Skip to main content
Zanatany, When Soulless Shrouds Whisper film image; people walking through street

Zanatany, When Soulless Shrouds Whisper

Zanatany, L’empreinte des linceuls esseulés

VIFF Short Forum

Canadian Premiere

Tensions rise in the community, days before the little known 1976 Majunga massacre.

 

Supported by

    

Community Partner

Director
Cast

Soeuf Elbadawi, Hatia Ali, Moindjoumoi Ahmed Assoumani, T. Syldio Cristophe, Habib Cesar Marson

Credits
Country of Origin

Belgium/France/Qatar

Year

2024

Language

In Comorian, Malagasy and French with English subtitles

Film Contact
18+
27 min
Black Cinema Human Rights & Social Justice Shorts
The Blue Raincoat

Credits & Director

Producer

Jérémy van der Haegen, Manon Coubia, Nicolas RinconGille

Screenwriter

Ahamada Hachimiya

Cinematography

Charlotte Michel

Editor

Thibaut Verly

Original Music

Nawal Mlanao

Hachimiya Ahamada headshot; Zanatany director

Hachimiya Ahamada

Hachimiya Ahamada studied directing at INSAS, Belgium. She directed her first short fiction film Residence Ylang-Ylang (2008), presented at the Cannes International Critic’s Week in 2008. Later, she made a more intimate film called Ashes of Dreams (2011) which featured a filmed letter addressed to her father. Zanatany (2024) is Hachimiya’s second fiction film. With this project, she continues her work on the trajectories of the Comorian diaspora to which she belongs. Between fiction and observation of reality, she builds a universe whose narrative deepens her relationship to her roots.

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

Hockney

Dir. Randall Wright
112 min

An engaging, insightful and inspiring film portrait of the late great British and California artist. He’s one of the most accessible figurative painters of the last half century, but look closer, there’s much more to David Hockney than meets the eye.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

The Crying Game

Dir. Neil Jordan
112 min

Notwithstanding its famous twist, Neil Jordan's moody thriller works differently on a second viewing, and hits different in 2026, with its rich and "problematic" stew of identity politics, love, violence and desire.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

Peter Asher: Everywhere Man

Dir. Dan Geller & Dayna Goldfine
118 min

A chart topping pop star as one half of Peter and Gordon, Peter Asher was brother to Jane, brother in law to Paul McCartney, ran the Beatles' Apple, produced and managed James Taylor, Linda Ronstadt, and 10,000 Maniacs, to name just a few. He did it all.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

Bram Stoker's Dracula

Dir. Francis Coppola
127 min

Coppola's woozy, cinematically audacious take on the vampire myth is like a symphonic silent movie in full colour, a delirium of romantic angst with Gary Oldman as the shape-shifting immortal.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

Democracy Under Siege

Dir. Laura Nix
90 min

As the USA turns 250, Oscar-nominated director Laura Nix considers the roots of the current political crisis with commentary from historian Heather Cox Richardson, progressive politician Jamie Raskin, and cartoonist Ann Telnaes, among others.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

Malcolm X

Dir. Spike Lee
201 min

In an indelible role, Denzel Washington give us a layered, compassionate, conflicted man who finds the strength in Islam to transcend his demons and confront the inequity and racism in America head-on. Along with Do the Right Thing, this is Spike Lee's greatest film.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema