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
All the Lovers in the Night
A lonely proofreader's isolated world begins to open through an unlikely friendship with a gentle physics teacher. Based on Mieko Kawakami's acclaimed novel, this luminous drama is a delicate meditation on loneliness, intimacy, and self-discovery.
Clarissa
Arie and Chuko Esiri’s Clarissa brings Mrs. Dalloway to present-day Lagos, with Sophie Okonedo playing the titular society hostess opposite David Oyelowo, Ayo Edebiri, and India Amarteifio in a Nigerian vision of class, privilege, and past lives.
Image: © Courtesy of Elevation Pictures
Opening Gala: The Debut
VIFF is honoured to open the festival with this special by-invitation screening of Jesse Eisenberg's The Debut. When meek Mona (Julianne Moore) lands a part in a musical, she fully inhabits her character, but grows increasingly untethered from reality.
Árru
Set against the mountains and fjords of northern Norway, Árru follows reindeer herder Maia as a proposed copper mine threatens her Sámi community, forcing her to fight to protect both her community and the land that sustains it.
The Beloved
When Esteban Martínez, an acclaimed director with violent tendences, invites his estranged daughter to star in his latest project, the stage is set for a familial reconnection. But as tensions flare, questions about his intentions rise to the surface.
MODES 1
Archive and the land reveal other ways of seeing, ensuring that what is meant to endure cannot be erased.