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
Various
Various
2022-2023
MODES
Various with English subtitles
Book Tickets
Indigenous & Community Access
Missing VIFF? Check out what's playing at the VIFF Centre
The Chef & the Daruma
The inventor of the California Roll, chef Hidekazu Tojo helped bring sushi to mainstream popularity through his renowned Vancouver restaurant, Tojo's. The Chef & the Daruma is a mouthwatering film touching on immigration, identity, and reinvention.
Monkey on a Stick
Monkey on a Stick is a feature-length documentary exposé of the criminal activity that took place in the Hare Krishna movement in America in the 1970s and ‘80s, adapted from the New York Times bestselling book.
Dahomey
The return of stolen cultural artifacts to the Republic of Benin is the inspiration for Mati Diop's Berlin Golden Bear prize winner, which fuses dreamy metaphysics and incendiary political commentary on issues of restitution and self-determination.
Agent of Happiness
In the Kingdom of Bhutan, the government makes a point of asking citizens about their level of contentment. This droll, poetical doc follows census-taker Amber as he takes villagers through the 148-question survey and contemplates his own life too.