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 Animation BC Spotlight Horror & Thriller 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

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

Cutting Through Rocks

Dir. Sara Khaki & Mohammadreza Eyni
95 min

Winner of Sundance's World Cinema Documentary Grand Jury Prize, Cutting Through Rocks follows Sara Shahverdi — motorcyclist, midwife, and first-ever councilwoman elected in her Iranian village. A vérité triumph by Sara Khaki & Mohammadreza Eyni.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

A Poet

Dir. Simón Mesa Soto
120 min

When embittered poet Oscar Restrepo takes a job at a local high school, he meets Yurlady, a talented student from a poor background. Seeking to help her cultivate her art, he draws her into the poetry world — to disastrous and comedic results.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

Mr. Nobody Against Putin

Dir. David Borenstein & Pavel Talankin
90 min

Nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary, and Special Jury Prize Winner, Sundance, 2025, this exposé shot by a Russian primary teacher shows how the Putin propaganda machine works to militarize children.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

Cousin Harley + Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story

Dir. Jake Kasdan
180 min

Come join Local Hillbilly heroes Cousin Harley, for a night of traditional Rockabilly, Western Swing and early Rock n Roll before reveling in the rock n roll biopic excess of John C Reilly as the legendary Dewey Cox!

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema
Seeds
Seeds film image; man carrying a baby

Seeds

Dir. Brittany Shyne
123 min

Shot over nine years, Brittany Shyne’s Sundance-winning documentary is a tender portrait of Black farming families in the American South. A moving meditation on land, legacy, and the strength it takes to hold on.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

The Secret Agent

Dir. Kleber Mendonça Filho
158 min

Having run afoul of an influential bureaucrat in Brazil’s military dictatorship circa 1977, Marcelo decamps to Recife to live under an assumed name — but he’ll soon come to understand precisely how rampant the country’s corruption has become.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema