Skip to main content
The Stopover film image, co-directors Collectif Faire-part (Paul Shemisi, Nizar Saleh, Anne Reijniers, Rob Jacobs)

The Stopover

L’Escale

North American Premiere

Travelling from Kinshasa to Frankfurt, filmmakers Paul Shemisi and Nizar Saleh find themselves unjustly relegated to airport purgatory.

 

Special Mention of the International Jury, Oberhausen 2022

Director
Cast

Paul Shemisi, Nizar Saleh

Credits
Country of Origin

Belgium/DR Congo

Year

2022

Language

In French with English subtitles

Film Contact
14 min

Featured in:

It's Raining Frogs Outside film image, director Maria Estela Paiso

MODES 1

Visions of dark impulses are given the spotlight and invite an opportunity to reflect on the personal in relation to the political. From Congo to China, and the Philippines to Poland, the end is nigh.

 

MORE INFO

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

Turner & Constable

Dir. David Bickerstaff
93 min

Filmed as a supplement to a blockbuster exhibition at Tate Britain happening right now, this doc in the popular Exhibition on Screen series allows us to view these competitive, complementary English landscape artists side by side.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

Mr. Nobody Against Putin

Dir. David Borenstein & Pavel Talankin
90 min

Nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary, and Special Jury Prize Winner, Sundance, 2025, this exposé shot by a Russian primary teacher shows how the Putin propaganda machine works to militarize children.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre
More info

Sold Out

One Battle After Another

Dir. Paul Thomas Anderson
162 min

PT Anderson's breathless satire is the best political action movie of 2025, a defiantly anti-MAGA rallying cry featuring a six pack of crackerjack performances. They'll still be talking about this one 50 years from now.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

The Painted Life of E.J. Hughes

Dir. Jenn Strom
82 min

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.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

The President's Cake

Dir. Hasan Hadi
105 min

Nine year old Lamia and her friend Saeed venture into the city to scrounge ingredients for a cake to celebrate Sadaam Hussein's birthday — a quest fraught with real peril in precarious times. Winner, Camera d'Or, Cannes.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

Sentimental Value

Dir. Joachim Trier
135 min

A once-revered director crashes back into his family’s lives, eager to recruit his daughter for a film role. When she declines, he finds a new muse in an eager but unpolished Hollywood star, sending his botched reconciliation spiraling into chaos.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

Credits

Cinematography

Hammad Shahid, Qabas Marwan

Editor

Rob Jacobs, Anne Reijniers

Director

Collectif Faire-part group shot, The Stopover co-directors

Collectif Faire-part (Paul Shemisi, Nizar Saleh, Anne Reijniers, Rob Jacobs)

Collectif Faire-part is an ensemble of young Belgian and Congolese filmmakers that have been collaborating since 2015. They make documentaries and organize events that deal primarily with questions of decolonization and the many complex relations between Brussels and Kinshasa. Their work has been shown at film festivals and expositions around the world, such as Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival, Congo International Film Festival, Kassel Documentary Film and Video Festival.