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MODES 2

MODES

Image: Grandmamauntsistercat

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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

Director

Various

Country of Origin

Various

Year

2024

Language

Various with English subtitles

Content Warning

Flashing/strobing lights

18+
106 min
Comedy Documentary Experimental & Avant Garde Human Rights & Social Justice LGBTQIA2S+ Shorts Women Directors

Book Tickets

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

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).

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No Bears

Dir. Jafar Panahi
106 min

Dissident Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi plays himself in this ingenious meta-fiction about the making of a film, and the unmaking of love story.

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Sex

Dir. Dag Johan Haugerud
125 min

Two chimney sweeps living in heterosexual marriages find their views on sexuality and gender challenged by a series of unexpected events. In a set of sharply scripted conversations, both men confront heretofore unexplored aspects of their identity.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

3 Faces

Dir. Jafar Panahi
100 min

Iranian filmmaker Panahi and actress Behnaz Jafari, both playing themselves, receive a video in which a distraught teenaged girl, whose acting dreams have been quashed appears to kill herself. Panahi and Jafari decide to investigate...

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Dreams

Dir. Dag Johan Haugerud
110 min

The third installment in the Sex/Dreams/Love trilogy is another rich, absorbing tale. 17-year-old Johanne writes a confessional about her flirtation with a (female) teacher. But the writing is too good to stay private...

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Transit
Transit film image; woman leaning her head against a man's back

Transit

Dir. Christian Petzold
101 min

Trust the director of Phoenix and Barbara to re-imagine a WWII romantic intrigue into something unsettlingly contemporary. With occupying forces closing in, a German refugee (Franz Rogowski) assumes a dead writer's identity and flees to Marseille.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre