Canadian Premiere
Some forms we can only know by their shadow. Laika is an homage to the spirits of space test dogs, or any being we use in the name of progress.
USA
2022
No Dialogue
Featured in:
MODES 2
Looking closer at archival images and stories from the past, these artists re-examine and re-create to establish history anew. A daring mix of approaches that excavate new ways of seeing old perspectives.
Missing VIFF? Check out what's playing at the VIFF Centre
Shifting Baselines
Towering rockets rise as wetlands vanish in this sly black-and-white documentary about SpaceX’s conquest of Boca Chica, Texas. With sci-fi aesthetics and observational calm, the film exposes how cosmic dreams begin with the quiet erasure of Earth.
A Poet
When embittered poet Oscar Restrepo takes a job at a local high school, he meets Yurlady, a talented student from a poor background. Seeking to help her cultivate her art, he draws her into the poetry world — to disastrous and comedic results.
La Salsa Vive
An exuberant celebration of salsa that traces the genre's evolution from New York City in the 1960s and 70s to Cali, Colombia — the salsa capital of the world. Carvajal’s documentary highlights the rich legacy of this musical form and the joy it inspires.
Memory of Princess Mumbi
Can a filmmaker depict the future without AI? Damien Hauser crafts a genre-blending Afro-speculative fable about love, war, and the future of storytelling in a resurrected African kingdom. A micro-budget epic fueled by digital invention and heart.
Winter Light
Da-bin has a broke mother, a runaway brother, and a sister who’s going deaf, but gets by thanks to his best friend and caring girlfriend. Poignant and poetic, this is a film that explores the pain of adolescence and the stress of competing loyalties.
The Nonsense
Insurance investigator Yoo-na is working a case of death by drowning; her company claims suicide, but the truth is unclear. Confronting an eccentric beneficiary with great powers of persuasion, Yoo-na finds herself in a fog of doubt and suspicion.
Credits
Cinematography
Deborah Stratman
Editor
Deborah Stratman
Original Music
Olivia Block
Director
Deborah Stratman
Artist and filmmaker Deborah Stratman makes films and artworks that investigate power, control, and belief by considering how places, ideas, and society are intertwined. Recent projects have addressed freedom, exodus, augury, surveillance, comets, raptors, orthoptera, sinkholes, levitation, sisterhood, and faith. She teaches at the University of Illinois in Chicago.
Filmography: The BLVD (1999); O’er the Land (2009); The Illinois Parables (2016)