
Canadian Premiere
“There’s a bus stop I want to photograph.” This may sound like a parody of an esoteric festival film, but Canadian Christopher Herwig’s photography project is entirely in earnest, and likely you will be won over by his passion for this unusual subject within the first five minutes. Soviet architecture of the 1960s and 70s was by and large utilitarian, regimented, and mass-produced. Yet the bus stops Herwig discovers on his journeys criss-crossing the vast former Soviet Bloc are something else entirely: whimsical, eccentric, flamboyantly artistic, audacious, colourful. They speak of individualism and locality, concepts anathema to the Communist doctrine. Herwig wants to know how this came to pass and tracks down some of the original unsung designers, but above all he wants to capture these exceptional roadside way stations on film before they disappear.
This is a joyous film about the intersection of photography, creativity, politics, and history, and you won’t look at a bus stop the same way again.
Media Partner
Community Partner
Christopher Herwig
Denmark/Canada/UK/Sweden/Latvia
2022
In English, Ukrainian, Russian, Estonian, and Lithuanian with English subtitles
Book Tickets
Missing VIFF? Check out what's playing at the VIFF Centre
The Road to Patagonia
A travelogue, an eco doc, an adventure movie and a love story, The Road to Patagonia chronicles filmmaker and ecologist Mayy Hannon's 50,000 km expedition from Alaska to the tip of Chile (via Vancouver Island), on motorbike, horse, and surfboard.
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.
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).
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...
Credits
Producer
Kristoffer Hegnsvad, Christopher Herwig, Ian Toews, Nicholas Zajicek
Screenwriter
Kristoffer Hegnsvad, Christopher Herwig
Cinematography
Nicholas Zajicek
ANIM
Damon Murray, Stephen Sorrell
Editor
Jason Britski, Christopher Herwig, Nicholas Zajicek
Original Music
Jānis Lūsēns Jr., Jānis Lūsēns-Zodiac
Director

Kristoffer Hegnsvad
Kristoffer Hegnsvad is a director, writer, and producer, known for Laamb (2013) and Looking for Exits: Conversations with a Wingsuit Artist (2016). He is the chief editor of film and television at Dagbladet Politiken, Denmark’s biggest daily newspaper, and the author of the award-winning book Werner Herzog (2021).
Filmography: Standing on Water (2015); Looking for Exits: Conversations with a Wingsuit Artist (2016)