Shorts from: Canada, France, Lebanon, Netherlands, Portugal, Poland, Syria, USA.
Oct 4 & 5: Q&A
This short film program includes the following films:
One Duck Down
Lindsay Aksarniq McIntyre, Canada (5 min)
Filmed on the tundra of the Canadian Arctic, place and personal histories are explored through memories embedded in the land.
Baadarane
Samah El Kadi, Lebanon (15 min)
In a small town on Mount Lebanon, a young boy tests God after his mother’s sudden death.
Water Girl
Sandra Desmazières, France/Netherlands/Portugal (15 min)
Anchored by her relationship to the sea as a freediver, Mia recalls her past.
Adieu Ugarit
Samy Benammar, Canada (16 min)
Benammar interviews Mohamed, who witnessed his best friend’s murder by armed militia on the outskirts of Damascus in 2012.
A Light That Doesn’t Dim
Colby Barrios, USA (19 min)
Sister Jones, a Mormon missionary stationed in Mexico, wants to go home.
Four Walls of Memory
Joanna Płatek, Poland (12 min)
A wild creature chases a girl into a cabin, slams into the wall, and dies. Why doesn’t she leave?
WASSUPKAYLEE
Pepi Ginsberg, France/USA (20 min)
Kaylee, a teenage influencer, struggles to find her groove as the latest member of a popular TikTok content house.
Supported by
Community Partner
Various
Various
2024 & 2025
Various
Animal cruelty, violence, murder
Book Tickets
Missing VIFF? Check out what's playing at the VIFF Centre
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.
The Executioner
Regularly cited as the greatest Spanish film ever made, Berlanga's masterpiece is a pitch black comedy about an undertaker lined up by the state executioner to marry his beautiful daughter -- but he'll also have to inherit the old man's job.
The Plague
At a water polo camp, Ben is plunged into the deep end of toxic peer pressure. Terrified of incurring his campmates’ wrath, he joins them in tormenting a kid whose skin rash has been branded “the plague”. But then he experiences a breakout of his own...




