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Arguments in Favor of Love film image; bedsheet ghosts in a forest on fire

8: Love and despair

VIFF Short Forum

Image: Arguments in Favor of Love

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Shorts from: China, France, Germany, Portugal, USA.

 

This short film program includes the following films:

The Death of the Fish
Eva Lusbaronian, France (14 min)

Through the mimicry and embodiment of dance, a girl tries to save her mother from depression.

 


Orlo with Karma
Kangdrun, China (23 min)

Romance blossoms at cram school between Orlo, an independent tomboy, and Karma, a new student with attitude.

 


Arguments in Favor of Love
Gabriel Abrantes, Portugal (10 min)

As the world ends, two ghosts enact the death throes of a relationship.

 


Two People Exchanging Saliva
Alexandre Singh & Natalie Musteata, France/USA (36 min)

Angine, a rich housewife, and Malaise, a shop girl, begin to form a bond in a repressive society where kissing is punishable by death.

 


Skin on Skin
Simon Schneckenburger, Germany (30 min)

Against the backdrop of a fomenting revolt, two workers in a German slaughterhouse find one another.

 

Supported by

Community Partner

         

Director

Various

Country of Origin

Various

Year

2024 & 2025

Language

Various

Content Warning

Animal cruelty, mild violence, self harm, mental health, suicide, death and loss

18+
113 min
Animation Award Winners Cinemas of Asia Comedy Drama Experimental & Avant Garde Family Relations LGBTQIA2S+ Romance Shorts Talent to Watch Women Directors

Book Tickets

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Missing VIFF? Check out what's playing at the VIFF Centre

La Grazia

Dir. Paolo Sorrentino
133 min

A contemplative, mournful but richly imagined movie about a retiring Italian President (Toni Servillo from The Great Beauty) facing two thorny ethical decisions that may define his legacy.

Image: © Andrea Pirrello

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

The Executioner

Dir. Luis García Berlanga
92 min

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.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

Deaf

Dir. Eva Libertad
100 min

Writer-director Eva Libertad has made a revealing, compassionate film about the fears and anxieties of a deaf woman (played by Libertad's sister, deaf actress Miriam Garlo) who is about to have a baby.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

The Mother and the Bear

Dir. Johnny Ma
100 min

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.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

The Plague

Dir. Charlie Polinger
95 min

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...

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

The Flamenco Guitar of Yerai Cortés + Por Derecho (For the Right) Live

Dir. Antón Álvarez
95 min

Winner of the Goya Award for Best Documentary, this is an exquisite and surprisingly intimate portrait of the brilliant young guitarist Yerai Cortés, preceded by an hour of passionate flamenco music, song and dance performed by Flamenco Rosario.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema