Fifty years after being separated during the Sixties Scoop, four Cree siblings reunite for the first time on a long weekend trip to Banff. Connie (Carmen Moore) frets over planning the perfect sight-seeing itinerary, while down-to-earth-but-guarded Gwen (Michelle Thrush) laments feeling like a tourist in her own country. Marianne (Alex Rice), who grew up in Belgium, experiences the bittersweet joy of discovering her Indigenous culture in midlife, while Anthony (Michael Greyeyes) grapples with a history of assimilation and his role as a grandfather-to-be.
Over picturesque backdrops of forest trails, snowcapped mountains, and crystalline lakewater, the Wasepescan siblings open up about the hurts, hopes, and fears that resurface in the tender process of reassembling their family. Introspective performances from an ensemble cast of VIFF favourites are perfectly matched by the film’s sensitive, piano-driven score. Based on her 2017 documentary Birth of a Family, this emotional drama from award-winning filmmaker Tasha Hubbard (nipawistamâsowin: We Will Stand Up) relates a life-affirming story of reconnection and belonging.
Oct 4, 5 & 11: Q&A
Community Partner
Tasha Hubbard
Michael Greyeyes, Michelle Thrush, Carmen Moore, Alex Rice
Canada
2025
In English and French with English subtitles
Residential schools
Book Tickets
Credits
Executive Producer
Betty Ann Adam
Producer
Tyler Hagan, Julia Rosenberg
Screenwriter
Tasha Hubbard, Emil Sher
Cinematography
James Klopko
Editor
Simone Smith
Production Design
Louisa Birkin
Original Music
Todor Kobakov
Missing VIFF? Check out what's playing at the VIFF Centre
All That's Left of You
Jordan's submission for the Academy Awards, All That's Left of You makes the most of its epic format to chronicle seven decades of Palestinian history while tracking the psychological impact of cycles of exile and oppression on three generations.
L'Étranger
Recreating 1940s Algeria in vivid, high contrast black and white cinematography, L'Etranger is erotic, enigmatic and brutal in equal measures, a masterful screen version of Albert Camus's insoluble classic of existential alienation.
Sentimental Value
A once-revered director crashes back into his family’s lives, eager to recruit his daughter for a film role. When she declines, he finds a new muse in an eager but unpolished Hollywood star, sending his botched reconciliation spiraling into chaos.
The Mother and the Bear
Johnny Ma’s film stars Kim Ho-jung as a Korean woman who flies to Winnipeg when her immigrant daughter is hospitalized there. This crowd-pleaser plays up cultural differences to hilarious effect and offers a touching take on mother-daughter tension.
Islands
In this sly, engrossing mystery, a dissolute English tennis coach in a Canary Islands holiday resort falls under suspicion when the husband of a beautiful guest disappears after a night of heavy drinking...