North American Premiere
Between one life and the next, a soul reflects on a past shaped by faith, repetition, and the quiet labour of observation. At the end of the 19th century, the Vatican assembled four nuns to map the sky — a monumental effort of performing rigorous calculations that positioned women as human “computers.” The promise of technological progress in the 1990s emerges not as a rupture, but as an uncanny continuation of the same systems of order, belief, and labour.
Filmed with visual dissonance between 16mm and a smartphone, Oh Be a Fine Girl Kiss Me moves between historical fiction and autobiography, collapsing distinctions between astronomy and computation, devotion and technology, memory and speculation. Director Alice dos Reis frames the invisible architectures that shape human lives, revealing modernity not as a succession of innovations but as an enduring constellation of inherited structures, aspirations, and constraints.
Elsa Compaoré, Margarida Lucas, Sara Silva
Portugal
2026
No Dialogue
Indigenous & Community Access
Indigenous Access Tickets Community Access Tickets Ticket Donation Requests
Credits & Director
Producer
Catarina de Sousa, Isadora Neves Marques
Screenwriter
Alice dos Reis
Cinematography
Alice dos Reis
Editor
Alice dos Reis
Alice dos Reis
Alice dos Reis, born 1995 in Lisbon, is a visual artist and filmmaker. Her work has been presented internationally at festivals including the BFI London Film Festival, Kurzfilmtage Winterthur, Sheffield DocFest, and the Melbourne International Film Festival. Her films and visual art have also been featured in exhibitions at institutions such as the Serralves Museum of Contemporary Art (Porto), Palais de Tokyo (Paris), and the EYE Filmmuseum (Amsterdam).
Missing VIFF? Check Out What's Playing at the VIFF Centre
American Doctor
One of the most powerful documentaries of the year, this puts us smack in the open wound that is Gaza, filtered through the eyes of three American surgeons (of Palestinian, Jewish and Zoroastrian backgrounds) compelled to do their utmost to alleviate harm.
The History of Concrete
After attending a workshop on pitching saccharine Hallmark movies, John Wilson tries to apply all the same best practices to his documentary about concrete. Frequently absurd and endlessly entertaining detours, asides, and digressions ensue.
La Bola Negra
A big, old-school historical melodrama gets a thrillingly modern, queer makeover from Spanish duo Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi, who artfully juggle three gay protagonists across stories set in 1932, 1937, and 2017. Winner: Best Director, Cannes. Screening on 35mm.
A. Rimbaud
Patrick Wang (The Bread Factory) presents the life of French poet Arthur Rimbaud in this staggeringly adventurous and deeply considered movie, a three-hour, one-man show quite unlike anything we have seen before. "Poetic, audacious and singular."
The 39 Steps
In our new film studies series, FRAMEWORK, film scholar Michael van den Bos explores the work of Alfred Hitchcock, across four monochrome masterworks. This week: The 39 Steps (1935), a witty and fast-moving spy thriller from Hitchcock's English period.