Canadian Premiere
An isolated father haunted by his child’s cries of hunger takes up work as a timber feller, only to find operations halted by a mysterious alarm coming from deep in the woods. This is a cautionary tale about a man just trying to provide for his family, and nature coming up with inventive ways of protection against man’s ruthless invasion. Featuring stunning cinematography, Nest is a demonstration of extreme precision, a masterclass of pace and tone, featuring images that work on almost microscopic levels. It is an elegant, black and white, almost haunting tale about the choices we as humans have made that have severely impacted our world, while showing us a relentlessly difficult life in close-up detail.
Community Partner
Lasarus Ratuere, Ana Nguyen, Kevin Ryan, Robbie Durrant, Marcus Davila
Australia
2021
English
Featured in:
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.
Missing VIFF? Check out what's playing at the VIFF Centre
Mistura
This foodie film from Peru tells the story of a newly single socialite reinventing herself — and the local cuisine — after her husband has left her for a younger woman. Along the way, she finds support from unexpected places...
Departures
Two lads meet at an airport gate and begin monthly trips to Amsterdam together. Their chemistry is off the charts, but it's Jake who's calls the shots while Benji is the one who's emotionally invested. Comparisons to Pillion and Trainspotting are on mark.
Time and Water
Sara Dosa (Fire of Love) turns her attentions from volcanoes to glaciers in this singular, personal collaboration with the Icelandic writer Andri Snær Magnason, who ruminates on the loss of ties to family and to landscape.
The Richest Woman in the World
Isabelle Huppert plays cosmetics CEO Marianne in this teasingly ambivalent satire inspired by the Bettancourt Affair, when L'Oreal heir Francoise Bettancourt scandalized France by frittering away her fortune on a notorious celebrity photographer.
Le rêve américain
This French crowdpleaser about a couple of nobodies who set themselves up as basketball player agents hits all the right story beats. You wouldn't believe it except that it happens to be true.
Image: © Mika Cotellon
Credits
Producer
Faith Guoga
Screenwriter
Steve Anthopoulos
Cinematography
Campbell Brown
Editor
James Hunter, Shannon Michaelas
Production Design
Laura Murray
Original Music
Mitchell Sloan
Director
James Hunter
A multi-award winning director of shorts, commercials, and music videos, James Hunter grew up in Canberra, Australia. After being gifted his first video camera as a child, he began to experiment and make his own films using family and friends as cast and crew, while utilizing his small town as a backdrop. As a teenager, he moved to Sydney to study the screen arts, picking up many of the notable local and national awards for his short films over the following decade. He has since relocated to Melbourne, Australia, where he has been developing feature film projects.