Freedom and control, or chaos and systematization. With indelible nuance and care, these works defy categorization, break binaries, and tempt us to adopt a gaze of love, or resistance; defiantly, also an act of love.
This short film program includes the following films:
Freak
Claire Barnett, USA (14 min)
Confronted via home video by her partner to reveal her deepest, darkest fantasy, Laine is left questioning the limits of their relationship.
Dreams Like Paper Boats
Samuel Suffren, Haiti (19 min)
Since his wife left for the United States, Edouardo and his daughter subsist on recorded tapes she sends to fill the void of her absence with her voice. Given the distance, they cling to a future filled with love and family.
She Stays
Marinthia Gutiérrez, Mexico (10 min)
Recently accepted to a dance master’s program abroad, Laura must decide if she’s ready to walk away from Tijuana and her ex. Tonight she is watched by a coven lurking in the shadows.
We Were No Desert
Agustina Comedi, Chiachio & Giannone, Argentina (12 min)
Taking an installation by Argentine textilsts Chiachio & Giannone as a point of departure, director Agustina Comedi (Playback, MODES ‘19) stages a queered rendition of a strict national folk dance, the “Pericón.”
Grandmamauntsistercat
Zuza Banasinska, Poland (23 min)
A dazzling array of materials compiled from the educational archive in Łódź, reveals the often sexist images that were first used as a didactic means of power in Communist era Poland. The footage is repurposed to form a new portrait of the female condition through the lens of a fictional non-binary child.
Razeh-del
Maryam Tafakory, Iran/UK/Italy (28 min)
In 1998, two schoolgirls sent a letter to Iran’s first-ever women’s newspaper. While they waited to be published, they considered making an impossible film. Using citations and image intervention, Razeh-del journeys through parallel histories of war on images of women. Tafakory’s previous film (Mast-del, MODES ’23) was named among the top ten short films of the year by Film Comment magazine.
Community Partner
Various
Various
2024
Various with English subtitles
Flashing/strobing lights
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Cutting Through Rocks
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.
Mr. Nobody Against Putin
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.
Spring After Spring
Three daughters strive to live up to the standards set by their mother Marie Mimi Ho, and keep Vancouver Chinatown's Spring Parade going through thick and thin, in this enormously affectionate local documentary by Jon Chiang.
The Chronology of Water
Kristen Stewart's fearless directorial debut is based on the best-selling memoir by Lidia Yuknavitch (Imogen Poots), a chronicle of her abusive childhood, traumatized adulthood, and escapes through swimming, drugs, sex, and ultimately writing.
Sound of Falling
A remote German farmhouse is the stage for the mundane and magical experiences of four girls who call the foreboding place home at various intervals over the course of a century. In turns delicate and devastating, this is cinema at its most experiential.
Image: © Fabian Gamper