Izaiah Dockery, Kavita Musty, Dashawn Blackwood
Canada
2022
English
Sexual Violence; coarse language
Featured in:
VIFF Short Forum: Program 2
Fear, doubt, and loneliness give way to pleasure, empowerment, and reclamation—or, is it the other way around?
Missing VIFF? Check out what's playing at the VIFF Centre
Breaking the Waves
Kicking off our 2026 Pantheon series of the greatest films ever made, Lars von Trier's 1996 masterpiece is a devastating melodrama featuring an indelible performance from Emily Watson as the woman whose love for her husband knows no bounds.
The Track
In the middle of a mountain forest above Sarajevo, three boys train for the Olympics in a bullet-ridden luge track abandoned since the 1984 Winter Games. An ambitious, hopeful look at the next generation striving to overcome the sins of their fathers.
Yunan
In this haunting mood piece, Munir is a middle-aged Syrian writer in exile in Germany. In crisis, he takes himself up to one of the Halligan islands in the North Sea, a suitable place to end it all...
The Secret Agent
Having run afoul of an influential bureaucrat in Brazil’s military dictatorship circa 1977, Marcelo decamps to Recife to live under an assumed name — but he’ll soon come to understand precisely how rampant the country’s corruption has become.
The Mother and the Bear
Johnny Ma’s film stars Kim Ho-jung as a Korean woman who flies to Winnipeg when her immigrant daughter is hospitalized there. This crowd-pleaser plays up cultural differences to hilarious effect and offers a touching take on mother-daughter tension.
Credits
Executive Producer
Shant Joshi
Producer
Lindsay Blair Goeldner, Rosalind Goodwin
Screenwriter
Ace Clamber
Cinematography
Ashley Iris Gill
Editor
Nicole Sison
Production Design
Chelsy Althea
Art Director
Krista Barleta
Director
Karimah Zakia Issa
Karimah Zakia Issa is a Montreal native and London and Toronto-based filmmaker whose work is centred around crafting stories that dive into themes of overcoming and succumbing to social expectations, how self-worth is built and broken, and the dark truths that live within us all. Her project Lanes (2020) is an educational narrative dance piece that explores responsibility and participation in present-day social justice movements. Alongside her co-writer Ace Clamber, she’s developing a feature that explores a son’s journey of reconnecting with his estranged father online.


