As time moves ever the more forward, histories are revisited. Some continue to be honoured while others are called for a reckoning.
September 29 & October 1: Q&A with the film teams
This short film program includes the following films:
Our Grandmother the Inlet
Jaime Leigh Gianopoulos, Kayah George, BC (9 min)
Kayah George, a young Tsleil-Waututh woman and her grandmother Ta7a, daughter of the late Chief Dan George, reflect on their relationship to water, culture, and land.
Unspeakable Heap
Kara Ditte Hansen (14 min)
An accumulation of histories is explored via the filmmaker’s uncle, a retired Grego-Roman Olympian wrestler who lives in a sinking house built atop a decommissioned landfill.
Master of the House
Dylan Maranda, BC (17 min)
A young sommelier struggles to balance friendship and ambition on the night an acclaimed restaurant critic dines at his work — Reclamation, a restaurant hyped on reinventing Indigenous cuisine.
The Company We Keep
Wojtek Jakubiec, QC (6 min)
An intimate portrait of a ceramics artist and her dog.
Modern Goose
Karsten Wall, MB (20 min)
The adaptive behaviours of the Canadian geese are examined as city co-habitants affected by human intervention and climate change.
Outside Center
Eli Jean Tahchi, QC (21 min)
Finding community via his gay rugby league, Jamaican-born Desmond navigates life, love, and identity as an immigrant living in Munich, Germany.
Death Mask
John Greyson, ON (10 min)
This experimental opera reenacts the lesser known history of Chinese medical student Li Shiu Tong, and his lover Magnus Hirschfeld, a much older German sexologist and gay rights pioneer during Nazi Germany.
All the Days of May
Miryam Charles, QC (7 min)
Following the production of a documentary on the death of her daughter, a mother reflects on life, grief, and time.
Mothers and Monsters
Edith Jorisch, QC (16 min)
In this surrealist satire, a celebratory banquet hosted for and by new mothers is disrupted by a series of strange disturbances.
Supported by
Community Partner
Various
Canada
2023
VIFF Short Forum
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
Akashi
In Mayumi Yoshida’s tender drama, struggling artist Kana journeys to Tokyo to attend her grandmother’s funeral. While there, she reconnects with her childhood love and stumbles across a family secret that prompts her to reconsider her place in the world.
The History of Concrete
After attending a workshop on pitching saccharine Hallmark movies, John Wilson tries to apply all the same best practices to his documentary about concrete. Frequently absurd and endlessly entertaining detours, asides, and digressions ensue.
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.
I Am Not a Witch
Rungano Nyoni's acclaimed debut feature is a visually striking satire about a 9-year-old orphan accused of witchcraft in contemporary Zambia. Screening in the latest African Cinema Now! series, The Witch at the Edge of the Screen.
Queen at Sea
An academic is pitted against her stepfather in a moral crisis over the care of her mother, who lives with dementia. Winner of the Silver Bear Jury Prize and Silver Bear for Best Supporting Performance at the 2026 Berlinale.
Image: © Seafaring