Get in for a rollercoaster journey through the depths of struggle and perseverance. Not for the faint of heart, this collection is as difficult as it is beautiful.
October 1 & 2: Q&A with the film teams
This short film program includes the following films:
Sisters
Marisa Hoicka, ON (3 min)
Mid-century advertisements, public service announcements, and product demonstrations are stitched together to create an unsettling narrative of two sisters.
Four Mile Creek
Ryan McKenna, QC (21 min)
Aurore Cormier was a settler child who died from smallpox at the turn of the 20th century, near what is now known as Thunder Bay. 100 years later, her relatives search for her grave.
Cloud Striker
A.W. Hopkins, BC (17 min)
Set in the 1930s, Chief Cloud Striker is on a quest to find his son Elijah, who has been forcibly taken from home and placed in Saint Ignatius Indian Residential School.
Conviction
Bruce Thomas Miller, AB (13 min)
Following release from prison, Joseph is faced with the challenges of reintegration into society.
Black Box Investigations
Paige Smith, BC (3 min)
Form and function are deconstructed through the artist’s interventions with the camera.
Autre Chose
Étienne Lacelle, QC (26 min)
Following a crippling motorcycle accident that killed his lover, a young man rebuilds his bike to take one last ride deep into the Canadian wilderness.
The Great Kind Mystery
Ella Morton, NL (17 min)
Inuk and Mi’kmaw artist Amy Hull reflects on her hometown of Daniel’s Harbour, Newfoundland and her connection to the natural world through the Mi’kmaq language.
Element
Will Niava, QC (22 min)
Struggling to make a living in the markets of Abidjan, a group of young men decide to step up their hustle and cast a spell in order to make some real money.
Supported by
Community Partner
Various
Canada
2022-2023
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
The Art of Adventure
The unbelievable adventure story of how painter Robert Bateman and ecologist Bristol Foster drove a Land Rover from Africa to Australia in 1957, developing a love of nature to last a lifetime. An inspirational love letter to the adventure of life itself.
Bushido
An impeccable samurai (and "Go" expert), Kakunoshin is framed for a crime and forced into exile. Years later he stumbles across the true reason for his fall from grace, and sets about exacting his revenge...
Clan of the Painted Lady + Q&A
Jennifer Chiu's engrossing documentary explores the Hakka — a people, a language, and a culture that have been obscured for far too long. Tracing her own lineage back from Canada to China, the director creates an illuminating, bravely personal film.
Fiume o Morte!
The Croatian city of Rijeka rediscovers its own past in this delightfully unconventional hybrid documentary about Italian poet and proto-fascist Gabriele D’Annunzio, who seized the city known in Italian as Fiume in 1919.
Silent Friend
In this entrancing reverie from On Body and Soul director Ildikó Enyedi, we are invited to contemplate several human specimens from the vantage point of a mighty Ginkgo biloba tree on the grounds of a German university.

