North American Premiere
Following his internationally acclaimed This Is Not a Burial, It’s a Resurrection (2019), filmmaker and visual artist Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese returns with Ancestral Visions of the Future — a deeply personal cinematic essay that weaves myth, memory, and autobiography into a poetic meditation on loss and longing. Fragmented and dreamlike, the film introduces two mythical figures: the Puppeteer, who cultivates herbs to extend life; and the Market Seller, a mother who preserves the language of dreams in a city that has forgotten how to speak it.
Alongside these poetic threads, Mosese retraces his own path from his childhood in Lesotho to the isolating streets of Berlin, with his mother’s presence anchoring the film as both guardian and witness. Ancestral Visions of the Future resists linear storytelling in favour of sensory intuition, ancestral echoes, and emotional excavation. What emerges is less of a narrative than a reckoning — an offering of remembrance, resistance, and cinematic defiance.
Presented by
Community Partner
Siphiwe Nzima, Sobo Bernard, Mochesane Kotsoane, Rehauhetsoe Kotsoane
France/Lesotho/Germany/
Qatar/Saudi Arabia
2025
English
Book Tickets
Credits & Director
Executive Producer
Marie Balducchi
Producer
Marie Balducchi, Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese
Screenwriter
Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese
Cinematography
Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese, Phillip Leteka
Editor
Andrès Hilarion Madariaga
Original Music
Diego Noguera
Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese
Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese is a self-taught filmmaker and visual artist from Lesotho and based in Berlin. His film Mother, I am Suffocating. This is My Last Film About You was selected for Final Cut in Venice in 2018, where it won six awards, and he was one of three filmmakers selected for Biennale College Cinema for his feature film This Is Not a Burial, It’s a Resurrection, which premiered at the Venice International Film Festival in 2019. Mosese is an alumnus of the Berlinale Talents (2011), Focus Features Africa First (2012), Realness African Screenwriting Residency (2017), and Cinefondation’s L’Atelier (2019).
Filmography: Mother, I Am Suffocating. This Is My Last Film About You (2019); This Is Not a Burial, It’s a Resurrection (2019)
Missing VIFF? Check out what's playing at the VIFF Centre
Chronovisor
A device so sensitive it can pick up emanations from history, the Chronovisor caused a ripple in scientific circles in the latter half of the 20th century, although most dismissed it as a hoax. But why would anyone want to suppress a hoax?
American Doctor
One of the most powerful documentaries of the year, this puts us smack in the open wound that is Gaza, filtered through the eyes of three American surgeons (of Palestinian, Jewish and Zoroastrian backgrounds) compelled to do their utmost to alleviate harm.
How to Divorce During the War
Screenwriter Vytus is left reeling when on successive days his wife demands a divorce and Russia invades Ukraine. Blazevicius' masterful feature emerges as an engrossing satire about virtue signaling, nationalism, good intentions, and survival modes.
Kindergarten
In this charming Quebecois documentary, we are invited to look closely at the interactions of children between the ages of 1 and 5, a period in which they are just beginning to learn about social interactions. And yet how much they resemble ourselves!
A Sad and Beautiful World
This Lebanese love story chronicles the romance between a level-headed businesswoman and a romantic restauranteur across several decades in wartorn Beirut. It's funny, charming, melancholy and you'll feel it all.