Skip to main content
Killing Ourselves film image, director Maya Yadlin

Killing Ourselves

International Premiere

A film student and her family drive to the desert to shoot a scene for her latest film, but things quickly deteriorate and nothing goes as planned. In this dry comedy, family dynamics and prickly relationships foster a tense situation where it’s unclear whether they will ever manage to cooperate and become a team. Starring Maya Yadlin’s real family, this is a simple film that works thanks to excellent direction, a smart script, and fine performances that create great chemistry between the actors, especially the hilariously deadpan father. Convincing from the first scene and a wonderful surprise.

 

Community Partner

Director
Cast

Israel Yadlin, Stella Yadlin, Dana Yadlin, Maya Yadlin

Credits
Country of Origin

Israel

Year

2021

Language

In Hebrew with English subtitles

Film Contact
15 min

Featured in:

Mumu film image

International Shorts: Family Ties

The bonds of family form the basis of this program of short films. Bonds with history and responsibility—sometimes close, sometimes strained—now and for the future.

 

MORE INFO

Missing VIFF? Check out what's playing at the VIFF Centre

No Other Land

Dir. Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal, Yuval Abraham & Rachel Szor
96 min

Deemed by many critics one of the essential films of 2024, a multiple festival award winner and Academy Award winner for Best Documentary, No Other Land is a reminder that mass expulsion is by no means a new reality for Palestinians.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

The Way, My Way

Dir. Bill Bennett
93 min

All manner of pilgrims flock to France and Spain to walk the 800 km Camino de Santiago. One such is Bill, a stroppy sexagenarian Australian filmmaker who's determined to do the Camino with minimal prep, a dickey leg, and no firm idea why.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre
Heart of Gold
Heart of Gold film image; woman crouching by a burning miniature house

Heart of Gold

Dir. Patricia Gruben
80 min

Writer-director Patricia Gruben explores the history of an American deserter in 1969 who escapes to BC and finds shelter with a Russian dissident community.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

Resident Orca

Dir. Sarah Sharkey Pearce & Simon Schneider
97 min

Captured in Puget Sound in 1970, killer whale Lolita spent the next half century in a cramped tank in Seaquarium, Miami. The film follows a coalition of Lummi elders, animal lovers and philanthropists on a rescue mission to return her to the ocean.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

Misericordia

Dir. Alain Guiraudie
103 min

Edgy, eccentric, and unapologetically queer, this film goes from drama to comedy without putting a foot wrong. Sex and murder are the subjects, and writer-director Alain Guiraudie (Stranger by the Lake) mines them for suspense and outrageous laughs.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

The Stand

Dir. Christopher Auchter
95 min

This rousing doc explores a 1985 dispute over logging in the Haida Gwaii. Taking us from canny retrospective commentary to the thick of the action, director Chris Auchter employs animation and a wealth of archival footage to riveting effect.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

Credits

Producer

Encore Films

Screenwriter

Maya Yadlin

Cinematography

Omer Weiss

Editor

Maya Yadlin

Art Director

Lital Gerzy, Ella Harrison

Director

Maya Yadlin headshot, Killing Ourselves director

Maya Yadlin

Maya Yadlin studied at the Minshar School of Art in Tel Aviv and has been working as a freelance editor since 2014. Most of her films are about her family, in which she acts along with her real family members. Her first short film Fine (2018) screened at the Warsaw Film Festival and Filmschoolfest Munich. Her second short film As You Like (2020) premiered at the Show Me Shorts Film Festival in New Zealand. In 2022, her short film Killing Ourselves premiered at the Jerusalem Film Festival, where it won Best Live Action Film.