Skip to main content
Soft Transmission film image; air stream passing across a person's face

Soft Transmission

World Premiere

Partly eco-processed 8mm celluloid and tarot become a visual fascia, binding family through a shared fibromyalgia diagnosis and the mysticism of healing. Created in collaboration with the filmmaker’s aunt (a practicing medium), there is a resonance between their respective disciplines, where intuition, ritual, and material process converge. Like the experimental act of filmmaking itself, tarot opens up a lexicon for self-reflection, excavational storytelling, and embodied ways of knowing.

Exploring chronic illness, connection, and the elusive nature of healing, Soft Transmission unfolds as a meditation on kinship, transformation, and the unseen forces that shape our lives. Emphasizing the wisdom of the body and embracing access as artistic form, experimental filmmaker Sara Wylie incorporates open captions directly into her work, descriptive captions (SDH) to transcribe dialogue and important sounds, and creative audio description, inviting audiences into a dialectical experience beyond able-bodied modes of viewing.

Director
Featuring

Wendy Wallace

Credits
Country of Origin

Canada

Year

2026

Language

English

Film Contact
18+
23 min
Documentary Experimental & Avant Garde Family Relations Shorts Women Directors

Credits & Director

Producer

Sara Wylie

Screenwriter

Sara Wylie

Cinematography

Sara Wylie

Editor

Jessica Johnson, Sara Wylie

Original Music

Scott J. Gailey

Sara Wylie headshot

Sara Wylie

Sara Wylie (she/they) is a disabled filmmaker, producer, and researcher from the unceded traditional territories of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh First Nations (aka Vancouver, Canada). Her work focuses on archives and counter-archives, embodied methodologies, disabled ecologies, and crip intimacies. As a director-producer, Sara’s award-winning short documentary and experimental films have screened at film festivals around the world. She graduated with distinction from Toronto Metropolitan University’s Documentary Media MFA Program in 2019, and her projects have been supported by Field of Vision’s IF/THEN Shorts, Canada Council for the Arts, BC Arts Council, Ontario Arts Council, Toronto Arts Council, and SSHRC.

Missing VIFF? Check Out What's Playing at the VIFF Centre

Possible Love
Possible Love film image; four people standing in a road looking at something

Possible Love

Dir. Lee Chang-dong
164 min

Lee Chang-dong’s first film since Burning (2018) is a sardonic, slow-burning satire about two couples: a documentary filmmaker married to a wealthy businessman, and a working-class family struggling to make ends meet after the husband has been laid off.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

The Exorcist

Dir. William Friedkin
121 min

Thirteen-year-old Linda Blair is Regan, the movie star daughter who is possessed by a demon, and whose body becomes a spiritual battleground. It builds slowly, carefully, into a maelstrom of sheer unadulterated horror.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre
La Bola Negra
La Bola Negra film image; man playing a trumpet

La Bola Negra

Dir. Javier Ambrossi, Javier Calvo
155 min

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.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre
The History of Concrete
The History of Concrete film image; man smoothing just-poured concrete sidewalk

The History of Concrete

Dir. John Wilson
101 min

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.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

Once Upon a Time in Harlem

Dir. William Greaves, David Greaves
100 min

Once Upon a Time in Harlem splices together footage shot by William Greaves in 1972 of a group of Harlem Renaissance luminaries in conversation at Duke Ellington’s townhouse. The film is a living archive of memory, disagreement, style, and Black genius.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

An American Werewolf in London

Dir. John Landis
97 min

Two American students get into a spot of bother with the wildlife in rural England. Then they introduce the virus to the big city... John Landis's goofy horror comedy is a very good night out. So long as it's not a full moon...

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre