Skip to main content
Inkwo: For When the Starving Return film image; close on person in dim lighting

Inkwo: For When the Starving Return

Inkwo à la défense des vivants

VIFF Short Forum

Set two lifetimes in the future. Dove, a gender-shifting warrior, uses their Indigenous medicine (Inkwo) to protect their community from an unburied swarm of terrifying creatures.

 

Supported by

    

Community Partner

Director
Cast

Paulina Alexis, Tantoo Cardinal, Art Napoleon

Credits
Country of Origin

Canada

Year

2024

Language

In English and Dene with English subtitles

Film Contact
Content Warning

Graphic violence, animal cruelty, may frighten young children

PG

Open to youth!

19 min
Action & Suspense Animation BC Spotlight Horror & Sci-Fi Indigenous Cinema LGBTQIA2S+ Shorts Women Directors
Spotted Fawn Productions, NFB

Credits & Director

Executive Producer

Amanda Strong, Haydn Wazelle, Robert McLaughlin, Lupe Danyluk

Producer

Amanda Strong, Maral Mohammadian, Nina Werewka

Screenwriter

Amanda Strong, Richard Van Camp, Bracken Hanuse Corlett

Cinematography

Dean Holmes

Editor

Amanda Strong, Michael Bourquin

ANIM

Deanna Partridge-David, Anna Berezowsky, Juan Soto, Payton Curtis

Production Design

Kate Stransky

Amanda Strong headshot; Inkwo: For When the Starving Return director

Amanda Strong

Amanda Strong is a Michif/Métis artist, writer, producer, director, filmmaker and mother. As the owner and executive producer of Spotted Fawn Productions Inc., her collaborative creations serve to amplify Indigenous storytelling and ideologies. Strong’s work has received Canadian Screen Award and Emmy nominations, and her films—which include Biidaaban (2018) and Four Faces of the Moon (2016) —have been shown worldwide at venues such as TIFF, the Cannes film market, the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures and the American Museum of Natural History.

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

Beautiful Evening, Beautiful Day

Dir. Ivona Juka
137 min

In this powerful period drama, a Yugoslav filmmaker falls out of favour with the Communist regime in the 1950s. Suspected of homosexuality and ideological impurity, he has enemies in high places, but refuses to concede his human rights.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

The Wedding Banquet

Dir. Andrew Ahn
103 min

This joyful comedy cleverly updates Ang Lee's 1993 gay marriage comedy and transports the action to contemporary Seattle (actually, Vancouver).

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

The Friend

Dir. Scott McGehee & David Siegel
120 min

Based on the bestselling novel, writer and teacher Iris (Naomi Watts) finds her comfortable, solitary New York life thrown into disarray after her closest friend and mentor (Bill Murray) bequeaths her Apollo, his 150lb Great Dane.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

Lust, Caution

Dir. Ang Lee
158 min

Each month we showcase a movie selected by one of our VIFF+ Premium members. This month, Shanwen Yan chooses Ang Lee's erotic WWII spy 2007 thriller, starring Tany Wei, Tony Leung and Joan Chen.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

Another Woman

Dir. Woody Allen
77 min

Gena Rowlands as philosophy teacher whose meticulously controlled life begins to unravel after she starts to eavesdrop on a psychotherapist's sessions.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

Love

Dir. Dag Johan Haugerud
119 min

This warm, thoughtful piece offers shrewd comic observations on modern dating as it trains a quizzical eye on the trysts of a female doctor, Marianne (Andrea Bræin Hovig), and her colleague, a gay male nurse, Tor (Tayo Cittadella Jacobsen).

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre