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International Shorts: Nothing Comes Easy

Image: Mira, VIFF 2023

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In this program of short films our protagonists discover that sorting out their lives can be much more difficult to achieve than they realized.

 

This short film program includes the following films:

Far From the Tree
Emma Marková, Czech Republic (23 min)

A woman and her teen daughter live in a small dead end city where both women are trying to break out of their miserable circumstances.

 


Cut
Samuel Lucas Allen, Australia (19 min)

A teenage boy caught in a web of lies is pulled in different directions as he tries to juggle anti-Semitism, his queerness and an orthodox Jewish father.

 


Night Shift
Santiago Lago, Argentina (27 min)

The night shift clerk at a sex hotel, suffering from narcolepsy, is faced with a night when things are unusually busy and housekeeping finds a gun in room 6.

 


Spasm
Sahra Asadollahi, Iran (27 min)

A woman who has never acted in film before goes for an audition that becomes a test of more than just her acting ability.

 


Mira
Eva Louise Hall, USA (12 min)

A struggling accordionist busker gets more than she bargained for when her desire to get noticed attracts the attention of a mysterious and enticing competitor.

 

Community Partner

Director

Various

Country of Origin

Various

Year

2022-2023

Series

International Shorts

Language

Various with English subtitles

18+
108 min
Shorts

Book Tickets

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Yunan

Dir. Ameer Fakher Eldin
125 min

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...

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Happy Holidays

Dir. Scandar Copti
123 min

Happy Holidays (the title is ironic) is an expansive, acutely observed sociopolitical family saga which thoughtfully considers the myriad intricacies of Israeli Arab life.

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The Track

Dir. Ryan Sidhoo
91 min

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.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

The Mother and the Bear

Dir. Johnny Ma
100 min

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.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

It Was Just an Accident

Dir. Jafar Panahi
105 min

Having offered some late-night assistance to a stranger in the wake of an auto accident, a mechanic grows convinced that he recognizes the supposed stranger’s voice as that of his torturer during a grueling prison spell.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

Breaking the Waves

Dir. Lars von Trier
158 min

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.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema