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
NAZA
NAZA is a codeword euphemistically used by Israeli intelligence to indicate the number of civilians it expects will be killed in an airstrike. This chilling documentary exposes the policy and process of state-sanctioned mass killings.
Atonement
A former Marine suffering from PTSD seeks a meeting with the Iraqi family to which he did great wrong ten years earlier in the Gulf War. Atonement navigates challenging, politically-charged psychological territory with diligence and sensitivity.
The Sandbox
Borders are the faultlines of the world. Kenya-Jade Pinto's doc examines how modern surveillance technology, bio-metrics and AI are combining to make land and sea borders as impenetrable as air travel, and suggests the unspoken cost is our own humanity.
The Pervert's Guide to Ideology
Slavoj Zizek re-teams with director Sophie Fiennes for another wildly entertaining romp through the crossroads of cinema and philosophy. From The Sound of Music to Titanic, Jaws to The Dark Knight, Zizek offers new ways to understanding Hollywood.
The Pervert's Guide to Cinema
The Pervert's Guide to Cinema takes the viewer on an exhilarating ride through some of the greatest movies ever made (Hitchcock, Lynch, Tarkovsky et al). Serving as guide is Slavoj Zizek, the superstar Slovenian philosopher and psychoanalyst.
You Had to Be There
In a strange quirk of fate, the legendary Toronto '72 production of the musical comedy Jesus hit Godspell launched a constellation of comedy stars, all unknown at the time but now known to us as Martin Short, Eugene Levy, Dave Thomas, Victor Garber, et al

