International Premiere
Set on a remote volcanic island in Cape Verde, this mesmerizing feature debut traces three formative stages in a young woman’s life, from birth to young adulthood. We follow Hanami as she comes into her own under the care and guidance of a community of women who surround her in the absence of her mother.
Denise Fernandes reveals a sublime visual sensibility as she explores the perimeters of the mother-daughter bond with an exquisitely textured touch, peppered with moments of magical realism. She interrogates a sense of belonging through a distinctive lens, portraying the two women as counterparts of the same root; where one is pushed out by the island, the other learns to become one with the land and its ways. This is a nuanced, lyrical piece of filmmaking that observes its own storytelling tides.
Best Emerging Director Award, Locarno 2024
Presented by
Media Partner
Sanaya Andrade, Daílma Mendes, Alice da Luz, Nha Nha Rodrigues, João Galinha, Yuta Nakano
Switzerland/Portugal/Cape Verde
2024
In Cape Verdean Creole, Japanese, French and English with English subtitles
Book Tickets
Indigenous & Community Access
Indigenous Access Tickets Community Access Tickets Ticket Donation Requests
Credits & Director
Producer
Eugenia Mumenthaler, David Epiney, Luís Urbano, Sandro Aguilar
Screenwriter
Denise Fernandes, Telmo Churro
Cinematography
Alana Mejía Gonzalez
Editor
Selin Dettwiler
Production Design
Mathé
Original Music
Rahel Zimmermann
Denise Fernandes
Denise Fernandes (1990) was born in Lisbon to Cape Verdean parents and grew up in Switzerland. Her latest short film, Nha Mila (2020), premiered at the Locarno Film Festival in the Pardi di Domani section. Nha Mila was a European Film Awards candidate and has been screened at over 40 international film festivals. It was nominated as Best National Short Film at the Sophia Awards 2021 and invited by MoMa and Lincoln Center in New York for the New Directors/New Films Festival. Hanami, filmed in Cape Verde, is her feature directorial debut.
Missing VIFF? Check out what's playing at the VIFF Centre
All the Lovers in the Night
A lonely proofreader's isolated world begins to open through an unlikely friendship with a gentle physics teacher. Based on Mieko Kawakami's acclaimed novel, this luminous drama is a delicate meditation on loneliness, intimacy, and self-discovery.
Clarissa
Arie and Chuko Esiri’s Clarissa brings Mrs. Dalloway to present-day Lagos, with Sophie Okonedo playing the titular society hostess opposite David Oyelowo, Ayo Edebiri, and India Amarteifio in a Nigerian vision of class, privilege, and past lives.
Image: © Courtesy of Elevation Pictures
Opening Gala: The Debut
VIFF is honoured to open the festival with this special by-invitation screening of Jesse Eisenberg's The Debut. When meek Mona (Julianne Moore) lands a part in a musical, she fully inhabits her character, but grows increasingly untethered from reality.
Árru
Set against the mountains and fjords of northern Norway, Árru follows reindeer herder Maia as a proposed copper mine threatens her Sámi community, forcing her to fight to protect both her community and the land that sustains it.
The Beloved
When Esteban Martínez, an acclaimed director with violent tendences, invites his estranged daughter to star in his latest project, the stage is set for a familial reconnection. But as tensions flare, questions about his intentions rise to the surface.
MODES 1
Archive and the land reveal other ways of seeing, ensuring that what is meant to endure cannot be erased.