The Vancouver International Film Festival Program Guide 2021

2021 Festival Guide

October 01 — October 11

40th Festival

viff.org

Welcome to the Festival

From the Musqueam Indian Band

From the Squamish Nation

From the Tsleil-Waututh Nation

ʔa: si:y̓é nə siyéy̓ ə

I7x̱ w ta newyá p siiy̓ay-cht

Friends & Relatives:

ʔo: si:y̓é nə siyéy̓ ə,

To all our friends:

Friends and Relatives,

ʔəi ce:p kʷətxʷiləm ʔi ʔə tə  a šxʷməθkʷəy̓ əmaʔɬ təməxʷ, tə šxʷʔaəts tə shəəmi əqən ʔiʔ əw tə šxʷʔaləqʷaʔ ct tə sqʷχʷaməx ʔiʔ tə səl̕ ilwətaʔɬ məsteyəxʷ

I chexw tl’iḵ iy chet kw’enmantúmiwit itti temí xw

ʔəi ce:p kʷətxʷiləm ʔə tə  a səlilwətaɬ təməxʷ, ʔiʔ əw tə šxʷʔaləqʷaʔ ct tə sqʷʷaməx ʔiʔ tə xʷməθkʷəy̓ əm məsteyəxʷ.

Welcome to the ancestral territory of the həəmiə speaking people, along with our relatives Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh.

For thousands of years, Musqueam people have used storytelling as a way to share our teachings from generation to generation. Storytelling is an intrinsic part of who we are as Indigenous people. We are also social innovators, continually adapting and utilizing new technologies to build upon ancestral knowledge and practices that have sustained us for millennia.

Through film and other media, Musqueam and other Indigenous peoples are finding new ways to share our stories, experiences, and struggles, and celebrate our successes. By actively supporting Indigenous creators—producers, writers, directors and actors—the film sector makes space for us to share our unique perspectives.

When film organizations and festivals centre and prioritize Indigenous films, wider audiences have opportunities to learn the diverse stories and teachings of Indigenous peoples around the world. These platforms amplify Indigenous voices—voices that have been silenced for far too long—and help to ensure that new generations of Indigenous filmmakers will be inspired to continue creatively telling these important stories through film.

Hello and we welcome you to this land.

Nilh s7ulh temí xw tl’a nimá lh Sḵ wx̱ wú7mesh-ulh Úxwmixw iy tl’a Xwmets’kwiy̓em-ulh Úxwmixw iy Selí l̓ wet-ulh Úxwumixw.

This is the land of our Squamish People, and the Musqueam People, and Tsleil-Waututh People.

For many generations, Squamish People have created a culture of oral literature to teach our history, values, and advice to the next generation. Our storytelling traditions are how we inspire ourselves and our children to be a good person, to treat family, land, and waters with respect, and work together as a people. We celebrate all storytelling traditions, including new ways of telling stories through film and cinema.

Squamish Nation recognizes the Vancouver International Film Festival’s work to bring diverse local, national, and international stories to our beautiful territory, while also featuring Indigenous films during the festival and all year round.

Congratulations, VIFF, on your 40th festival!

Welcome to the territory of the Tsleil-Waututh people, along with our relatives Squamish and Musqueam.

Congratulations to the Vancouver International Film Festival on the launch of its 40th season. Storytelling is at the heart of VIFF and it is also at the heart of our Tsleil-Waututh community. It is through stories that we connect with one another, and preserve our culture and traditions for future generations. Focusing on our next generation is one the main priorities for our Nation. Thank you to VIFF for the work they have done with the youth in our community. VIFF works closely with our Tsleil-Waututh Nation School to provide access to movies and documentaries, which contributes to teaching our next generation about the importance of stories.

Thank you for being such a great partner to the Tsleil-Waututh community and congratulations on launching another meaningful season of this outstanding festival.

Chief Jen Thomas

Khelsilem Spokesperson

Musqueam acknowledges that the Vancouver International Film Festival works hard to bring diverse local, national, and international stories to our beautiful territory, while also featuring Indigenous films during the festival and all year round.

Congratulations, VIFF, on your 40th festival! We look forward to continuing to build our relationship and inspiring new Musqueam filmmakers.

Chief Wayne Sparrow

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Put your money where your values are.

VIFF thanks the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (TsleilWaututh) Nations for their continued stewardship of the unceded and occupied land on which our work takes place. As an organization founded and predominantly directed by settlers and immigrants, we understand our responsibility to seek out and build authentic relationships with Indigenous communities, and to allow this ongoing dialogue to influence our practices. As part of this process, we remain committed to collaborating with and supporting Indigenous artists, filmmakers, curators, and audiences.

Contents Welcome to the Festival . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Table of Contents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Festival Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Partners . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Donors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Letters of Welcome . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Festival Schedule . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 Galas & Special Presentations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 Highly anticipated titles by the world’s top filmmakers

Contemporary World Cinema . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Narrative films from around the globe

True North . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 A celebration of the creativity and craft demonstrated

by Canadian storytellers

Gateway . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33 Compelling cinematic worlds envisioned by Asia’s most adventurous artists

Insights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 Nonfiction films that investigate essential subject matter

M/A/D . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 Music, art, and design receive an aesthetically alluring big-screen treatment

Altered States . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40 Fantastic cinema that defies traditional classification

International Shorts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 Filmmakers pushing the boundaries of the short form

MODES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42 Works that subvert the dominant gaze and offer gestures of resistance

VIFF Short Forum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 A showcase of the myriad perspectives and approaches that are redefining Canadian short filmmaking

Talks & Conferences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 Talks • Totally Indie Day • Immersed • AMP

Impact . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 Uncompromising films that spark action and change the way we see the world

1181 Seymour Street • Vancouver, BC • V6B 3M7 Canada t (604) 685-0260 • f (604) 688-8221 viff.org

The Greater Vancouver International Film Festival Society is a non-profit, tax-exempt, educational and cultural society incorporated and registered under The Society Act of British Columbia, and a federally registered charity under the Canadian Income Tax Act. Charitable Registration Number 118946821RT0001.

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VIFF 2021 Festival Information Important Information for VIFF 2021

In-Cinema Tickets

VIFF 2021 Passes Regular Screenings

15

Adults

$

COVID-19 Vaccination Proof is Required for Entry to All VIFF Events

Senior (65+)

$

Accessible

$

• VIFF will be adhering to all Public Health Orders to ensure all its audience members, volunteers, guests, and staff members can enjoy the in-cinema events safely at this year’s festival.

Student

$

• For the most up-to-date information about VIFF’s health and safety protocols, please visit viff.org.

VIFF+ BRONZE

$

VIFF+ SILVER

$

VIFF+ GOLD

$

• VIFF will be requring proof of at least one COVID-19 vaccination to attend all events at our festival. Please make sure you have your BC Vaccine Card (or provincial equivalent/CanArrive) and a piece of Government I.D. available to be checked prior to being admitted.

Youth* Ticket Packs

13 17

10 10

$

$

2 upgrade

12

$

11

$

10

$

14

13 12

• Please follow the directions of VIFF Staff and Volunteers at all times.

• If you buy a VIFF Connect Pass, you do not need to buy individual tickets. Just log in at connect.viff.org and you will be able to see all available online films and talks throughout the festival.

• Please contact feedback@viff.org to request refunds and a member of our team will contact you.

VIFF Connect Pass

l

Online only

l

Online only

80

VIFF Connect Household Pass

110

$

HOW DOES THE FESTIVAL PASS WORK?

• We put aside a generous allotment of passholder seats for all screenings.

• Once you click ‘play’ on the film, you have 48 hours to finish watching.

• Outside of this policy, refunds and exchanges remain at the discretion of VIFF and will be handled on a case-by-case basis.

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Individual...............................................................................$10

• Once you are in your assigned seat for a screening, you will not be permitted to change seats.

• If you have purchased a VIFF Pass, we will calculate the value of your refund based on the number of days you have been able to use the pass for and will refund the remaining value of the pass.

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Passholders are the first people through the doors at each screening.

• When you book an online ticket, you will receive an email containing a streaming link for your film. Click the ‘watch’ button or enter your voucher code on the log in page of connect.viff.org to watch.

• If it is possible for us to exchange your in-cinema ticket for a VIFF Connect screening, you will also be offered this as an option.

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Online Tickets

• Please note that select venues will have concessions available, so some audience members may remove their masks in their seats as they eat or drink.

• If you are feeling unwell or need to self-isolate during VIFF 2021, we will provide a full refund of the cost of any individual tickets or unused ticket pack tickets you have purchased.

Festival Pass

$

Household.............................................................................$15

VIFF 2021 COVID-19 Refund Policies

Creator Talks & Conferences

725

$

• Face masks must be worn to gain entry to all VIFF 2021 venues. We request that you wear your mask at all times unless eating or drinking in your seat.

• If you feel ill, please do not come to the theatre.

In-Cinema Screenings

$

13

included

Online Films on VIFF Connect

Special Presentations

HOW DOES VIFF CONNECT (CONN) WORK?

• Most VIFF online films are available for viewers throughout Canada, but some are only available to people in B.C. Please check viff.org for more information.

• Full streaming FAQs are available on goviff.org/streamFAQ. In this guide, films marked with ‘CONN’ are streaming on VIFF Connect.

4-Ticket Pack Regular...................................................................................$48 Senior (65+)...........................................................................$44 Student...................................................................................$32 HOW DO TICKET PACKS WORK? • Ticket Packs work like credits on your viff.org account.

• There are no restrictions on the number of tickets from your pack that can be used per screening. For example: You can use all 4 tickets for one screening, or individual tickets across multiple screenings.

• Ticket Packs can be redeemed against in-person and online screenings.

• Special Presentation screenings have an upgrade fee of $2 per ticket.

• Ticket Packs cannot be redeemed for VIFF Repeats held after the festival.

• Ticket Packs cannot be used to access VIFF AMP or Totally Indie Day.

• Passholders are granted entrance to these seats before other patrons, or until the passholder allotment is reached.

• Passholder seats are held until 10 minutes before showtime.

• If the passholder allocation is full for a particular screening, our Front of House team will ask any passholders wishing to see the film to wait in the Standby Line.

• Once all other patrons are seated, the Standby Line will be admitted, if there are seats remaining.

• You must be aged 19+ to buy a pass.

• Passes do not guarantee entry.

• The Festival pass includes a VIFF Connect Household Pass so you can also watch available online films.

Please note: Passes can only be printed at the VIFF Centre box office, located at 1181 Seymour Street.

Age Restrictions & Membership Because the majority of our films have not been classified, you must be aged 18+ to attend most films at VIFF. Due to their liquor licenses, all events at The Rio Theatre and Hollywood Theatre are strictly 19+ and the door staff will ask for ID. VIFF presents many films that have not been classified

by Consumer Protection BC. By law, anyone wishing to watch these films at the festival must be a member of the VIFF Society.

This year, your VIFF Society Membership is included in the cost of your ticket—there is no need to buy an additional membership as your ticket will indicate your membership on entry.

Every year, a selection of films is classified so that film lovers younger than 18 can experience the festival. Check out the Rated for Youth Theme/Genre on viff.org. You can also discover more about our High School Program on page 37.

• Unused Ticket Pack credits are not refundable except in the case of illness or COVID-19 self-isolation.

