Skip to main content
Bright White Light film image; glowing chair floats above ground underneath a floating body

Bright White Light

VIFF Short Forum

Canadian Premiere

Five near-death experiences are recalled through audio interviews and experimental visuals.

 

Supported by

    

Community Partner

Directors
Credits
Country of Origin

Finland

Year

2023

Language

In Finnish, Dutch and English with English subtitles

Film Contact
Links
Content Warning

Self harm, drug & alcohol abuse

18+
13 min
Animation Experimental & Avant Garde Shorts Women Directors
Silent Paprika Films, Visual Kult

Credits & Director

Producer

Henna Välkky

Screenwriter

Henna Välkky

Cinematography

Eesu Lehtola

Editor

Henna Välkky

Original Music

Simo Pitkänen

Henna Välkky headshot; Bright White Light director

Henna Välkky

Henna Välkky is a Helsinki based director with a forte in dark cinematic and stylized narratives. She holds degrees in Cinematography, Sound Design, and is currently completing her master’s in Screenwriting. Over the past ten years she has directed short films, music videos and commercials, screened in international Film Festivals around the globe including acclaimed Cinequest, Leuven, Tampere and Atlanta. At the moment she is writing her debut feature fiction film.

 

Eesu Lehtola headshot; Bright White Light director

Eesu Lehtola

Eesu Lehtola is an artist, animator, creative designer, and illustrator with a strong expertise in working with moving images and sound. His debut direction and animation We Are in a Dream premiered in 2018 at Tampere Film Festival’s national competition, touring and competing in +20 different festivals both in Finland and abroad. Lehtola collaborates with major advertising agencies and production companies in Finland, crafting visual identities, concepts, illustrations, and executing moving image projects for domestic and international endeavors. Lehtola is a co-founder and partner at Visual Kult Oy design agency, founder and artistic director of Fire1984 skate and apparel brand, and a partner at Silent Paprika Films. Additionally, he serves as a member of the Grafia board.

 

Missing VIFF? Check out what's playing at the VIFF Centre

Love and Money

Dir. David Ray
87 min

David Ray's shoestring comedy is a totally improvised film, almost like a game of telephone, involving a musician searching for his missing friend and finding all kinds of weird.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

The Art of Adventure

Dir. Alison Reid
90 min

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.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

Montreal, ma belle

Dir. Xiaodan He
118 min

In this Valentine to discovering love later in life, the ever-elegant Joan Chen plays Feng Xia, a 53-year-old Chinese immigrant and mother in Montreal whose world is turned upside down when she meets and falls in love with a young Quebecoise.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre
More info

Sold Out

Agatha's Almanac

Dir. Amalie Atkins
86 min

Shot over six years on vibrant 16mm film, Agatha’s Almanac is an artful documentary portrait of filmmaker Amalie Atkin’s octogenarian aunt, who has fashioned herself an endearingly simple and self-sustaining lifestyle on her Manitoba farm.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

The Painted Life of E.J. Hughes

Dir. Jenn Strom
82 min

A beautiful portrait of E.J. Hughes, who quietly helped reshape the artistic landscape of British Columbia in the 20th century. This extraordinary documentary explores Hughes’s legacy not only as an artist, but as a devoted, humble human being.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

Monica's News

Dir. Pamela Gallant
84 min

Set in a conservative Catholic village in Nova Scotia in the early 1970s, Pamela Gallant's assured debut feature is the coming of age story of a precocious nine-year-old who stumbles across a clue to a murder on her paper route.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema