The femme experience as told through various disciplines and genres, each a distinctly inimitable perspective.
October 2 & 3: Q&A with the film teams
This short film program includes the following films:
Between You and Me
Cameron Kletke, BC (4 min)
An animated journey through a young woman’s diary entries, notes, and drawings.
Dream Tricks: Over a Six Stair
Adam Seward, ON (16 min)
This documentary follows the daily life of Annie, a trans femme skateboarder and bassist in the band Dilly Dally, as she attempts a Varial Heelflip over a six-step jump.
Ancestral Threads
Sean Stiller, BC (12 min)
Using fashion as medicine for Vancouver’s Indigenous community, founder Joleen Mitton takes us behind-the-scenes at Vancouver Indigenous Fashion Week. Featuring interviews with Musqueam weaver and artist Debra Sparrow and Dene fashion designer D’arcy Moses.
Redlights
Eva Thomas, ON (14 min)
An evening out takes a dramatic turn for two Indigenous women, Tina and Amber, when Amber is suddenly taken into police custody outside a pub.
Yun
Yuezhang Qin, BC (4 min)
A cloud accompanies a young woman through daily life.
Cassandra
Bea Santos, ON (15 min)
In the tradition of great tragedies, Cassandra follows the title character, an eccentric middle-aged artist whose family ignores her claims of clairvoyance.
Donna
Keenan MacWilliam, ON (18 min)
In an autobiographical search for the filmmaker’s birth mother, questions surrounding identity, family, and memory are embodied through performance.
Making Babies
Éric K. Boulianne, QC (20 min)
When a couple in a loving and long standing relationship decides to have a baby, their bond is tested.
Katshinau
Julien G. Marcotte, Jani Bellefleur-Kaltush, QC (17 min)
Set in the 18th century just before the British conquest of New France, Marie, an Indigenous slave to a local surgeon, encounters a young girl whom she presumes to be her child.
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
Fireflies in the Dark
Three interwoven stories explore survival, resilience, and the human cost of civil conflict against the ethnic violence that erupted in 2023 in Manipur, Northeast India. Yogesh Lohan offers an intimate portrait of lives caught in the strife.
James McNeill Whistler
One of America’s greatest artists, James McNeill Whistler fashioned his life as a work of art in its own right. James McNeill Whistler looks beyond his famous portraits and self-styled “nocturnes” to dive into the true depths of Whistler’s legacy.
Forest High
High in the northern Alps, three women take turns caring for a mountain lodge as hikers come and go. Divided into three sections, we follow each caretaker as they settle in for their respective season and have their lives touched in different ways.
Image: © The Blue raincoat
Jaripeo
Efraín Mojica and Rebecca Zweig set their sights on Penjamillo, Michoacán, where the annual Jaripeo — a rodeo of bull riding, drinking, and dust that serves as the town’s public theatre of masculinity — becomes a stage for queer desire.
Afterpiece
This wry, twisty theatrical farce stars Stephen Fung as a playwright, actor, and director who writes a play based on his own past. His rich ex-lover wants to co-star, but our hero has found a sexy new actress, and he’s got a plan to get her the part…
Short Forum 6: Archive Lives!
Before anything becomes archival, it’s lived.