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VIFF 2021 Partners Premier Partner

Premier Supporters

Signature Partners

Festival Partners

/

Public Supporters

Supporting Partners

ACFC WEST, LOCAL 2020 UNIFOR

6

Media Partners

Community Media Partners

FM CANADA

Consulate and Cultural Funders

CONSULAT GÉNÉRAL DE FRANCE À VANCOUVER

Consulate General of Italy Vancouver

Technical Sponsors & Official Suppliers

ITS CONSULTING INC. www.itsconsul nginc.ca

Your IT System’s Best Friend

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amplifying new voices in music

Interviews!

-

previews!

playlists!

reviews! ! and more

readrange.com

viff.org

VIFF Repeats October 12 - 14 One more chance to catch some of the Festival favourites!

Subscribe to VIFF News to get the full line-up first!

Subscribe Today

viff.org

Donors Foundations The Hamber Foundation The Reel Friends Giving Society Melina Buckley Rhys Davies

Maggie Deegan In Memory of Diana Haynes

Eileen Mate The Molnar Group

Reta Rea and Gordon Allan Birgit Westergaard

Naming Donors

Community Builders $10,000+ The Audain Foundation Mike & Kathy Gallagher

Eileen Mate Don and Jane Shumka Terry Whitehead

Impact Benefactors

Mike & Kathy Gallagher

Innovator Patrons $500

Reet Kana Collin Koo & Kevin Smith John LeBlanc Edward Low Ian Merkel Jayeson Nicols Esther Palivoda J. Alan Quinn Manoj Shankar Michelle Yung

VIFF Centre Reimagined Vivienne Taylor and In Memory of Anton H. Kuipers

Patrons Circle Luminary Patrons $1000+ Patrick & Erin Audley Paul Bennett & Catherine Olsen Melina Buckley Peter Cheng & Vincent Wheeler Maggie Deegan

Mike & Kathy Gallagher Eileen Mate The Molnar Group Gladys Reinarz Steven Savitt Ken and Patricia Shields

Corinne Angell Jeff Armstrong Nurit Barkan-Ascher Robert Caspick Maret Christiansen Jack Dlugan Sue Harvey and Burke Taylor Annie Rae Huston Joseph Jones

Support VIFF

40th Festival

And those who prefer to remain anonymous

Festival Fundraiser

Help Raise $40,000 for our 40th Festival!

Make a donation during VIFF’s landmark 40th edition and the Reel Friends Giving Society will match your gift up to a total of $40,000.

Make a gift today and double your impact

goviff.org/donate 9

Welcome to the Festival

A message from the Prime Minister of Canada

A message from the Premier of British Columbia

A message from the Mayor of Vancouver

Dear Friends:

As Premier of the Province of British Columbia, I’m pleased to welcome everyone to the 2021 Vancouver International Film Festival (VIFF).

On behalf of the City of Vancouver and my colleagues on City Council, I want to extend my congratulations to the organizers of the 40th annual Vancouver International Film Festival (VIFF).

I am pleased to extend my warmest greetings to everyone attending the 2021 Vancouver International Film Festival (VIFF).

This much-anticipated event offers a wonderful opportunity to experience some of the best cinema from around the world. I am certain that everyone in attendance will be entertained and engaged by the diverse selection of films being screened during this 40th anniversary edition of VIFF, and that the many talks, workshops, performances, and other events planned for this year’s festival will enhance the experience for everyone involved.

Please accept my best wishes for a memorable experience.

I would like to recognize the numerous organizers, volunteers, adjudicators, and sponsors whose hard work and dedication to film have made this event such a success for the last four decades. I have no doubt that this year’s selection of diverse films and powerful stories from Canadian and international filmmakers will impress fans and critics alike, and I congratulate the filmmakers and all those involved in the productions for their inclusion in this prestigious event.

Sincerely,

Enjoy the festival!

The Rt. Hon. Justin P. J. Trudeau, P.C., M.P.

Honourable John Horgan

It continues to be a challenging time for planning and hosting events. That is why I would like to thank the festival organizers and volunteers for their hard work and dedication in ensuring this year’s VIFF could still take place. Your efforts ensure the continued success of this outstanding event.

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Over the past 40 years, the Vancouver International Film Festival has grown into an internationally renowned festival that showcases BC as a vibrant cultural destination and promotes our local film industry. After an innovative online festival last year, it is wonderful to see audiences safely welcomed back to in-cinema screenings at the newly renovated VIFF Centre and partner theatres throughout Vancouver.

Film is a multifaceted art form that gives power to its storytellers, allowing us to gain insight and understanding into the distinct perspectives of the people who make them. This year’s VIFF program will showcase a vibrant blend of international selections from every corner of the globe. These films come from some of the world’s boldest creators, including inspired work from Canadian storytellers. VIFF is also an opportunity to learn more about these films through engaging and interactive conversations with the filmmakers.

Thank you and congratulations to the filmmakers, artists, organizers, and volunteers for another successful year of VIFF. Mayor Kennedy Stewart

A message from the Minister of Tourism, Arts, Culture and Sport

A message from the Executive Director, Telefilm Canada

Welcome to the 40th Vancouver International Film Festival. What an outstanding milestone for one of the most prestigious film festivals.

A celebration of artistry in film, festivals provide an important venue to showcase Canadian creativity across the country and beyond.

That is why we are proud to support the Vancouver International Film Festival! Congratulations on your 40th anniversary!

VIFF celebrates the world’s differences and diversity through film, right in our own backyard. Undeniably, the COVID-19 pandemic shined a light on the importance of the arts as an instrument for bringing people and communities together. I know it’s been a challenging year, but as they say, the show must go on.

I am so happy for the organizers, artists, fans, and volunteers that we can finally return to the screenings in person.

B.C. is home to the best creative talent and vibrant arts communities. Congratulations on pulling together the best of our province’s storytellers and visionaries.

Now is our opportunity to restore our sense of hope and optimism through the powerful and visionary work VIFF promises.

T’ooyaksim’ N’iisim’ Honourable Melanie Mark Hli Haykwhl Ẃii X _ sgaak

This past year more than ever, Canada has shown the many innovative and resourceful ways in which we make our audiovisual sector thrive. We have given the world many reasons to take notice of Canada and why we continue to be a partner of choice!

Our mission to foster and elevate authentic storytelling from Canadians of all backgrounds, especially those of underrepresented communities, is more pressing than ever before. At Telefilm, our priority to create a more representative screen-based industry continues as our efforts across all our initiatives, including our funding programs, increase.

Stronger together, I want to thank and congratulate the Vancouver International Film Festival for continuing its work of uplifting a diversity of voices through films and celebrating the brilliance of Canadian content at home and around the world.

As always, continue to watch Canadian films wherever they are available and tell others to do the same!

Christa Dickenson

A message from the Chief Executive Officer of Creative BC

A message from the Executive Director and Board Chair of VIFF

Congratulations from all of us at Creative BC on 40 dynamic editions of the Vancouver International Film Festival! VIFF is one of the world’s most prominent festivals and we are pleased to support ongoing clever adaptations, but we are most excited to be hosted again in person.

We are delighted to welcome you to the 40th edition of the Vancouver International Film Festival.

The past eighteen months have been challenging for everyone. Arts organizations like ours have been stretched to their limits, fighting for survival amidst great uncertainty. Despite considerable roadblocks, our remarkable team has adapted the festival experience for our ever-changing world.

Creative BC is devoted to uniting and championing the success of BC’s creative industries. We are proud to support a local festival with such a long history of engagement, growth, and innovation. VIFF has truly anchored a culture of film in this province, connecting the local ecosystem nationally and internationally with diverse creators and audiences since its inception in 1982.

The 40th festival boasts a more focused, carefully considered program. Our in-cinema offerings will be complemented by an online program, sharing the majority of our lineup with anyone unable, or unready, to attend in person.

VIFF has always played a vital role in our community, highlighting vibrant storytelling and diverse voices, strengthening our province’s reputation and brand as a premier destination and leader in motion pictures.

Our sincerest congratulations to the team and volunteers at VIFF! Thank you for your courageous creativity and commitment to us in BC and beyond. It is wonderful that for this momentous anniversary you will bring BC together in-person once again, while using newfound digital capacities to maintain accessibility across the province to the best in domestic and international film for 2021.

Prem Gill

VIFF will also be presenting in-person screenings beyond the downtown core. For the first time, we’ll share our films and love of cinema with audiences in Powell River, Terrace, and West Vancouver. This is the first step in an ambitious long-term plan to share our films, filmmakers, and stories with every corner of the province.

We’re proud to bring the very best international films to Vancouver, expanding our perspective and offering us inspiration. Likewise, VIFF features incredible local films that bring our artists, culture, and stories to the global stage.

Many thanks to our partners, sponsors, staff, and many incredible volunteers for making this happen. We also acknowledge and thank our dedicated board members who have supported the changes as they emerged. And, we thank you for joining us. Together we’re bringing art back to the community, and the community back to the arts.

Kyle Fostner and Lucille Pacey 11

2022 OUTBACK WILDERNESS

Opening & Closing Galas

Petite Maman

The Electrical Life of Louis Wain

CÉLINE SCIAMMA, FRANCE, 2021, 72 MIN.

WILL SHARPE, UK, 2021, 111 MIN.

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 1 SATURDAY, OCTOBER 2 SATURDAY, OCTOBER 9

13

6:30 PM 6:30 PM 6:00 PM

PLAYHOUSE PLAYHOUSE PLAYHOUSE

“He made the cat his own. He invented a cat style, a cat society, a whole cat world. British cats that do not look and live like Louis Wain cats are ashamed of themselves.”–H.G. WELLS ON LOUIS WAIN Running the gamut from slapstick comedy to tragedy, and aging across five decades, Benedict Cumberbatch gives a bravura performance as Louis Wain, an unconventional and deeply idiosyncratic Englishman—a self-styled polymath (at best, a haphazard inventor, fanciful scientist, and unsung composer) who nevertheless struck a deep cultural chord with his knack for imparting human characteristics to cats in hundreds of drawings that simultaneously satirized his own species and flattered the feline.

Will Sharpe’s engagingly eccentric first feature begins by painting Louis as an amiably batty but instinctively brilliant outsider artist, out of step with the expectations of Victorian London but chancing on true love in the form of an appropriately unsuitable governess, Emily (Claire Foy), employed to tutor myriad Wain sisters. Although Louis goes on to win fame with his humorous illustrations, the film’s tone darkens. After a tragedy, Louis’ family obligations weigh heavy and his mental health takes a tumble. Yet when it comes to cats, still he finds an irresistible connection.

Cast Benedict Cumberbatch, Claire Foy, Andrea Riseborough, Toby Jones, Sharon Rooney, Aimee Lou Wood, Hayley Squires, Stacy Martin Exec Ron Halpern, Didier Lupfer, Dan MacRae, Julia Oh, Ollie Madden, Daniel Battsek, Benedict Cumberbatch, Simon Stephenson Prod Guy Heeley, Ed Clarke, Adam Ackland, Leah Clarke Scr Will Sharpe, Simon Stephenson Cam Erik Alexander Wilson Ed Selina MacArthur Prod Des Suzie Davies Mus Arthur Sharpe Dist/Print MK2 Mile-End

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 10 SUNDAY, OCTOBER 10 MONDAY, OCTOBER 11

6:30 PM 9:00 PM 8:30 PM

PLAYHOUSE PLAYHOUSE KAY MEEK

Petite Maman is a precious, poignant, and perfect film exploring the mysterious bond between mother and daughter. Céline Sciamma (Portrait of a Lady on Fire, Girlhood) has dreamed up something strikingly original: a simple, subtle, fluid fairy tale or ghost story, a poetic conceit realized with the utmost tact and delicacy.

Nelly’s grandmother has just died. Eight years old, she is largely left to her own devices, exploring the forest behind the house as her parents set about packing it up. There she meets another eight year-old named Marion (like her mom), building a treehouse. The two become fast friends, and Marion invites Nelly back to her home—which turns out to be identical to her grandmother’s house. The two girls have a deep affinity, not least in their serious turn of mind.

With a maturity beyond their years, Nelly and Marion recognize their meeting will be both fleeting and irrevocable, like a movie you see just once but that will stay with you always.

Cast Joséphine Sanz, Gabrielle Sanz, Nina Meurisse, Stéphane Varupenne, Margot Abascal Prod Bénédicte Couvreur Scr Céline Sciamma Cam Claire Mathon Ed Julien Lacheray Prod Des Lionel Brison Mus JeanBaptiste de Laubier Prod Co Lilies Films Dist/Print Elevation Pictures

Special Presentations

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All My Puny Sorrows

Belfast

MICHAEL MCGOWAN, CANADA, 2021, 103 MIN.

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 3 WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 6 SUNDAY, OCTOBER 10 OCTOBER 1-11

KENNETH BRANAGH, UK, 2021, 97 MIN.

6:00 PM 6:00 PM 9:00 PM

PLAYHOUSE KAY MEEK HOLLYWOOD VIFF CONNECT

Despite a failed marriage and floundering career, Yoli (Alison Pill) is more concerned about her sister Elf (Sarah Gadon), a renowned pianist who’s ready to end her enviable life. Boasting standout performances from its two stars, Michael McGowan’s refreshingly candid, deeply affecting adaptation of Miriam Toews’ beloved novel ultimately proves life-affirming in the most unexpected and rewarding of ways.

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 10

12:30 PM

PLAYHOUSE

Kenneth Branagh gets personal in this bittersweet black and white autobiographical drama, set in his hometown in Northern Ireland in 1969, at the advent of the Troubles. Buddy (Jude Hill) is nine when spiraling Catholic unrest upsets his previously cozy childhood and sends shockwaves through his tight-knit family: Ma and Pa (Caitríona Balfe and Jamie Dornan) and beloved grandparents (Judi Dench and Ciarán Hinds). For Buddy, it’s a rude awakening, but even hard times bring humour and vivid dreams of escape.

Cast Caitríona Balfe, Judi Dench, Jamie Dornan, Ciarán Hinds, Jude Hill Prod Laura Berwick, Kenneth Branagh, Becca Kovacik, Tamar Thomas

Cast Alison Pill, Sarah Gadon, Amybeth McNulty, Mare Winningham, Donal Logue Prod Michael McGowan, Patrice Théroux, Tyler Levine

Benediction

Bergman Island

TERENCE DAVIES, UK, 2021, 137 MIN.

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 7 MONDAY, OCTOBER 11 OCTOBER 1-11

MIA HANSEN-LØVE, FRANCE/BELGIUM/GERMANY/SWEDEN, 2021, 102 MIN.

6:00 PM 3:00 PM

PLAYHOUSE PLAYHOUSE VIFF CONNECT

Achingly intimate, visually sumptuous, and richly detailed, the latest from Terence Davies is a portrait of WWI poet Siegfried Sassoon. The subversive writer is played in old age by Peter Capaldi and in younger years by Jack Lowden; both give superb performances, and they’re matched by the rest of the ensemble cast. The real star, however, is Davies himself: with his musical treatment of images and his sublime articulation of emotion, he delivers a tour de force of filmmaking.

Cast Jack Lowden, Peter Capaldi, Gemma Jones, Ben Daniels, Kate Phillips, Simon Russell Beale, Jeremy Irvine, Geraldine James Prod Michael Elliott

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 5 THURSDAY, OCTOBER 7

6:15 PM 3:15 PM

PLAYHOUSE PLAYHOUSE

The custodians of Ingmar Bergman’s legacy site on Fårö Island have transformed a rural village into a theme park overflowing with potential meaning. Chris (Vicky Krieps) and Tony (Tim Roth) are visiting filmmakers; it’s his residency and her questions that keep them circling around Bergman’s old set locations and the insular culture they promote. For director Mia Hansen-Løve, the island is a suggestive text that she can frame and re-frame, first as wry comedy, then as reckless meta-tragedy.

Cast Vicky Krieps, Tim Roth, Mia Wasikowska, Anders Danielsen Lie, Hampus Nordenson, Anki Larsson, Kerstin Brunnberg, Melinda Kinnaman, Stig Björkman Prod Charles Gillibert, Rodrigo Teixeira

Special Presentations

Drive My Car

Everything Went Fine

RYUSUKE HAMAGUCHI, JAPAN, 2021, 179 MIN.

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 2 MONDAY, OCTOBER 4 SATURDAY, OCTOBER 9

FRANÇOIS OZON, FRANCE, 2021, 113 MIN.

11:15 PM 8:45 PM 8:45 PM

VANCITY THEATRE PLAYHOUSE PLAYHOUSE

Kafuku is a theatre director, actor, and storyteller... yet even he withdraws when it comes to confronting his deepest sorrow. Mourning his wife, and the secrets that died with her, he accepts an invitation to mount a new production of Uncle Vanya, and surprises everyone by casting a troubled young movie star, Takatsuki, his late wife’s lover, in the title role. Elaborating on a short story by Haruki Murakami, Asako I & II director Hamaguchi has crafted a piercing, sublime philosophical drama.

Cast Hidetoshi Nishijima, Toko Miura, Masaki Okada, Reika Kirishima, Park Yurim, Jin Daeyeon, Sonia Yuan, Ahn Hwitae, Perry Dizon, Satoko Abe Prod Teruhisa Yamamoto

Memoria

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 3 TUESDAY, OCTOBER 5 MONDAY, OCTOBER 11 OCTOBER 1-11

12:00 PM 9:00 PM 9:00 PM

PLAYHOUSE KAY MEEK HOLLYWOOD VIFF CONNECT

Partially paralyzed, 85 year-old André (André Dussollier) makes a desperate request of his daughter Emmanuèle (Sophie Marceau): help him end his life. She struggles with her father’s decision, navigating legal concerns and family drama as she hopes that he will regain interest in life. François Ozon’s intimate film subtly captures the intricate dynamics of family bonds.

Cast Sophie Marceau, André Dussollier, Géraldine Pailhas, Charlotte Rampling, Eric Caravaca, Hanna Schygulla, Gregory Gadebois Prod Éric Altmayer, Nicolas Altmayer

Mothering Sunday

APICHATPONG WEERASETHAKUL, THAILAND/COLOMBIA/UK/MEXICO/FRANCE/GERMANY, 2021, 136 MIN.

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 1 SATURDAY, OCTOBER 2 THURSDAY, OCTOBER 7

15

6:15 PM 3:00 PM 9:15 PM

HOLLYWOOD VANCITY THEATRE PLAYHOUSE

EVA HUSSON, UK, 2021, 104 MIN.

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 2 FRIDAY, OCTOBER 8 SATURDAY, OCTOBER 9

3:30 PM 6:15 PM 6:00 PM

PLAYHOUSE PLAYHOUSE KAY MEEK

The latest from Apichatpong Weerasethakul is set in beautiful Colombia and stars Tilda Swinton as Jessica, an expat orchid grower with a strange malady: she recurrently experiences a booming sound that no other character can hear. Memoria is a film of questions more than answers—a poetic, mysterious, and stunningly beautiful work from one of the great directors of our time. “[A]stonishing… it left a residue of happiness in my heart.”–PETER BRADSHAW, THE GUARDIAN

1924: a maid, Jane (Odessa Young) spends Mother’s Day in a stolen tryst with her lover, Paul (Josh O’Connor) two weeks before he’s due to be married to Emma, a young woman of his own class. It will be a fateful day, a day she will come to memorialize decades later in a prize-winning book. Graham Swift’s cleverly layered 2016 novel is sensitively translated to the screen in this handsomely produced period piece in the quality tradition of Downton Abbey and Atonement.

Cast Tilda Swinton, Elkin Díaz, Jeanne Balibar, Juan Pablo Urrego, Daniel Giménez Cacho Prod Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Diana Bustamante, Simon Field, Keith Griffiths, Charles de Meaux, Michael Weber, Julio Chavezmontes

Cast Odessa Young, Josh O’Connor, Sope Dìrísù, Patsy Ferran, Emma D’Arcy, Glenda Jackson, Olivia Colman, Colin Firth Prod Elizabeth Karslen, Stephen Woolley

Special Presentations

Night Raiders

Official Competition Competencia Oficial

DANIS GOULET, CANADA/NEW ZEALAND, 2021, 97 MIN.

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 2 SUNDAY, OCTOBER 3

17

9:30 PM 12:00 PM

PLAYHOUSE SFU GOLDCORP

In her provocative, pulse-quickening thriller, Danis Goulet devises a speculative future spawned from Canada’s colonial legacy. In a war-ravaged 2043, Indigenous people live with the knowledge that their children are practically destined to become property of their military occupiers. When Niska’s (Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers) daughter is taken, she joins a group of Cree vigilantes intent on springing their children from a fortified compound. But sometimes survival hinges on more than just a killer instinct.

Cast Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers, Brooklyn Letexier-Hart, Alex Tarrant, Amanda Plummer, Violet Nelson Prod Tara Woodbury, Paul Barkin, Ainsley Gardiner, Georgina Allison Conder, Chelsea Winstanley, Eva Thomas

MARIANO COHN, GASTÓN DUPRAT, SPAIN/ARGENTINA, 2021, 114 MIN.

MONDAY, OCTOBER 4 TUESDAY, OCTOBER 5 SUNDAY, OCTOBER 10

5:45 PM 6:00 PM 3:00 PM

PLAYHOUSE KAY MEEK PLAYHOUSE

In this riotous Spanish satire on moviemaking, actors, and egos, Antonio Banderas plays an international film star cast opposite a revered, and deeply self-serious stage thespian (Oscar Martínez) by arty, unorthodox director Lola Cuevas (Penélope Cruz). Cuevas figures the two men’s antithetical approach to acting will bring an edge to their performances. But she is going to need all her acumen to keep their rivalry from upending her movie. From the Argentine team behind 2016’s The Distinguished Citizen.

Cast Penélope Cruz, Antonio Banderas, Oscar Martínez, José Luis Gómez Prod Jaume Roures

One Second

Power of the Dog

ZHANG YIMOU, CHINA, 2020, 105 MIN.

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 6 MONDAY, OCTOBER 11

JANE CAMPION, AUSTRALIA/NEW ZEALAND, 2021, 127 MIN.

6:30 PM 12:15 PM

PLAYHOUSE PLAYHOUSE

Set during the upheaval of China’s Cultural Revolution, this is the serio-comic saga of a man who escapes a labour camp for a glimpse of his daughter on-screen. But to do so, he must vie with a young vagabond who has made off with one of the reels. During their ongoing tussle, the two form a bond of sorts, and ultimately collaborate to ensure the show goes on. A love letter to celluloid and the collective experience of moviegoing, the latest from master filmmaker Zhang Yimou will delight cinephiles.

Cast Fan Wei, Liu Haocun, Zhang Yi Prod Dong Ping

MONDAY, OCTOBER 11

9:15 PM

PLAYHOUSE

In her strongest movie since The Piano, Jane Campion turns the machismo of the Western film on its head. On the Burbanks’ Montana cattle ranch, the boorish Phil (Benedict Cumberbatch) rules the roost over his mild-mannered brother George (Jesse Plemons). When George finds himself a wife and heir in the form of Rose (Kirsten Dunst) and her effete son (Kodi SmitMcPhee), Phil is determined to make their life hell. But then he takes a shine to the boy. A stark, brooding tale destined to be a modern classic.

Cast Benedict Cumberbatch, Jesse Plemons, Kirsten Dunst, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Thomasin McKenzie, Genevieve Lemon, Keith Carradine, Frances Conroy Prod Jane Campion, Tanya Seghatchian, Emile Sherman, Iain Canning, Roger Frappier

Special Presentations

18

Red Rocket

The Sanctity of Space

SEAN BAKER, USA, 2021, 128 MIN.

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 5 WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 6 SATURDAY, OCTOBER 9

RENAN OZTURK, FREDDIE WILKINSON, USA, 2021, 102 MIN.

9:00 PM 9:00 PM 6:00 PM

PLAYHOUSE RIO HOLLYWOOD

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 1 SATURDAY, OCTOBER 2 SATURDAY, OCTOBER 9

8:45 PM 3:00 PM 3:15 PM

SFU GOLDCORP KAY MEEK PLAYHOUSE

Canadian Premiere. Arriving in his Texas hometown barely dressed, badly bruised, and all but penniless, washed-up porn star Mikey Saber (Simon Rex) talks his way into his estranged wife’s bed, starts peddling weed, and schemes to turn Svengali to teenaged Strawberry (Suzanna Son) so that he can liberate her from a donut shop and rocket her to stardom. As we ride shotgun on Mikey’s breathless, amoral odyssey, Sean Baker (The Florida Project) crafts another luminous, seriocomic fable concerning America’s underclass.

World Premiere. In their quest to traverse Mooses Tooth in Denali National Park, climbers Freddie Wilkinson and Renan Ozturk come across the story of pioneering photographer and cartographer Bradford Washburn—a friend of Ansel Adams—who mapped the mountains from single-prop planes, and in doing so opened up Alaska and the Yukon for future generations of climbers. Washburn’s photography is revelatory, and brings a deeper spiritual dimension to what is already a breathtaking mountain movie.

Cast Simon Rex, Bree Elrod, Suzanna Son Prod Sean Baker, Alex Coco, Samantha Quan, Alex Saks, ShihChing Tsou

Feat Renan Ozturk, Freddie Wilkinson, Zach Smith, Brad Washburn, Barbara Washburn, David Roberts Prod Kate Holland, Ryan Kampe, Taylor Rees

VIFF Leading Lights

Kore-eda Hirokazu

Bora Kim The Worst Person in the World JOACHIM TRIER, NORWAY/FRANCE/SWEDEN/DENMARK, 2021, 127 MIN.

For more than a quarter of a century, Kore-eda Hirokazu has been a mainstay at VIFF: Maborosi, his feature debut, scored the festival’s prestigious Dragons & Tigers Award in 1995, the director visited in 1998 to screen After Life, and both Like Father, Like Son (2013) and Shoplifters (2018) won our festival’s audience award. On the occasion of our 40th edition, we invited Kore-eda to nominate an emerging director to join him in conversation. He elected Bora Kim, whose decorated first feature, House of Hummingbird, scored more than 50 awards following its premiere at the 2018 Busan International Film Festival.

Over the course of their lively conversation, these filmmakers discuss inspiration, creating on-set chemistry, the importance of storyboarding, and how to distinguish between craft and art.

This VIFF Leading Lights tribute talk is available for free on our VIFF Connect streaming platform from October 1-11.

Like Father, Like Son and House of Hummingbird are available for rental on VIFF Connect until October 11.

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 3 SATURDAY, OCTOBER 9 MONDAY, OCTOBER 11

9:15 PM 9:00 PM 6:15 PM

PLAYHOUSE RIO PLAYHOUSE

Moving with breathtaking velocity and featuring a fearless turn by Renate Reinsve, Joachim Trier’s (Oslo, August 31st) latest is a riotous and reflective coming-of-age epic about Julie, a capricious force of nature leaving a trail of destruction in her wake. Exquisitely scripted and exhilaratingly paced, the film sends its vibrantly realized characters careening between awkward comic encounters, euphoric revelry, fantastical interludes, astute critiques of contemporary culture, and disarming realizations.

Cast Renate Reinsve, Anders Danielsen Lie, Herbert Nordrum, Hans Olav Brenner, Helene Bjørneby, Vidar Sandem, Maria Grazia de Meo, Lasse Gretland Prod Thomas Robsahm, Andrea Berentsen Ottmar

Contemporary World Cinema

Azor

The Beta Test

ANDREAS FONTANA, SWITZERLAND/FRANCE/ARGENTINA, 2021, 100 MIN.

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 2 FRIDAY, OCTOBER 8 OCTOBER 1-11

1:30 PM 6:30 PM

JIM CUMMINGS, PJ MCCABE, USA/UK, 91 MIN.

ANNEX HOLLYWOOD VIFF CONNECT

Canadian Premiere. A successful private banker disappears in the dictator-ruled Argentina of 1980. His partner, Yvan de Wiel (Fabrizio Rongione), inherits his clients and investigates what he left behind. Director Andreas Fontana draws clear lines between Swiss neutrality and the malevolent powers it efficiently wayfinds for. “Fontana’s feature is a film of almost Le Carréan subtlety, of oblique plotting, crouching dialogue, and guarded performances masking sinister realpolitik.”–MARK ASCH, THE FILM STAGE Cast Fabrizio Rongione, Stéphanie Cléau, Carmen Iriondo, Juan Trench, Ignacio Vila, Pablo Torre Prod Eugenia Mumenthaler, David Epiney

Bone Marrow

The Book of Delights

WED, OCT 6 SAT, OCT 9 MON, OCT 11

8:45 PM 8:45 PM 4:00 PM

KMEK KMEK SFU

International Premiere. While doctors believe that her son’s leukemia is terminal, Bahar holds out hope for a rare procedure that would require the child’s birth parents.

Wrestling with the unspoken truth that her husband is not the boy’s father, Bahar sets out to find her first husband, uncovering buried secrets that send both families into disarray.

Director Hamid Reza Ghorbani reveals the inhumanity of a convoluted bureaucracy, crafting a captivating portrait of sacrifice for the sake of family.

Cast Parinaz Izadyar, Babak Hamidian, Javad Ezati, Navid Pourfaraj, Behrouz Shoeibi, Ahmad Saatchian, Alireza Mirsalari Prod Hossein Pourmohammadi

1:15 PM 8:30 PM

6:30 PM 3:30 PM

RIO KMEK CONN

North American Premiere. Marcela Lordy has made a film as thorny, erotic, and complex as the writing of one of Brazil’s most fêted writers, Clarice Lispector. Set in Rio and based on Lispector’s novel with the same name, this visually rich character study focuses on Lóri (Simone Spoladore), an intelligent, freedomloving teacher who picks up men and women on a whim but is always searching. Then she meets likable but arrogant philosophy professor Ulisses (Javier Drolas)…

Cast Simone Spoladore, Javier Drolas, Felipe Rocha, Gabriel Stauffer, Martha Nowill, Theo Almeida Prod Deborah Osborn, Marcela Lordy, Felipe Briso, Gilberto Topczewski

RIO HOLLYWOOD

In the post-Weinstein era, the fragile Hollywood ecosystem of predatory talent agencies is teetering on collapse. Jordan Hines, an ambitious but struggling agent, receives an anonymous invitation to a no-strings sexual encounter. Obsessed with uncovering the people behind the letter, Jordan falls into a paranoid spiral as he becomes embroiled in a labyrinthine mess of murder, sex, and intrigue. A darkly comic thriller that intertwines searing cultural commentary with its bombastic plot.

Cast Jim Cummings, PJ McCabe, Virginia Newcomb, Olivia Applegate Prod Natalie Metzger, Matt Miller, Ben Wiessner

Brother’s Keeper

LEVAN KOGUASHVILI, GEORGIA/RUSSIA/BULGARIA/ MONACO/USA, 2021, 95 MIN.

MARCELA LORDY, BRAZIL, 2020, 99 MIN.

SAT, OCT 2 FRI, OCT 8 OCT 1-11

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 1 SUNDAY, OCTOBER 3

Brighton 4th

O Livro dos Prazeres

HAMID REZA GHORBANI, IRAN, 2021, 107 MIN.

19

FRI, OCT 1 SUN, OCT 3 OCT 1-11

4:00 PM 6:30 PM

VCT VCT CONN

Canadian Premiere. Concerned at reports from his son’s landlady, Kakhi departs Tbilisi for New York’s Brighton Beach bearing gifts of cheese and good advice. But Soso is in desperate need of hard cash: he’s thousands of dollars in the hole to a local gangster.

Undeterred, Kakhi sets about making things right. Levan Koguashvili’s disarmingly simple and poignant movie is a deceptively modest, small-scale character piece, but imbued with such charm and generosity of spirit that it lands with unexpected gravity.

Cast Levan Tediashvili, Kakhi Kavsadze, Nadezhda Mikhalkova, Giorgi Tabidze Prod Irakli Rodonaya, Olena Yershova, Michel Merkt, Kateryna Merkt

Okul Tıraşı

FERIT KARAHAN, TURKEY/ROMANIA, 2021, 85 MIN.

FRI, OCT 8 MON, OCT 11 OCT 1-11

6:00 PM 6:30 PM

KMEK SFU CONN

Canadian Premiere. Set in a corrupt boarding school in the middle of the Eastern Anatolian mountains, Yusuf tries to save his friend Memo, who falls ill after punishment. Together, they struggle against systemic barriers in place at the school. When the staff begins to take Memo’s condition seriously, secrets emerge as everyone tries to discover the root cause of his illness. Karahan explores themes of cruelty, poverty, and abuse of power.

Cast Samet Yildiz, Ekin Koç, Mahir İpek, Nurullah Alaca, Cansu Firinci, Melih Selçuk Prod Kanat Doğramacı

20

BE ENTERTAINED

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To find out more about Hong Kong’s many advantages, please contact: Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office, Toronto Tel: (416) 924-5544 E-mail: info@hketotoronto.gov.hk

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Contemporary World Cinema

Bye Bye Morons

Celts

Adieu les cons

ALBERT DUPONTEL, FRANCE, 2020, 88 MIN.

TUE, OCT 5 SUN, OCT 10

6:30 PM 6:00 PM

Clara Sola

Kelti

HWD KMEK

Think the visual stylings of Jacques Tati and Michel Gondry crossed with the wit of Charlie Kaufman, and you’re getting close to the worlds created by Albert Dupontel. Political and social critique, laugh-out-loud verbal comedy, farce, fantasy, genuine emotion, and visually sublime madness come together when dying mother Suze (Virginie Efira), suicidal IT genius J-B (Dupontel), and blind archivist Serge (Nicolas Marié) team up to find the child Suze was forced to give up for adoption years before.

