Visions of dark impulses are given the spotlight and invite an opportunity to reflect on the personal in relation to the political, examining structural inequity and its impact on the individual, as well as individual acts and their impacts on our structures. From Congo to China, and the Philippines to Poland, the end is nigh.
This short film program includes the following films:
Lake of Fire
NEOZOON, Germany (11 min)
Fear of death and interpretations of hell filter through online social bubbles to distill a singular divine message.
The Stopover
Collectif Faire-part, Belgium/DR Congo (14 min)
Travelling from Kinshasa to Frankfurt, filmmakers Paul Shemisi and Nizar Saleh find themselves unjustly relegated to airport purgatory.
Very, Very, Tremendously
Guangli Liu, China/France (12 min)
Virtual currency and digital junk, along with virtual acts of production and consumption, interact with systems in our lived reality, highlighting their coexistence in geopolitical conflicts.
It’s Raining Frogs Outside
Maria Estela Paiso, Philippines (14 min)
Forced to return to the Philippines as the world abruptly closes, Maya recedes into a terrorizing solitude and a fever dream of mixed animation ensues.
The Earth Will Swallow it All
Dominik Ritszel, Poland (9 min)
A period of rapid modernization in Poland in the 1990s brought with it anxiety and fears inflicted by hegemonic order and a complete disregard for the social costs or traumatic after-effects.
Watch the Fire or Burn Inside it
Caroline Poggi, Jonathan Vinel, France (19 min)
In Corsica, a woman chooses to care for the earth by burning it.
Various
Various
2021-2022
Various with English subtitles
Book Tickets
Missing VIFF? Check out what's playing at the VIFF Centre
Love
This warm, thoughtful piece offers shrewd comic observations on modern dating as it trains a quizzical eye on the trysts of a female doctor, Marianne (Andrea Bræin Hovig), and her colleague, a gay male nurse, Tor (Tayo Cittadella Jacobsen).
Sex
Two chimney sweeps living in heterosexual marriages find their views on sexuality and gender challenged by a series of unexpected events. In a set of sharply scripted conversations, both men confront heretofore unexplored aspects of their identity.
3 Faces
Iranian filmmaker Panahi and actress Behnaz Jafari, both playing themselves, receive a video in which a distraught teenaged girl, whose acting dreams have been quashed appears to kill herself. Panahi and Jafari decide to investigate...
Dreams
The third installment in the Sex/Dreams/Love trilogy is another rich, absorbing tale. 17-year-old Johanne writes a confessional about her flirtation with a (female) teacher. But the writing is too good to stay private...
Transit
Trust the director of Phoenix and Barbara to re-imagine a WWII romantic intrigue into something unsettlingly contemporary. With occupying forces closing in, a German refugee (Franz Rogowski) assumes a dead writer's identity and flees to Marseille.