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
The Company of Strangers
In this Canadian gem, seven elderly women find themselves stranded when their bus breaks down in the wilderness. With only their wits, memories and some roasted frogs' legs to sustain them, this remarkable group of strangers share their life stories.
Madonna: Truth or Dare
A year in the life of Madonna at the height of her fame, touring Blonde Ambition through 1990. There's concert footage, but the movie is also daringly truthful about life behind the scenes — not that Madonna is every really off-stage.
The Leopard
Lampedusa's elegiac account of a 19th century Sicilian aristocrat, Prince Salina, fading into history is one of the pinnacles of Italian cinema, an epic which influenced the tempo and gravitas of The Godfather, Age of Innocence and The Deer Hunter.