Cast Albert Dupontel, Virginie Efira, Nicolas Marié Prod Catherine Bozorgan

SUN, OCT 3 MON, OCT 11 OCT 1-11

9:00 PM 2:00 PM

ANEX ANEX CONN

North American Premiere. Amidst Yugoslavia’s political turmoil in 1993, Marijana tries to throw a successful birthday party for her eight-year-old daughter. Milica Tomović’s fluid mise-en-scène and period authentic production design paint a compelling portrait, and the script offers a microcosm of sociopolitical commentary through entertaining dialogue. A searing search not only into the hearts of its colourful characters, but into the heart of the country itself.

Cast Dubravka Duda Kovjanić, Stefan Trifunović, Katarina Dimić, Anja Đorđević, Olga Odanović, Konstantin Ilin Prod Vladimir Vasiljević

Fabian - Going to the Dogs Father Pablo Fabian oder der Gang vor die Hunde

Padre Pablo

DOMINIK GRAF, GERMANY, 2021, 176 MIN.

JOSÉ LUIS ISOARD ARRUBARRENA, MEXICO, 2021, 103 MIN.

SUN, OCT 3 SUN, OCT 10 OCT 1-11

8:45 PM 10:00 AM

HWD VCT CONN

North American Premiere. Fabian is a cynical, idealistic aspiring writer in Berlin, 1931. By day he shills cigarettes. At night he explores the bohemian city with his wealthy Communist buddy Labude. A serendipitous encounter with a young actress, Cornelia, leaves him lovestruck and, briefly, hopeful.

This epic melodrama, adapted from Erich Kästner’s autobiographical novel, begins with a combative salvo of modernist tricks and tropes, but eases into a resonant, edgy and regretful liebestraum.

Cast Tom Schilling, Albrecht Schuch, Saskia Rosendahl, Michael Wittenborn, Petra Kalkutschke, Elmar Gutmann Prod Felix von Boehm

TUE, OCT 5 FRI, OCT 8 OCT 1-11

9:00 PM 3:30 PM

Compartment No.6

NATHALIE ÁLVAREZ MESÉN, SWEDEN/COSTA RICA/ BELGIUM/GERMANY, 2021, 106 MIN.

MILICA TOMOVIĆ, SERBIA, 2021, 106 MIN.

CINE CINE CONN

World Premiere. In Mexico City, a Catholic stronghold, the inexperienced Padre Pablo (Rafael Martínez Sánchez) can close out the world as much as he likes. The rare exception: his irreverent poet father Manolo (Juan Ignacio Aranda). Nearing his life’s end, Manolo asks his caretaker and confidante Esmerelda (Carmen Ramos) to illegally administer euthanasia, and makes no secret of this to his conservative son. Director José Luis Isoard Arrubarrena follows Pablo’s drama at an ironic distance, illuminating what he can’t see.

Cast Rafael Martínez Sánchez, Carmen Ramos, Juan Ignacio Aranda, Antón Araiza, Ana González Bello Prod Gonzalo Romero

FRI, OCT 1 MON, OCT 4

21

8:30 PM 3:15 PM

VCT HWD

North American Premiere. As if a mythical being has graced the Costa Rican village, everyone is inexplicably drawn to Clara’s magnetic orbit, including her beloved mare, Yuca. Likewise, when Clara rebels against her oppressive religious upbringing, her wrath reverberates with equal force. Nathalie Álvarez Mesén’s deeply evocative, mesmerizing feature debut fuses coming-of-age elements with feminism, mysticism, and Gaianism for a visceral ride.

Hytti Nro 6

JUHO KUOSMANEN, FINLAND/GERMANY/ESTONIA/ RUSSIA, 2021, 107 MIN.

SAT, OCT 2 SUN, OCT 3 WED, OCT 6

6:00 PM 6:00 PM 3:45 PM

KMEK HWD PLAY

A Finnish intellectual finds herself sharing a sleeper compartment with a boorish Russian skinhead on the long train ride from Moscow to the Arctic Circle in this character study from Juho Kuosmanen (The Happiest Day in the Life of Olli Maki). Superb, sharply contrasting performances from Seidi Haarla and Yuriy Borisov are just the ticket in a movie that unearths humour as well as pathos in its tale of two lonely people forced to share close quarters.

Cast Wendy Chinchilla Araya, Daniel Castañeda Rincón, Ana Julia Porras Espinoza, Flor María Vargas Chaves Prod Nima Yousefi, Alan McConnell, Géraldine Sprimont, Anne-Laure Guégan, Karina Avellan Troz, Marcelo Quesada Mena

Cast Seidi Haarla, Yuriy Borisov, Dinara Drukarova, Julia Aug, Lidia Kostina Prod Jussi Rantamäki, Emilia Haukka

The Girl and the Spider

Girlfriends

RAMON ZÜRCHER, SILVAN ZÜRCHER, SWITZERLAND, 2021, 98 MIN.

SAT, OCT 2 MON, OCT 4 OCT 1-11

3:15 PM 6:15 PM

SFU RIO CONN

Chavalas

CAROL RODRÍGUEZ COLÁS, SPAIN, 2021, 92 MIN.

FRI, OCT 1 SUN, OCT 10 OCT 1-11

6:15 PM 6:00 PM

KMEK RIO CONN

Both very sly and daring, Ramon and Silvan Zürcher’s follow-up to The Strange Little Cat (VIFF 2013) is set in a spacious bohemian apartment, as tenant Mara (Henriette Confurius) and friends help Mara’s roommate Lisa (Liliane Amuat) move out. Mise-en-scène is everything here: this often-funny film choreographs the characters and camera movements with the precision of a ballet, while the heightened stylization of the characters’ interactions gives the film a tangible erotic edge. Pure cinematic pleasure.

North American Premiere. The airs of a life in the world of high art are unceremoniously shattered when Marta is fired from her highclass photography job and forced to return to her hometown in order to make ends meet.

Marta approaches her homecoming with an icy resentment, but her childhood friends are eager to draw out the girl they remember.

Striking a balance between the pleasures of sly comedy and the pains of introspection, Girlfriends is a nourishing ode to the lifelong, lifeaffirming bonds of community and friendship.

Cast Henriette Confurius, Liliane Amuat, Ursina Lardi, Flurin Giger, André M. Hennicke, Ivan Georgiev Prod Aline Schmid, Adrian Blaser

Cast Vicky Luengo, Carolina Yuste, Elisabet Casanovas, Àngela Cervantes Prod Miguel Torrente

Contemporary World Cinema

22

Godavari

Havel

Him

NIKHIL MAHAJAN, INDIA, 2021, 113 MIN.

SLÁVEK HORÁK, CZECH REPUBLIC, 2020, 104 MIN.

GURO BRUUSGAARD, NORWAY, 2021, 83 MIN.

MON, OCT 4 SUN, OCT 10 OCT 1-11

8:30 PM 6:15 PM

KMEK SFU CONN

World Premiere. Just as rent collector Nishikant’s anger and resentment threatens to boil over, his family is confronted with a series of tragedies and revelations that shift their lives and their world into clearer focus. Set along the titular river—either a place of holy renewal or toxic decay, depending who you ask—Godavari is a cleansing experience, one steeped in the wisdom of tradition, compassion, and acceptance, and filled with unforgettable characters.

Cast Jitendra Joshi, Sanjay Mone, Vikram Gokhle, Neena Kulkarni, Gauri Nalawade, Priyadarshan Jadhav Prod Nikhil Mahajan, Jitendra Joshi, Pavan Malu, Mitali Joshi

The In-Laws Tesciowie

8:45 PM 3:45 PM

KMEK HWD CONN

6:30 PM 8:45 PM

SFU KMEK CONN

World Premiere. Kuba Michalczuk’s fastpaced, darkly funny directorial debut pits Andrzej (The Queen’s Gambit’s Marcin Dorociński) and Malgorzata, a rich couple whose son has just deserted his fiancée at the altar, against Wanda and Tadeusz, the bridenot-to-be’s working-class parents, at what would have been the lavish wedding reception.

Vodka flows, revelations occur, and chaos ensues as Michalczuk’s constantly roving camera reveals—and justly skewers—the hypocrisies and greedy desires of rich and poor alike.

Cast Maja Ostaszewska, Marcin Dorociński, Izabela Kuna, Adam Woronowicz, Ewa Dałkowska Prod Michał Kwieciński

SAT, OCT 2 SAT, OCT 9 OCT 1-11

6:30 PM 3:45 PM

Jadde Khaki

RIO KMEK CONN

PANAH PANAHI, IRAN, 2021, 93 MIN.

FRI, OCT 1 SUN, OCT 10

8:45 PM 9:00 PM

Canadian Premiere. Spanning over two decades, Havel is an absorbing biopic chronicling the life of Václav Havel, as he evolves from humble playwright shaken by the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, to revolutionary leader, political prisoner, and eventually to the new president of the Czech Republic following the Velvet Revolution in 1989. Director Slávek Horák deftly balances the political and the personal, using artistic flourishes to highlight the thin line between the political and the theatrical stage.

North American Premiere. Over the course of one day, three men, Petter, Eirik, and Harald, suffer humiliation or emasculation from women, reacting with self-imposed alienation and increasingly aggressive behaviour. As her feature debut, Him showcases Guro Bruusgaard’s eye for the liminal space between comedy and tragedy. Empathetic insights into the vulnerable inner lives of Petter, Eirik, Harald are punctuated by provocative moments of humour as the film offers a thoughtful, lively conversation about masculinity in society.

Cast Viktor Dvořák, Anna Geislerová, Martin Hofmann, Barbora Seidlová, Stanislav Majer, Adrian Jastraban, Jiří Bartoška Prod Slávek Horák

Cast Johannes Joner, Frank Werner Laug, Emil Johnsen Prod Guro Bruusgaard, Magnus Mork, Mariken Halle, Katja Eyde Jacobsen

Lamya’s Poem

Miracle

Paris, 13th District

BOGDAN GEORGE APETRI, ROMANIA/CZECH REPUBLIC/LATVIA, 2021, 118 MIN.

JACQUES AUDIARD, FRANCE, 2021, 106 MIN.

ALEX KRONEMER, USA/CANADA, 2021, 88 MIN.

KUBA MICHALCZUK, POLAND, 2021, 80 MIN.

FRI, OCT 1 SUN, OCT 3 OCT 1-11

SAT, OCT 2 FRI, OCT 8 OCT 1-11

Hit the Road

SAT, OCT 9 SUN, OCT 10 OCT 1-11

4:00 PM 3:15 PM

SFU KMEK CONN

Miracol

SUN, OCT 3 MON, OCT 11

KMEK SFU

In his feature debut, Panah Panahi turns the road movie on its head. Hit the Road is the story of one family and their mysterious journey through rural Iran; along the way, there are laughs, moments of reverie, and plenty of opportunities for the cast to shine. The son of famed auteur Jafar Panahi, Panah shares his father’s subversiveness, and he has a similarly sharp camera eye; the wacky humour and the fantastical digressions, however, are his alone.

Cast Hassan Madjooni, Pantea Panahiha, Rayan Sarlak, Amin Simiar Prod Panah Panahi, Mastaneh Mohajer

Les Olympiades

1:30 PM 8:30 PM

VCT VCT

Canadian Premiere. In a mysterious and haunting dream world, a modern 12 year-old girl meets the 13th century young poet Rumi, as they travel through a fantastical land where luxurious airships float through the air, and unfurling, insidious black tendrils spread over a mystical city. Directed by Alex Kronemer, Lamya’s Poem is a heartfelt animated tale that follows a Syrian girl as she flees her war-torn country on a perilous journey that eventually brings her to the unwelcoming shores of a European refugee camp.

North American Premiere. A moral tale of crime and recrimination, Miracle follows Cristina Tofan (Ioana Bugarin), a nun on a secret errand in Romania’s Neamt county. Director Bogdan George Apetri, returning to the region after a decade away, is working in the manner of the country’s New Wave directors. Those familiar with the movement will recognize its touchstones, but Apetri keeps things unpredictable, splitting his film between Cristina’s story and the inspector on her trail.

Cast Millie Davis, Faran Tahir, Mena Massoud Prod Alex Kronemer, Sam Kadi, Glenn James Brown

Cast Ioana Bugarin, Emanuel Pârvu, Cezar Antal, Ovidiu Crişan, Valeriu Andriuță Prod Bogdan George Apetri, Oana Iancu

WED, OCT 6 SAT, OCT 9 SUN, OCT 10

6:30 PM 12:30 PM 8:30 PM

HWD PLAY KMEK

A comedy in the classical sense, a network narrative that feels natural in its criss-crossing, and an exuberant showcase for its four protagonists, Paris, 13th District proves director Jacques Audiard’s skills translate equally well to any genre. Camille (Makita Samba), Émilie (Lucie Zhang), Nora (Noémie Merlant), and Amber (Jehnny Beth) rotate in and out of the film’s gravitational centre, deftly plotted by co-writers Audiard, Céline Sciamma, and Léa Mysius.

Cast Lucie Zhang, Noémie Merlant, Makita Samba, Jehnny Beth, Geneviève Doang, Lumina Wang, Pol White, Anaïde Rozam, Stephen Manas Prod Jacques Audiard, Valérie Schermann

Contemporary World Cinema

Passing

Queen of Glory

DIR: REBECCA HALL, FUSA, 2021, 98 MIN.

NANA MENSAH, USA, 2021, 78 MIN.

SAT, OCT 9

1:30 PM

RIO

Adapting Nella Larsen’s 1920s novella, actorturned-director Rebecca Hall has fashioned a crisp, piquant tale about two friends (Tessa Thompson and Ruth Negga), one of whom is married to a white man who doesn’t know her ethnicity. Evocatively photographed in black and white, the movie has a calm, polished veneer topped off by Devonté Hynes’ jazz piano score. Yet this dreamy, literary vibe gradually curdles into something subtly insinuating and suspenseful. There’s a lot going on under the skin.

Cast Tessa Thompson, Ruth Negga, André Holland, Alexander Skarsgård, Bill Camp, Antoinette CroweLegacy, Gbenga Akinnagbe Prod Nina Yang Bongiovi, Rebecca Hall, Margot Hand, Forest Whitaker

Souad

7:15 PM 6:45 PM

Small Body

Las siamesas

CINE RIO CONN

Canadian Premiere. Director Nana Mensah vividly captures the Ghanaian-American experience of being caught between two worlds. Sarah Obeng is set to move to Ohio with her boyfriend when her mother suddenly dies. She must then pick up the pieces of her mother’s life and put together a traditional Ghanaian funeral in New York. In the end, Sarah uncovers more than she initially expected as she explores the world her mother left behind.

Cast Nana Mensah, Meeko Gattuso, Oberon K.A. Adjepong, Adam Leon, Russell G. Jones, Anya Migdal Prod Jamund Washington, Kelley Robins Hicks, Baff Akoto, Anya Migdal

Piccolo Corpo

PAULA HERNÁNDEZ, ARGENTINA, 2020, 80 MIN.

FRI, OCT 1 WED, OCT 6 OCT 1-11

6:15 PM 4:15 PM

VCT HWD CONN

Canadian Premiere. As Stella (Valeria Lois) and her mother Clota (Rita Cortese) take a bus trip from Junín to Costa Bonita, Argentina, director Paula Hernández presents us with a clear-eyed portrait of a love between parent and child that’s as explosive as it is unconditional. Almost surreal in its presentation of familiar situations in unfamiliar places, it feels both eerily recognizable yet far from anything resembling real life.

Cast Rita Cortese, Valeria Lois, Sergio Prina, Sebastián Arzeno, Edgardo Castro Prod Juan Pablo Miller, Paula Hernández

A Tale of Love and Desire Unclenching the Fists

AYTEN AMIN, EGYPT/TUNISIA/GERMANY, 2021, 96 MIN.

FRI, OCT 1 SAT, OCT 9 OCT 1-11

FRI, OCT 1 SAT, OCT 9 OCT 1-11

The Siamese Bond

4:45 PM 12:30 PM

CINE HWD CONN

Canadian Premiere. This haunting drama features Bassant Ahmed in the title role; she’s a beautiful, brittle young woman trapped between religious repression and the dubious freedoms of social media. Eventually, things reach the point of crisis, and it’s then that director Ayten Amin changes the focus to Souad’s younger sister Rabab (Basmala Elghaiesh) and her attempt to confront a dark mystery. Amin shows a strong talent for the subtly decisive moment, and her film is finely attuned to the contradictions of online life.

Cast Bassant Ahmed, Basmala Elghaiesh, Hussein Ghanem, Hager Mahmoud, Sarah Shedid, Carol Ackad Prod Sameh Awad

Une histoire d’amour et de désir

KIRA KOVALENKO, RUSSIA, 2021, 97 MIN.

LEYLA BOUZID, FRANCE/TUNISIA, 2020, 103 MIN.

MON, OCT 4 MON, OCT 11

8:45 PM 3:15 PM

HWD KMEK

International Premiere. Ahmed is a serious young man, French of Algerian descent, completely smitten by Farah, a classmate at the Sorbonne; a confident, cosmopolitan Tunisian. Smitten, and confused: when it comes to love, she’s streets ahead. They share a passion for the 12th century Arabic poetry they’re studying, but that’s confusing too, to someone schooled in contemporary Islamic morality—this hedonistic literature seems inexplicably, excitingly, alien. Leyla Bouzid’s sensuous tale of first love traces a lexicon of longing.

Cast Sami Outalbali, Zbeida Belhajamor, Diong-Kéba Tacu, Aurélia Petit, Mahia Zrouki, Bellamine Abdelmalek Prod Sandra da Fonseca

TUE, OCT 5 THU, OCT 7 OCT 1-11

6:30 PM 9:00 PM

23

STU CINE CONN

Winner of the Un Certain Regard section at Cannes, Kira Kovalenko’s raw, realist film centres on Ada (Milana Aguzarova), a vulnerable teenager tending to her aging, domineering father and her brother in a cramped apartment in a battle-scarred corner of North Ossetia in the Russian Federation. When she’s not minding a corner shop (and sometimes when she is) Ada’s fending off the advances of a would-be Lothario, and pining for the return of Akim (Soslan Khugaev), her best hope for breaking free.

Cast Milana Aguzarova, Alik Karaev, Soslan Khugaev, Khetag Bibilov, Arsen Khetagurov, Milana Pagieva Prod Alexander Rodnyansky, Sergey Melkumov

LAURA SAMANI, ITALY/FRANCE/SLOVENIA, 2021, 89 MIN.

MON, OCT 4 SUN, OCT 10 OCT 1-11

4:15 PM 6:30 PM

CINE CINE CONN

On a journey to rescue her infant daughter’s soul from the darkness of limbo, Agata, a young woman in early twentieth century rural Italy, encounters the powers of greed and generosity locked in a never-ending struggle. Navigating various obstacles and characters along the way, the story plays as a myth from antiquity. Director Laura Samani presents Agata’s odyssey as an unstoppable force of nature, propelled by the strength of a mother’s devastating grief and love.

Cast Celeste Cescutti, Ondina Quadri Prod Nadia Trevisan, Alberto Fasulo

What Do We See When We Look at the Sky? Ras vkhedavt, rodesac cas vukurebt?

ALEXANDRE KOBERIDZE, GERMANY/GEORGIA, 2021, 150 MIN.

MON, OCT 4 SUN, OCT 10 OCT 1-11

8:30 PM 8:45 PM

VCT CINE CONN

Canadian Premiere. Falling in love at first sight, Lisa and Giorgi wake up in new bodies, unrecognizable even to themselves. Will love draw them back together? This playful contemporary fairy tale is a love story smitten with the peculiarities of place: the ancient city of Kutaisi, Georgia, its people, its dogs and children, its passion for soccer, and for music.

Director Alexandre Koberidze is entranced by all he sees, and we, too, are transported.

Cast Ani Karseladze, Giorgi Bochorishvili, Oliko Barbakadze, Giorgi Ambroladze, Vakhtang Panchulidze Prod Mariam Shatberashvili

Asian Focus

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Sunday, Oct 3, 2021

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Saturday, Oct 2, 2021

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Annex Theatre

Friday, Oct 1, 2021

Friday, October 01

10:00AM

10:00AM

10:00AM

3:00PM

5:00PM

1:30pm 118min p22

10:00am 165min p39

8:45pm 176min p21

9:00pm 110min p40

Bipolar

9:15pm 127min p18

Worst Person in the World

8:30pm 92min p31

6:30pm 72min p31

3:45pm 99min p31

8:45pm 80min p22

The In-Laws

8:45pm 93min p31

Learn to Swim

Ayukawa ...

6:30pm 95min p19

11:00PM

Fabian - Going to the Dogs

9:00pm 110min p36

The First 54 Years:...

9:00pm 106min p21

Celts

10:00PM

Portraits From...

9:00PM

9:00pm 92min p35

Brighton 4th Returning Home

4:15pm 95min p34

Yuni

Havel 8:45pm 104min p22

6:00pm 135min p39

6:30pm 90min p36

Time 9:00pm 99min p34

The Endless Moment ...

5:30pm 95min p29

Coextinction

Flee

6:00pm 103min p14

All My Puny Sorrows

The Last Tourist

3:00pm 90min p36

12:00pm 97min p17

3:30pm 115min p34

My Childhood...

1:00pm 80min p40

Night Raiders

Three Sisters

3:00pm 92min p39

12:00pm 113min p15

Kicking Blood

Charlotte

Everything Went Fine

6:00pm 107min p21

Compartment No.6

6:15pm 94min p31

The Beta Test 3:30pm 91min p19

3:15pm 110min p36

Wife of a Spy

8:00PM 6:15pm 114min p41

Islands

4:00pm 81min p42

1:15pm 118min p41

7:00PM

Shorts: Have We...

Just a Movement

MODES 2

Shorts: Animation

Miracle

6:00PM

6:00pm 107min p21

4:00PM

Compartment No.6

12:45pm 115min p34

1:00PM

From the...

9:00pm 78min p35

White Cube

3:00pm 102min p18

Night Raiders

11:00PM

9:30pm 97min p17 9:00pm 91min p40

8:15pm 79min p39 6:00pm 110min p36

Quickening 9:15pm 90min p31

Strawberry Mansion

Venetian...

Just a Movement

10:00PM MODES 2 9:00pm 80min p42

9:00PM

6:30pm 68min p37

6:00pm 99min p31

The Last Tourist

6:30pm 83min p22

Him

6:30pm 111min p13

Electrical Life of...

Sanctity of Space

3:00pm 136min p15

11:15am 179min p15

2:00PM

3:15pm 98min p21

12:45pm 98min p33

3:45pm 92min p32

Girl and the Spider

1:15pm 99min p19

Money Has Four Legs

See for Me

3:30pm 104min p15

Book of Delights

Mothering Sunday

6:30pm 113min p33

4:00pm 86min p32

12:30pm 72min p31

A Chat

6:15pm 118min p41

Shorts: Animation Zo Reken

4:00pm 83min p42

Memoria

12:00PM

8:00PM

Girlfriends 6:15pm 92min p21

7:00PM

Hit the Road 8:45pm 93min p22

6:15pm 80min p23

5:00PM

8:30pm 106min p21

The Siamese Bond

Brighton 4th

1:30pm 100min p19

4:00PM

8:45pm 102min p18

Clara Sola

Sanctity of Space

The In-Laws 6:30pm 80min p22

Kicking Blood 9:00pm 80min p40

9:15pm 96min p33

6:30pm 91min p19

6:30pm 111min p13

Electrical Life of...

11:00PM

Spaghetti Code Love

9:15pm 85min p42

MODES 1

10:00PM

The Beta Test

9:00PM

4:00pm 95min p19

6:00PM

7:15pm 78min p23

Memoria 6:15pm 136min p15

4:45pm 96min p23

Sinkhole 3:30pm 114min p33

Queen of Glory

8:00PM

Souad

6:15pm 100min p32

7:00PM

4:00pm 92min p37

6:00PM Wildhood

5:00PM

The Velvet Queen

4:00PM

MODES 1

3:00PM

3:00PM

Azor

2:00PM

2:00PM

Returning Home

1:00PM

1:00PM

Drive My Car

12:00PM

12:00PM

Nine Sevilles

11:00AM

11:00AM

11:00AM

12:00AM

12:00AM

12:00AM

Kay Meek (West Vancouver)

Vancity Theatre @ VIFF Centre

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Vancouver Playhouse

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The Cinematheque

Annex Theatre

Thursday, Oct 7, 2021

Thursday, October 07

Kay Meek (West Vancouver)

Vancity Theatre @ VIFF Centre

Studio Theatre @ VIFF Centre

SFU's Goldcorp

Rio Theatre

Vancouver Playhouse

Hollywood

The Cinematheque

Annex Theatre

Wednesday, Oct 6, 2021

Wednesday, October 06

Kay Meek (West Vancouver)

Vancity Theatre @ VIFF Centre

Studio Theatre @ VIFF Centre

SFU's Goldcorp

Rio Theatre

Vancouver Playhouse

Hollywood

The Cinematheque

Annex Theatre

Tuesday, Oct 5, 2021

Tuesday, October 05

Kay Meek (West Vancouver)

Vancity Theatre @ VIFF Centre

Studio Theatre @ VIFF Centre

SFU's Goldcorp

Rio Theatre

Vancouver Playhouse

Hollywood

The Cinematheque

Annex Theatre

Monday, Oct 4, 2021

Monday, October 04

10:00AM

10:00AM

10:00AM

10:00AM

11:00AM

11:00AM

11:00AM

11:00AM

12:00PM

12:00PM

12:00PM

12:00PM

3:00PM

1:00PM

8:00PM

8:00PM

10:00PM

8:30pm 92min p37

8:45pm 116min p31 6:00pm 90min p35

Hands That Bind The Velvet Queen

CT: Family Law

6:30pm 83min p35 6:00pm 120min p47

Faya dayi 8:30pm 120min p36

Secrets From...

The Scary...

9:00pm 81min p40

9:15pm 136min p15

Records

Behind the...

11:00PM

11:00PM

11:00PM

Memoria

9:00pm 97min p23

Unclenching the...

9:00pm 90min p43

VIFF Short Forum 4

9:00PM

6:15pm 87min p39

Benediction 6:00pm 137min p14

6:15pm 105min p29

Bergman Island 3:15pm 102min p14

3:15pm 95min p29

6:30pm 106min p33

The Drunken Birds

3:45pm 95min p36

Coextinction

Barbarian Invasion

King of North Sudan

6:30pm 80min p32

7:00PM 4:00pm 90min p43

6:00PM

Ste. Anne

5:00PM

Bone Marrow 8:45pm 107min p19

6:00pm 103min p14

8:30pm 120min p47

All My Puny Sorrows

6:30pm 83min p29

VIFF Talk:...

8:30pm 84min p29

VIFF Short 3

4:00PM

4:00pm 81min p29

Damascus Dreams Be Still

Rock Bottom...

6:00pm 70min p39

9:00pm 128min p17

6:15pm 93min p29

9:15pm 92min p39

Charlotte

9:00pm 98min p33

Money Has Four Legs

8:45pm 81min p43

Red Rocket

One Second 6:30pm 104min p17

10:00PM VIFF Short 3

9:00PM

The Boathouse

3:45pm 107min p21

6:30pm 106min p23

Compartment No.6

Paris, 13th District 4:15pm 80min p23

6:45pm 89min p35

4:30pm 92min p37

The Siamese Bond

Little Palestine:...

Taming the Garden

6:30pm 80min p35

7:00PM 4:00pm 90min p43

6:00PM

9:00pm 113min p15

Blue Box

5:00PM

Everything Went Fine 6:00pm 114min p17

8:45pm 95min p29

Official Competition

6:00pm 95min p36

Darkroom

To the Moon 8:30pm 76min p39

6:30pm 97min p23

King of North Sudan

Unclenching the...

9:00pm 103min p40

6:00pm 114min p33

9:00pm 128min p17

Red Rocket

9:00pm 103min p21

Father Pablo

9:00pm 90min p43

Tin Can

VIFF Short Forum 2

4:00PM

10:00PM VIFF Short Forum 2

9:00PM

Sinkhole

6:15pm 102min p14

3:45pm 90min p36

6:30pm 88min p21

3:45pm 90min p36

Bergman Island

Bye Bye Morons

My Childhood...

Flee

6:30pm 81min p29

3:45pm 94min p31

1:15pm 95min p29

3:00PM

7:00PM

Bootlegger

Bootlegger

2:00PM

6:00PM 6:15pm 121min p41

Darkroom

2:00PM

8:00PM

8:30pm 150min p23

Godavari 8:30pm 113min p22

Ayukawa ...

6:00pm 92min p35

6:00pm 107min p37

What Do We See When We...

9:00pm 89min p35

The Six

Little Palestine:...

A Chat 6:30pm 113min p33

Islands

3:00pm 116min p31

Drive My Car

11:00PM

8:45pm 179min p15

See for Me

4:00pm 76min p43

12:30pm 93min p31

A Tale of Love...

8:45pm 103min p23

8:45pm 92min p32

Shorts: Seniors Day

Hands That Bind

1:00PM

5:00PM

Zo Reken 9:00pm 86min p32

6:15pm 98min p21

VIFF Short 1

4:00PM

Learn to Swim

2:00PM

10:00PM VIFF Short 1

9:00pm 90min p43

9:00PM

Girl and the Spider

5:45pm 114min p17

3:00pm 99min p34

Maya 6:15pm 85min p36

Official Competition

Time

Clara Sola

6:30pm 84min p29

3:15pm 106min p21

Damascus Dreams

Small Body 4:15pm 89min p23

3:15pm 100min p32

1:00PM

8:00PM

6:15pm 112min p41

7:00PM

3:30pm 114min p41

6:00PM Shorts: Life Labs

5:00PM

Shorts: Have We...

4:00PM

12:30pm 90min p31

3:00PM

3:00PM

Wildhood

2:00PM

Quickening

1:00PM

12:00AM

12:00AM

12:00AM

12:00AM

Kay Meek (West Vancouver)

Vancity Theatre @ VIFF Centre

Studio Theatre @ VIFF Centre

SFU's Goldcorp

Rio Theatre

Vancouver Playhouse

Hollywood

The Cinematheque

Annex Theatre

Monday, Oct 11, 2021

Monday, October 11

Kay Meek (West Vancouver)

Vancity Theatre @ VIFF Centre

Studio Theatre @ VIFF Centre

SFU's Goldcorp

Rio Theatre

Vancouver Playhouse

Hollywood

The Cinematheque

Annex Theatre

Sunday, Oct 10, 2021

Sunday, October 10

Kay Meek (West Vancouver)

Vancity Theatre @ VIFF Centre

Studio Theatre @ VIFF Centre

SFU's Goldcorp

Rio Theatre

Vancouver Playhouse

Hollywood

The Cinematheque

Annex Theatre

Saturday, Oct 9, 2021

Saturday, October 09

Kay Meek (West Vancouver)

Vancity Theatre @ VIFF Centre

Studio Theatre @ VIFF Centre

SFU's Goldcorp

Rio Theatre

Vancouver Playhouse

Hollywood

The Cinematheque

Annex Theatre

Friday, Oct 8, 2021

Friday, October 08

10:00AM

10:00AM

10:00AM

10:00AM

4:00PM

1:00PM

2:00PM

Yuni 1:30pm 95min p34

Barbarian Invasion 11:00am 106min p33

Three Sisters

8:45pm 150min p23

9:00pm 72min p13

Petite Maman

9:00pm 103min p14

All My Puny Sorrows

9:00pm 93min p22

Hit the Road

8:30pm 86min p29

10:00PM

In Front of...

6:00pm 85min p36

3:15pm 103min p23

6:30pm 76min p39

8:30pm 72min p13

Petite Maman

8:30pm 118min p22

Miracle

TBA

8:45pm 85min p33

9:15pm 127min

8:45pm 120min

Maya

11:00PM

The Power of the Dog

9:00pm 113min p15

Everything Went Fine

9:00pm 68min p37

Venetian...

8:45pm 94min p35

Her Socialist...

9:00PM

8:30pm 106min p23

Paris, 13th District

TBA To the Moon

11:00PM

What Do We See When We...

9:15pm 70min p39

Rock Bottom...

10:00PM

8:45pm 107min p19

6:00pm 120min

6:30pm 85min p19

Brother's Keeper

6:15pm 127min p18

Worst Person in the World

6:15pm 115min p34

A Tale of Love...

3:45pm 97min p33

Fortune Favors...

Bone Marrow 4:00pm 107min p19

1:30pm 72min p31

3:00pm 137min p14

12:15pm 105min p17

Returning Home

Benediction

One Second

The White...

3:30pm 89min p32

Night Blooms

6:15pm 118min p39

6:30pm 83min p35 3:30pm 120min p33 1:00pm 98min p31

9:00pm 89min p32

Bone Marrow

Handle With Care:...

7:30pm 90min p52

8:00PM

Keep Rolling

4:30pm 80min p35

Secrets From...

7:00PM

Moneyboys

2:00pm 106min p21

6:00PM

TBA The White...

