Skip to main content
Grandmamauntsistercat film image; bubbles floating in front of young girl

MODES 2

MODES

Image: Grandmamauntsistercat

This event has passed

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

This event has passed.

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

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

Boxcutter

Dir. Reza Dahya
88 min

The first feature from former Toronto Flow OTA Live host and producer Reza Dahya is a boisterous, sometimes bruising day-in-the-life of wannabe rapper Rome (Ashton James), set on meeting megastar Richie Hill (Rich Kidd).

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

The Exterminating Angel: Live Scored by Magazinist

Dir. Luis Bunuel
95 min

Using crystal singing glasses, resonant bowls, pepper grinders and other sound objects, experimental music duo Magazinist perform a unique live score alongside Luis Buñuel's surrealist masterpiece about a dinner party which becomes an inescapable prison.

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

The Life of Chuck

Dir. Mike Flanagan
111 min

The winner of the coveted Audience Award at TIFF last year, The Life of Chuck keeps us guessing about what it's up to and where it's going... Trust us, it's a keeper.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

Hud

Dir. Martin Ritt
112 min

Landmark modern western with Brandon de Wilde from Shane worshipping the wrong hero, Paul Newman’s eponymous heel. According to Paul Schrader, this movie marks the birth of the cynical (anti-)hero in American cinema.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre