VIFF Short Forum 8

Having offered some late-night assistance to a stranger in the wake of an auto accident, a mechanic grows convinced that he recognizes the supposed stranger’s voice as that of his torturer during a grueling prison spell.

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.

A lovely, ruminative movie set in the Pacific Northwest in the first half of the last century. Robert (Joel Edgerton) is a lumberjack, a taciturn man who comes to appreciate the life slipping between his fingers.

In this Valentine to discovering love later in life, the ever-elegant Joan Chen plays Feng Xia, a 53-year-old Chinese immigrant and mother in Montreal whose world is turned upside down when she meets and falls in love with a young Quebecoise.

A desperate father (Sergi Lopez) searchers for his missing daughter through the spiritual wasteland of the Moroccan desert. An unforgettable sensory powerhouse, Sîrat will have you riveted and rattled for hours after the end credits have rolled.

Whether he was a man, a musician, or an emissary from Saturn (as he claimed), Sun Ra was one of the unique visionaries of the 20th century. Christine Turner’s documentary explores the legacy of this iconoclastic who turned his life into a work of art.