Skip to main content
Man Number 4 film image; blurry shot of someone's feet

Man Number 4

MODES

North American Premiere

A startling confrontation with a photograph taken in Gaza, in December 2023 (which now exists on social media), triggers questions about what it means to be an onlooker. Focusing on pixilated details, the incoherent forms begin to take shape, while the human and un-human implications of this scene reveal a historical context that cannot be unseen. Accomplice, accessory, abettor. Does the passive or active observer play a role in these transgressions?

 

Community Partner

Director
Credits
Country of Origin

UK

Year

2024

Language

English

Film Contact
Links
Content Warning

Graphic violence

18+
10 min
Art, Music & Photography Experimental & Avant Garde Human Rights & Social Justice Shorts Women Directors

Credits & Director

Screenwriter

Miranda Pennell

Editor

Miranda Pennell

Miranda Pennell headshot; Man Number 4 director

Miranda Pennell

Miranda Pennell is a London-based filmmaker whose work often recycles images from British colonial archives to reflect on contemporary situations. Her films emphasise the role of the imagination in the interpretation of historical documents,
recently drawing on genre-fiction as a way of engaging with troubled histories.

Pennell received an MA in visual anthropology in 2010 from Goldsmiths College, University of London, and she completed her PhD research at the University of Westminster in 2016.

Her films have screened at Viennale, Rotterdam International Film Festival, New York Film Festival, Berlin International Film Festival, FID Marseille, London International Film Festival and among others.

Recent selected group exhibitions include Evil Eye: The Parralel Histories of Optics and Ballistics (2023) Tabakalera, San Sebastian; The Light Becomes The Eye (2023), EUCA Annex, London.

 

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

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
Gondola
Gondola film image; two women staring intently at one another sitting in a gondola

Gondola

Dir. Veit Helmer
85 min

In this whimsical comedy two cable car conductors fall in love as they criss cross a beautiful Georgian valley every half hour.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

Inedia

Dir. Liz Cairns
107 min

Liz Cairns makes a mesmerizing feature debut that sees a young woman suffering from mysterious food allergies join a remote island community practicing alternative healing methods. She soon realizes that not everything is as it seems.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

Shall We Dance?

Dir. Masayuki Suô
137 min

Masayuki Suô's delightful and charming 1996 film was a box office smash and won 14 Japanese Academy Awards including Best Film. It's the story of a married salaryman who falls in love with... dance.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Dir. Mike Nichols
131 min

A young couple accept an invitation for a nightcap with history professor George (Richard Burton) and his wife Martha (Elizabeth Taylor). At first it's fun and games. But what passes for caustic wit soon degenerates into vicious mind games.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema
Drop Dead City
Drop Dead City film image; someone holding a newspaper up in front of a brick wall

Drop Dead City

Dir. Michael Rohatyn & Peter Yost
108 min

New York, 1975. The city is minutes away from bankruptcy and President Gerald Ford wants no part of it. Sanitation workers are on strike and cops are telling tourists it's not safe to visit. The town is going up in flames and they can't pay the firemen.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre