Skip to main content
Two People Exchanging Saliva film image; close on woman with bruises on her face and a bleeding nose

Two People Exchanging Saliva

Deux Personnes échangeant de la Salive

VIFF Short Forum

Canadian Premiere

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

Directors
Cast

Zar Amir Ebrahimi, Luàna Bajrami, Aurélie Boquien, Vicky Krieps, Nicolas Bouchaud, Mitchell Jean, Mustapha Abourachid

Credits
Country of Origin

France/USA

Year

2024

Language

In French with English subtitles

Film Contact
Links
Content Warning

Mild violence

18+
36 min
Award Winners Drama LGBTQIA2S+ Romance Shorts Talent to Watch Women Directors
Alambic Production

Credits & Director

Producer

Violeta Kreimer, Valentina Merli, Natalie Musteata, Carol Cohen

Screenwriter

Natalie Musteata, Alexandre Singh

Cinematography

Alexandra de Saint Blanquat

Editor

Hanna Park

Production Design

Anna Brun

Original Music

Bobak Lotfipour

Alexandre Singh headshot

Alexandre Singh

Alexandre Singh is a Brooklyn-based visual artist who was born in Bordeaux, France, to Indian and French parents, and raised in Manchester, UK. Singh’s work is inspired by a love of imaginative storytelling and encompasses diverse practices such as writing, collage, installation, and performance. His works are represented in numerous collections that include the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; and Centre national des arts plastiques, Paris. In 2019, Singh made his debut short film, The Appointment, which premiered at the Legion of Honor Museum, San Francisco. Two People Exchanging Saliva is his second film.

Natalie Musteata headshot

Natalie Musteata

Natalie Musteata is a writer, curator, and filmmaker. She holds a doctorate in art history and a master’s in film from The Graduate Center, CUNY, and has curated of several exhibitions including if I can’t dance to it, it’s not my revolution (Haverford College) and UNREST: Revolt against Reason (apexart). In 2018, she began collaborating with contemporary artist Alexandre Singh, and she produced Singh’s richly imaginative short film The Appointment (2019), which played in over 40 film festivals and won several awards. Their second film, Two People Exchanging Saliva, premiered at the Telluride Film Festival in 2024.

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

I Am the Blues

Dir. Daniel Cross
106 min

A musical journey through the swamps of the Louisiana Bayou, the juke joints of the Mississippi Delta and Moonshine soaked BBQs in the North Mississippi Hill Country. Plus: Visits with the last original blues devils!

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

Palestine '36

Dir. Annemarie Jacir
118 min

An epic historical drama from director Annemarie Jacir that follows an ensemble of rural villagers who face off against British colonial forces during the 1936 Palestinian revolt.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

Happy Together

Dir. Wong Kar-Wai
96 min

Buenos Aires, the end of the world, 1997. Leslie Cheung and Tony Leung are lovers trying to hash out their on-off relationship in an alien environment.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

The Lives of Others

Dir. Florian Henkel von Donnesmarck
137 min

This month's Talking Pictures film is a masterly Cold War thriller set in East Berlin. An agent of the secret police, conducting surveillance on a writer and his lover, finds himself becoming increasingly absorbed by their lives...

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

Two Strangers Trying Not to Kill Each Other

Dir. Manon Ouimet & Jacob Perlmutter
100 min

This intimate and candid film by a younger husband and wife artist team is a delicate and immensely moving dual portrait of two artists, husband and wife, together and apart, at that point in life when the end casts a shadow over even the sunniest day.

Image: © Manon et Jacob and Final Cut For Real

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

Blue Road - The Edna O'Brien Story

Dir. Sinéad O'Shea
99 min

Judging by this candid, funny, passionate biographical documentary, it would have been a wild ride to have been Irish novelist Edna O'Brien, or even to have been in her circle of friends and lovers. Well, for an hour and a half we can pretend we were.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre