Intimate and unapologetic stories of women and queer lives are uncovered through provocative and deeply personal accounts that examine memory, identity, and dignity.
Oct 3 & 11: Q&A
This short film program includes the following films:
Rezbotanik
Pedro Gonçalves Ribeiro, Portugal/Brazil/Spain (19 min)
After a night partying, Rezmorah sobers up in the botanical gardens of Lisbon, pondering what the plants can teach us about queerness.
Abortion Party
Julia Mellen, Spain (14 min)
Director Julia Mellen animates and celebrates the termination of her pregnancy with an unexpected array of guests.
It Must Be Because I Decided to Leave
Zhuoyun Chen, China/USA (19 min)
A young woman’s drifting consciousness traces the mystery of an elusive red car.
Daria’s Night Flower
Maryam Tafakory, Iran/UK/France (16 min)
Daria has written her first manuscript about falling in love with a mysterious girl called Blue. The night flowers in her garden hide the secrets of a country that has turned love stories into routine crime scenes.
Goodbye, Fishies
Jonathan Zhang, Australia (12 min)
Personal stories reinterpreted by the actors and director, depict a Thai mother consumed with deep regret for missing her grandmother’s last moments.
Lloyd Wong, Unfinished
Lesley Loksi Chan, Canada (29 min)
Thirty years after his passing, filmmaker Lesley Chan re-examines Lloyd Wong’s uncompleted video art project about living with HIV.
Community Partner
Various
Various
2024 & 2025
Various
Book Tickets
Missing VIFF? Check out what's playing at the VIFF Centre
Pictures of Ghosts
A companion piece to Mendonça Filho's The Secret Agent, Pictures of Ghosts is a lovely, relaxed, ruminative riff on movies, memory, the imaginative space conferred by that place we call Cinema, seasoned with love and boundless anecdotes.
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.
The Nutcracker at Wethersfield
Back in the long, dark Covid winter of 2020, there was no way the New York City Ballet could mount their traditional Christmas production of Tchaikovsky's fairytale. But choreographer Troy Schumacher had a dream to save the show -- reimagining a classic.
North of Ourselves
In the depths of winter, two adventurers set out to cross Quebec from one end to the other on bike and skis, exploring its staggering geography and meeting its inhabitants (human and otherwise) along the way.
Dean Thiessen Plays Vince Guaraldi + Charlie Brown
In 1965 jazz pianist Vince Guaraldi created the perfect soundtrack to Charles Schultz's beloved Peanuts. Dean Thiessen's 5-tet pays tributes to Guaraldi's catchy tunes, followed by a screening of the first Charlie Brown feature film.
It's a Wonderful Life
Every time a bell rings, an angel gets its wings. This Christmas classic is whimsical, sure, but it has the depth to stand up to multiple watches, and it really should be a communal experience, because that is what it's about.