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.
Q&A Oct 1, Oct 4 & Oct 8
This short film program includes the following films:
Prelude Op. 28 No.2
Jenni Toikka, Finland (9 min)
Two distinct interpretations of Chopin’s notable repertory prelude, immortalized in Ingmar Bergman’s Autumn Sonata, now receive an updated treatment, with a shifting focal gaze and staging that implicates the performer as the listener and listener as the performer.
Laika
Deborah Stratman, USA (5 min)
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.
Parasite Family
Prapat Jiwarangsan, Thailand (6 min)
Re-discovered film negatives represent families of affluence who absorbed Thailand’s wealth, like parasites. The journey from analog to digital, and finally to AI-generated images, gradually evolves these captured faces into a new species of monster.
The Fruit Tree
Isabelle Tollenaere, Belgium (15 min)
For Sharleece, looking out of the window of a house for rent in a desert town where she lives evokes unexpected memories of her childhood home in Los Angeles. The passing of time is ever-present.
Saving Some Random Insignificant Stories
Anna Vasof, Austria/Greece (14 min)
As a point of departure for Anna Vasof, a survey of the damage left by a flood in her parents’ house reveals a simple yet multilayered work about memory, loss, and how we deal with the past.
Neighbour Abdi
Douwe Dijkstra, The Netherlands (29 min)
How can you understand a violent history? Abdi reenacts his life in Somalia, marked by war and criminality, with the help of his neighbour and filmmaker Douwe Dijkstra (Green Screen Gringo, MODES 2016). Through playful reconstructions in a special effects studio, they embark on a candid and investigative journey through Abdi’s painful past, focusing on the creative process.
Various
Various
2021-2022
Various with English subtitles
Book Tickets
Missing VIFF? Check out what's playing at the VIFF Centre
The Painted Life of E.J. Hughes
A beautiful portrait of E.J. Hughes, who quietly helped reshape the artistic landscape of British Columbia in the 20th century. This extraordinary documentary explores Hughes’s legacy not only as an artist, but as a devoted, humble human being.
Agatha's Almanac
Shot over six years on vibrant 16mm film, Agatha’s Almanac is an artful documentary portrait of filmmaker Amalie Atkin’s octogenarian aunt, who has fashioned herself an endearingly simple and self-sustaining lifestyle on her Manitoba farm.
The Art of Adventure
The unbelievable adventure story of how painter Robert Bateman and ecologist Bristol Foster drove a Land Rover from Africa to Australia in 1957, developing a love of nature to last a lifetime. An inspirational love letter to the adventure of life itself.
Intimate Moments: Short Films by Brendan Prost
Vignettes of loneliness, desire and fleeting connection, immerse yourself in the short, bittersweet films of Brendan Prost — who will also be filming proceedings for potential inclusion in his self-reflexive doc, The Performance of a Lifetime.
Winter Kept Us Warm
Often described as the first LGBTQ+ film ever to screen at the Cannes Film Festival, David Secter's lovingly observed portrait of a burgeoning queer romance came at a time when homosexuality was still illegal in the country