle-aged Syrian writer in exile in Germany. In crisis, he takes himself up to one of the Halligan islands in the North Sea, a suitable place to end it all...
The Secret Agent
Having run afoul of an influential bureaucrat in Brazil’s military dictatorship circa 1977, Marcelo decamps to Recife to live under an assumed name — but he’ll soon come to understand precisely how rampant the country’s corruption has become.
The Mother and the Bear
Johnny Ma’s film stars Kim Ho-jung as a Korean woman who flies to Winnipeg when her immigrant daughter is hospitalized there. This crowd-pleaser plays up cultural differences to hilarious effect and offers a touching take on mother-daughter tension.
Credits
Producer
Sidney Gordon
Screenwriter
Sidney Gordon
Cinematography
Emil Vargas
Original Music
Aysha Dulong
Director
Sidney Gordon
Sidney Gordon is a queer multimedia emulsion-based artist, born and raised on Treaty 4 territory. They hold a Bachelor of Media Arts in Film + Screen Arts from Emily Carr University of Art + Design in so-called “Vancouver,” where they currently reside. In 2022, they won the Chancellor’s Award, Best Experimental Film, and the VIVO Distribution Award, and were longlisted for The Polygon Gallery’s Lind Prize in 2021. Their film and cameraless-photo works have been shown both locally and internationally.