From the indoctrination of youth to increasing surveillance, populist ethno-nationalist and fascist ideologies continue to take root, yet dissent remains at the fore.
Oct 2: Q&A
This short film program includes the following films:
Anatomy of a Lost Sound
Zuko Garagić, Bosnia/Herzegovina/Czech Republic/USA (20 min)
A cast of non-actors depict a Czech paramilitary youth camp while an incendiary recording metastasizes antisemitic rhetoric across Europe.
The Uniformed
Timon Ott, Germany (17 min)
After committing to 17 years of service, an 18-year-old discovers that things are not as uniform in the military as he thought.
Monument
Jeremy Drummond, USA (18 min)
Treated and multilayered Super 8 images are juxtaposed, illuminating tensions that bridge protest and reclamation with the perils of nationalism.
Sixty-Seven Milliseconds
Fleuryfontaine, France (15 min)
Blending chronophotography and CGI, French surveillance footage raises questions about policing and institutional violence.
Blind, Into the Eye
Atefeh Kheirabadi & Mehrad Sepahnia, Iran/Germany (20 min)
Ammunition fired deliberately at Iranian protesters points to a particularly insidious form of state repression.
happiness
Fırat Yücel, Netherlands/Turkey (18 min)
As the unfolding genocide in Gaza is streamed around the world, resistence persists for a group of activists and immigrants in Amsterdam sabotaged by insomnia.
Community Partner
Various
Various
2025
Various
Child abuse, racism, police violence
Book Tickets
Missing VIFF? Check out what's playing at the VIFF Centre
Tokyo Godfathers
Shinjuku, Tokyo, Christmas Eve. Middle-aged has-been Gin, aging drag artist Hana, and teenage runaway Miyuki are three homeless friends who stumble across an abandoned baby and do their best to care for the infant over the course of a long and perilous night.
Auction
Inspired by a true story, writer-director Pascal Bonitzer has crafted an inquiring, witty drama about the art market. When a long-lost Egon Schiele masterpiece reemerges, art appraiser Alex is initially skeptical. And yet...
The Librarians
Dispatches from the front line of America's culture wars (and ours too): librarians speak out about the war against ideas, history, freedom of expression and sexual identity, a campaign in which an open mind is the ultimate enemy.
The Secret Agent
Having run afoul of an influential bureaucrat in Brazil’s military dictatorship circa 1977, Marcelo decamps to Recife to live under an assumed name — but he’ll soon come to understand precisely how rampant the country’s corruption has become.
Sinners
This year's unexpected box office sleeper is that rare beast, a genre movie full of bold invention and surprise. We are in Mississippi in the early 1930s, and the opening of a new blues joint on the edge of town is the signal for all hell to break out.