The challenges of relations with one’s family are the basis for the short films in this program.
October 3 & 5: Q&A with the film teams
This short film program includes the following films:
Basri and Salma in a Never-Ending Comedy
Khozy Rizal, Indonesia (15 min)
A husband and wife who run a carnival kids ride have been married for 5 years and are still childless, a fact that brings constant reminders of this from their family.
Southern Afternoon
Tian Lan, China (16 min)
A Uyghur father living in southern China accidentally finds an ornate letter to his teen daughter, he assumes it is from a boyfriend but he can’t read Mandarin.
The Family Circus
Andrew Fitzgerald, USA (18 min)
A Vietnamese-American family’s plan to cover up a drunk driving accident begins to unravel when their emotional baggage spills out in front of the police.
Where the Time Goes
Justin Tyler Close, USA/Canada (15 min)
Two young brothers navigate the challenges of their parents’ failed marriage, their deep bond helps them support each other and their mother.
Lovebugs
Teddy Alvarez-Nissen, USA (13 min)
“Would you like to hear a story?” From his cozy library inside the walls of a suburban home an intellectual snail tells of his life’s love, loss and change.
Just the Two of Us
Clara Lemaire Anspach, France (20 min)
A young woman’s mother, in the hospital seriously ill with cancer, asks her daughter to take her on a trip to the south of France. She reluctantly agrees.
In Too Deep
Chris Overton, UK (16 min)
A couple are deeply grieving the death of their young daughter in their own ways, but the father’s obsession with memories of her is becoming dangerous.
Community Partner
Various
Various
2022-2023
International Shorts
Various with English subtitles
Book Tickets
Indigenous & Community Access
Indigenous Access Tickets Community Access Tickets Ticket Donation Requests
Missing VIFF? Check out what's playing at the VIFF Centre
Dawn Pemberton Sings Aretha + Amazing Grace Film Screening
These dates are going to knock your socks off: one of the all-time great concert films, Aretha Franklin performing at the New Bethel Baptist Church in 1972, and Canada's own Queen of Soul, Dawn Pemberton, performing live in Aretha's honour.
Left-Handed Girl
Co-written and edited by Sean Baker (Anora), Shi-Ching Tsou's heartwarming solo feature debut follows a single mom in Taipei who is too consumed with her noodle stand to keep tabs on her five-year-old daughter's burgeoning shoplifting habit.
The Colour of Pomegranates + The House Is Black
This month's Pantheon screening is a double-bill, Sergei Parajanov's extraordinary evocation of the life and work of C18th Armenian poet Sayat Nova, and, The House is Black (22 min), the only film directed by the great Iranian poet Forugh Farrokhzad.
The Librarians
Dispatches from the front line of America's culture wars (and ours too): librarians speak out about the war against ideas, history, freedom of expression and sexual identity, a campaign in which an open mind is the ultimate enemy.
Caravaggio
In the latest from Exhibition on Screen, co-directors David Bickerstaff and Phil Grabsky shed light not only on Caravaggio's paintings, but his life, often kept half-hidden in the same chiaroscuro tones he shaded his masterpieces with.
Train Dreams
A lovely, ruminative movie set in the Pacific Northwest in the first half of the last century. Robert (Joel Edgerton) is a lumberjack, a taciturn man who comes to appreciate the life slipping between his fingers.