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Big Day film image

International Shorts: Relational Baggage

Image: Big Day, VIFF 2023

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The short films in this program illustrate some of the barriers or difficulties people run into with their personal relationships.

 

October 1 & 3: Q&A with the film teams

 

This short film program includes the following films:

Hedgehog
D. Mitry, USA (17 min)

As the war starts in Ukraine a young girl is taken to stay with her grandmother. In the shack outside, she discovers a badly wounded Russian soldier.

 


Nowhere
Garin Hovannisian, Armenia/USA (12 min)

A teacher and a young barista are too prudent to say anything about their mutual attraction, but after dark a world emerges where their shadows come alive.

 


Hide Your Crazy
Austin Kase, USA (14 min)

A young man’s surprise birthday dinner for his girlfriend is not met with the response he was expecting, which leads to the most frightful night of their lives.

 


Big Day
Chung Chieh Chiang, Taiwan (23 min)

An older couple take a walk to file their divorce papers and on the way reflect on how their lives came to this.

 


Snif & Snüf
Michael J Ruocco, USA (5 min)

Two characters discover an interesting new object that teaches them a lot about themselves and what it means to share.

 


Sushi
Iván Morales, Spain (22 min)

A young man goes out for sushi dinner with a community policeman who has never had sushi before, but the mystery of their connection takes a while to be revealed.

 


Pisko the Crab Child Is in Love
Makoto Nagahisa, Japan (17 min)

A young woman whose father was a crab takes us on a whirlwind tour of her struggle to find love and acceptance.

 

Community Partner

Director

Various

Country of Origin

Various

Year

2022-2023

Series

International Shorts

Language

Various with English subtitles

18+
110 min
Shorts

Book Tickets

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

Cutting Through Rocks
Cutting Through Rocks film image; person riding a motorcycle backlit by a sunset

Cutting Through Rocks

Dir. Sara Khaki & Mohammadreza Eyni
95 min

Winner of Sundance's World Cinema Documentary Grand Jury Prize, Cutting Through Rocks follows Sara Shahverdi — motorcyclist, midwife, and first-ever councilwoman elected in her Iranian village. A vérité triumph by Sara Khaki & Mohammadreza Eyni.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

The Secret Agent

Dir. Kleber Mendonça Filho
158 min

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.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

The Tale of Silyan

Dir. Tamara Kotevska
81 min

From Oscar-nominee Tamara Kotevska (Honeyland), this is a poetic, curious and enchanting non-fiction fable about a farmer's son who turns into a stork.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

The Nutcracker at Wethersfield

Dir. Annie Sundberg
83 min

Back in the long, dark Covid winter of 2020, there was no way the New York City Ballet could mount their traditional Christmas production of Tchaikovsky's fairytale. But choreographer Troy Schumacher had a dream to save the show -- reimagining a classic.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

Pictures of Ghosts

Dir. Kleber Mendonça Filho
93 min

A companion piece to Mendonça Filho's The Secret Agent, Pictures of Ghosts is a lovely, relaxed, ruminative riff on movies, memory, the imaginative space conferred by that place we call Cinema, seasoned with love and boundless anecdotes.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

North of Ourselves

Dir. Marie-France L'Ecuyer
89 min

In the depths of winter, two adventurers set out to cross Quebec from one end to the other on bike and skis, exploring its staggering geography and meeting its inhabitants (human and otherwise) along the way.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre