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Square the Circle film image

MODES 1

Image: Square the Circle, VIFF 2023

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At the intersection of the natural world, technology and the ongoing pursuit of colonization, sits a necessary reflection on worlds, cities, and people, and how they change over time.

 

This short film program includes the following films:

NYC RGB
Viktoria Schmid, Austria/USA (7 min)

Part of a series of works exploring early colour film processes, Austria’s Viktoria Schmid invites an alternative frame of reference to view America’s most overexposed city.

 


Slow Shift
Shambhavi Kaul, India/USA (9 min)

The immediacy of time is eerily visible upon Hampi’s fragmented landscape. As its primate inhabitants formulate their familiar yet uncertain surroundings, the UNESCO site endures.

 


Shadow Does
Laure Prouvost, Belgium/France/Austria (13 min)

A young girl engages in shadow play. A plain white sheet is all that stands between her and her grandmother, to whom she describes an ever-evolving world and everything what has come to pass in a lifetime.

 


Let’s Talk
Simon Liu, Hong Kong (11 min)

On the 25 year anniversary of Hong Kong’s handover from Great Britain to Mainland China, directives for “a new era” promising stability and prosperity are found on murals and public slogans.

 


Mother Land
Kantarama Gahigiri, Rwanda/Switzerland (10 min)

Confronting and trenchant, standing tall, an almost supernatural presence atop a mountain of tech waste, plastic and rubbish, she unearths the truths of Africa’s environmental degradation.

 


This Is Not Here
Charlotte Mungomery, Australia/Peru/Spain (10 min)

Two pedestal fans in dialogue propound a pointed parody of wellness. These ambiguous forms are perceived as objects with meaning, and spin tangential contemplation on the processes, experiences and absurdities of grief.

 


Square the Circle
Hanna Hovitie, Finland (18 min)

A cyclical comedy, framed within a round edge rather than the screen’s desired square or rectangular aspects. Square the Circle asks, how can one fear the dark, while living in a place consumed by darkness for the better part of the year?

 

Series Media Partner

Community Partner

Director

Various

Country of Origin

Various

Year

2022-2023

Series

MODES

Language

Various with English subtitles

18+
78 min

Book Tickets

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

Prosecution

Dir. Faraz Shariat
113 min

When a young German prosecutor of Korean origin is attacked, she suspects a racist conspiracy and pursues the truth in defiance of her superiors. Prosecution is a film for our moment: a thriller that confronts the far-right head-on.

International Village 8
Rebecca Horn – the Secret Life of Things
Rebecca Horn film image; woman in a empty room holding out her arms with makeshift scissorhands

Rebecca Horn – the Secret Life of Things

Dir. Claudia Müller
90 min

Rebecca Horn's extraordinary biography is interwoven with her surreal oeuvre. An essential document of one of the 20th century's most influential artists, Rebecca Horn – The Secret Life of Things celebrates the unsung legacy of a pioneering visionary.

Image: © Rebecca Horn

International Village 10
What Remains
What Remains film image; woman looking out at the water

What Remains

Dir. Yeşim Ustaoğlu
126 min

Stuck in a big city in a mind-numbing domestic routine, a young poetess finds herself at crossroads when her role as a mother and wife starts to overshadow her identity as an artist.

International Village 9
School for Defectors
School for Defectors film image; person standing by a desk speaking

School for Defectors

Dir. Jeremy Workman
92 min

School for Defectors is an intimate and quietly uplifting documentary that follows a group of 20 teenagers, children of North Korean defectors, as they adjust to life and education at Jangdaehyun School in Busan, South Korea.

Fifth Avenue Cinema - 19+ only

Fruit Gathering

Dir. Aung Phyoe
97 min

Achingly sensual and graced with fine performances, Fruit Gathering depicts embattled desire in a conservative society. Two working-class women fall into a romantic relationship in contemporary Myanmar — but is their love real, or borne of desperation?

International Village 10
Short Forum 7: War at Home
Rotation film image; upside down image of woman sitting in a field

Short Forum 7: War at Home

107 min

Truly, no one is safe until everyone is safe.

International Village 8