Skip to main content
Mother's Skin film image, director Leah Johnston

Mother's Skin

World Premiere

Six-year-old Molly copes with her father’s alcoholic rage and mother’s worsening depression. One day, Molly and her mother discover a secret hidden underneath the floor grate.

 

Supported by

Community Broadcast Partner

Community Partner

Director
Cast

Briar Mosher, Rhiannon Morgan, Joel Thomas Hynes

Credits
Country of Origin

Canada

Year

2022

Language

English

Film Contact
Links
Content Warning

Domestic Violence; nudity

G
20 min

Featured in:

From Chile to Canada film image

VIFF Short Forum: Program 1

What kind of alchemy occurs to transform hardship into fortune? Here, the extraordinary burn brightly.

 

MORE INFO

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

Love

Dir. Dag Johan Haugerud
119 min

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).

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

No Bears

Dir. Jafar Panahi
106 min

Dissident Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi plays himself in this ingenious meta-fiction about the making of a film, and the unmaking of love story.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

Sex

Dir. Dag Johan Haugerud
125 min

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.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

3 Faces

Dir. Jafar Panahi
100 min

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...

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

Dreams

Dir. Dag Johan Haugerud
110 min

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...

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre
Transit
Transit film image; woman leaning her head against a man's back

Transit

Dir. Christian Petzold
101 min

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.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

Credits

Producer

Leah Johnston, Jason Buxton

Screenwriter

Leah Johnston

Cinematography

Jason Buxton

Editor

Leah Johnston

Director

Leah Johnston headshot, Mother's Skin director

Leah Johnston

Leah Johnston is an award-winning filmmaker from Nova Scotia. Her most recent short film, Ingrid and the Black Hole (2016), premiered at the Fantasia Film Festival and was showcased at over 20 film festivals, winning eight awards, including Best Canadian Short at the Edmonton International Film Festival. She is the recipient of the Corus Fearless Female Filmmaker Award, the Bravofact/WIFT Prize, and the National Screen Institute Drama Prize. She has a BFA from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts.