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
Indigenous Access Tickets Community Access Tickets Ticket Donation Requests
Missing VIFF? Check out what's playing at the VIFF Centre
American Doctor
One of the most powerful documentaries of the year, this puts us smack in the open wound that is Gaza, filtered through the eyes of three American surgeons (of Palestinian, Jewish and Zoroastrian backgrounds) compelled to do their utmost to alleviate harm.
Fight Club
1999 was a very good year for movies, but nothing captured millennial angst quite so vividly as David Fincher's bruising black comedy about what it means to be a man today. This modern classic does everything short of rattling your seat to get a reaction.
Late Fame
Based on a novella by Arthur Schnitzler (Eyes Wide Shut) this is a sly, poignant comedy about vanity and art from director Kent Jones, starring Willem Dafoe as a mailman belatedly acclaimed for a book of poetry he wrote in his youth.