8:45pm 120min

TBA

6:00pm 88min p21

Blue Box

9:00pm 127min p18

White Cube 9:00pm 79min p39

8:45pm 120min

3:15pm 88min p22

4:00PM

Drive My Car 8:45pm 179min p15

Worst Person in the World

9:00PM

AMP: Laura Karpman

Moneyboys

11:00PM

9:15pm 120min p33

TBA

Bye Bye Morons

Celts

3:00PM

10:00PM Ste. Anne 9:00pm 80min p32

9:00PM

6:00pm 120min

6:15pm 113min p22

Lamya's Poem

5:00PM

3:30pm 95min p32

1:15pm 66min p36

Godavari

6:00pm 92min p21

Sin La Habana

3:30pm 81min p40

Daughter...

2:00pm 210min p52

1:00PM

Petite Maman 6:30pm 72min p13

Girlfriends

3:00pm 114min p17

The Scary...

Official Competition

Belfast 12:30pm 97min p14

6:15pm 115min p34

Wife of a Spy

6:30pm 89min p23

6:30pm 112min p41 3:45pm 93min p29

Records 3:30pm 87min p39

Behind the...

1:15pm 90min p35

10:00am 176min p21

12:00PM

8:00PM Shorts: Life Labs

7:00PM

Small Body

6:00PM

The Boathouse

VIFF AMP Day 2

11:00AM

5:00PM 4:00pm 90min p44

4:00PM

1:00pm 121min p41

3:00PM

VIFF Short 6

2:00PM Shorts: Seniors Day

Fabian - Going to the Dogs

12:00PM

6:00pm 104min p15

3:45pm 83min p22

6:00pm 135min p39

Mothering Sunday

Him

2:00pm 210min p52

TBA The Endless Moment ...

6:15pm 120min

6:45pm 97min p33

Fortune Favors...

6:45pm 78min p23

Queen of Glory

6:00pm 111min p13

Electrical Life of...

Nine Sevilles

10:30am 96min p33

11:00AM

Red Rocket 6:00pm 128min p17

1:00pm 165min p39

1:00pm 92min p31

4:15pm 91min p40

Lamya's Poem 4:00pm 88min p22

Portraits From...

1:30pm 98min

3:15pm 102min p18

Strawberry Mansion

Sanctity of Space Passing

12:30pm 106min p23

3:00pm 105min p29

6:30pm 94min p32

4:00pm 110min p40

6:30pm 78min p44

VIFF Short 6

7:00PM

8:30pm 99min p19

6:00PM

Book of Delights

6:00pm 85min p19

8:00pm 120min p47

Brother's Keeper

Sin La Habana

Paris, 13th District

The Drunken Birds

Souad 12:30pm 96min p23

8:30pm 92min p37

8:00PM

Taming the Garden CT: BC Untold History

Her Socialist...

6:15pm 94min p35

Bipolar

4:00pm 90min p44

1:00pm 84min p42

5:00PM

VIFF Short Forum 5

3:00PM

4:30pm 83min p29

8:45pm 193min p40

In Front of...

9:00pm 85min p33

Daughter...

6:30pm 66min p36

6:30pm 84min p40

9:00pm 86min p29

Handle With Care:...

9:00pm 103min p40

Tin Can

9:00pm 90min p44

11:00PM

Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched: ...

6:15pm 104min p15

10:00PM

VIFF Short Forum 5

9:00PM

Saloum

Mothering Sunday

Azor 6:30pm 100min p19

Havel 3:45pm 104min p22

The Six

6:15pm 98min p31

3:30pm 103min p21

3:30pm 107min p37

Night Blooms

Father Pablo

2:00pm 90min p52

2:00PM

8:00PM

6:30pm 120min p36

7:00PM

4:00pm 90min p43

6:00PM Faya dayi

5:00PM

VIFF Short Forum 4

4:00PM

Be Still

3:00PM

AMP: Linda Perry

2:00PM

Reel Youth...

1:00PM

1:00PM

VIFF AMP

12:00PM

12:00PM

Spaghetti Code Love

11:00AM

11:00AM

12:00AM

12:00AM

12:00AM

12:00AM

AB BO

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HASTINGS

You can buy tickets, ticket packs and passes at viff.org.

VIFF’s mission is to celebrate excellence in cinematic storytelling and we pride ourselves on offering our guests unique and unforgettable experiences.

PENDER

BEATTY

CAMBIE

HAMILTON

With this in mind, we all have a part to play in ensuring that our members, volunteers, guests, and staff are treated with respect and are able to experience a festival free of any kind of harassment or discrimination. VIFF takes our responsibility to create an inclusive and welcoming environment seriously and we appreciate your support.

DUNSMUIR

Have a great festival!

GEORGIA

Locations VCT

ROBSON

VIFF Centre (Vancity Theatre & Studio) 1181 Seymour PARKING:

Metered street • ENTRANCE: Street level • WHEELCHAIR: 2-4 spaces (Vancity), 3 spaces (Studio) • WASHROOMS: Fully accessible

The Vancouver Playhouse 600 Hamilton PLAY

PARKING: Metered street and underground paid • ENTRANCE: Street level • WHEELCHAIR: 4-5 spaces • WASHROOMS: Fully accessible

SMITHE

NELSON NELSON

Annex 823 Seymour

Ramp from courtyard, street level from Hastings, elevator • WHEELCHAIR: 4-6+ spaces • WASHROOMS: Fully accessible

RICHARDS

PARKING: Metered street • ENTRANCE:

SEYMOUR

PARKING: Metered street • ENTRANCE: Ramp at street level • WHEELCHAIR: 2 spaces • WASHROOMS: Fully accessible

GRANVILLE

SFU's Goldcorp for the Arts 149 W Hastings

HOWE

CINE

The Cinematheque 1131 Howe

HELMCKEN

PARKING: Metered street • ENTRANCE:

ANEX

DAVIE

Elevator to the 2nd floor • WHEELCHAIR: 3 spaces • WASHROOMS: Fully Accessible

Downtown Vancouver N.

GR

AN

DV

IE

W

W. BROADWAY

E BROADWAY

W. 10TH

E 10TH

VICTORIA

COMMERCIAL

LAWSON

W. 8TH

BAYSWATER

TRUTCH

BALACLAVA

MATHERS

KINGS 15 ST

17 ST

West Vancouver

Kitsilano

Kay Meek Arts Centre 1700 Mathers Ave KMEK

PARKING: Parking lot accessible via Inglewood Ave. Additional parking available after 5pm and on weekends • ENTRANCE: Accessible entrance at Mathers Ave. • WHEELCHAIR: 4-8 spaces • WASHROOMS: Fully accessible

East Vancouver

Hollywood Theatre 3123 W Broadway HWD

PARKING: Metered street • ENTRANCE:

Street level • WHEELCHAIR: 4 spaces • WASHROOMS: Main floor accessible

Rio Theatre 1660 E Broadway RIO

PARKING: Metered street • ENTRANCE:

Street level WHEELCHAIR: 4-6 spaces • WASHROOMS: Limited accessibility

North

True

29 Presented by

Be Still

The Boathouse

Bootlegger

ELIZABETH LAZEBNIK, CANADA, 2021, 83 MIN.

HANNAH CHEESMAN, CANADA, 2021, 93 MIN.

CAROLINE MONNET, CANADA, 2021, 81 MIN.

WED, OCT 6 FRI, OCT 8 OCT 1-11

6:30 PM 4:30 PM

VCT VCT CONN

WED, OCT 6 SUN, OCT 10 OCT 1-11

6:15 PM 3:45 PM

RIO CINE CONN

TUE, OCT 5 WED, OCT 6 OCT 1-11

Coextinction 6:30 PM 4:00 PM

GLORIA PANCRAZI, ELENA JEAN, CANADA, 2021, 95 MIN.

CINE VCT CONN

SUN, OCT 3 THU, OCT 7 OCT 4-11

5:30 PM 3:15 PM

SFU HWD CONN

World Premiere. In 19th century Victoria, grief-stricken Hannah Maynard (Piercey Dalton) finds solace in her art. Already a successful portrait photographer, she now sets about reinventing the art form by investigating its more surreal possibilities, crafting macabre collages and uncanny self-portraits. Channeling her own profound connection with Maynard’s work, Elizabeth Lazebnik conjures a monochromatic phantasmagoria in which the bounds of time, memory, and reality collapse, inspiring indelible images and sensations.

When Anne (Michaela Kurimsky) is hired by her missing music professor’s husband (Alan Van Sprang) as a live-in nanny, she becomes entangled in the family’s secrets and begins to mentally unravel. Ostensibly stranded at a remote lakeside cottage, she’s driven to consider the circumstances behind her mentor’s disappearance. Employing a nonlinear narrative, Hannah Cheesman’s old-school psychological thriller keeps Anne teetering on the brink of an implosion as she hurtles towards a reckoning with the past.

World Premiere. Looking to complete her thesis, Mani (Kawennáhere Devery Jacobs) leaves Montreal for the Algonquin community where she spent her youth. Her reintegration is complicated by a conflict with Laura (Pascale Bussières), a settler bootlegger, and a contentious referendum over alcohol sales on the reserve. Deftly outlining the dissenting perspectives and implications of this standoff, Caroline Monnet’s first feature explores how patriarchal oppression, self-determination, and sovereignty take myriad forms.

Canadian Premiere. Captivating images of the Salish Sea tell a tale of epochal survival for its apex species: the southern resident killer whale. From the northern edges of Vancouver Island to Oregon’s Lower Snake Rivers, two passionate filmmakers connect with activists, Indigenous leaders, and renowned scientists to understand the fate of the orcas and find solutions to our most pressing environmental threats. A vital, eye-opening analysis of interdependence, humbly offering the next generation a conscientious path forward.

Cast Piercey Dalton, Daniel Arnold, James McDougall, Sophie Merasty, Amber Tyler, Meredith HamaBrown Prod Sara Blake

Cast Michaela Kurimsky, Jack Fulton, Taylor Puterman, Krista Bridges, Alan Van Sprang Prod Amos Adetuyi, Floyd Kane

Cast Pascale Bussières, Kawennáhere Devery Jacobs, Samian, Jacques Newashish, Dominique Pétin, Joséphine Bacon Prod Catherine Chagnon

Prod Gloria Pancrazi, Elena Jean, Andrew Luba, Nicholas Castel, Victoria Obermeyer

Damascus Dreams

Darkroom

Drunken Birds

ÉMILIE SERRI, CANADA, 2021, 84 MIN.

LUKAS MAIER, CANADA, 2021, 95 MIN.

Handle With Care: The Legend of the Notic Streetball Crew

MON, OCT 4 WED, OCT 6 OCT 1-11

6:30 PM 8:30 PM

CINE STU CONN

North American Premiere. Prompted by the civil conflict in Syria, filmmaker Émilie Serri’s father fled to Canada over 30 years ago. Serri grew up estranged from her cultural heritage.

In the liminal crevices between reality and myth, dream and nightmare, past and future, rests a homeland that is almost accessible.

Deeply personal, Damascus Dreams invigorates the form of documentary, focusing on questions of memory, loss, and identity, finding communal resonance around subtle feelings that are otherwise difficult to articulate.

Prod Audrey-Ann Dupuis-Pierre

TUE, OCT 5 WED, OCT 6 OCT 1-11

8:45 PM 1:15 PM

Les Oiseaux ivres

VCT VCT CONN

World Premiere. Sarajevo native Sofija (Dina Mušanović) is stretched thin between her work at a local hostel, side hustle as a photographer, and dealing with the logistics of her late father’s (Izudin Bajrović) possessions.

Reimmersing herself in the world she walked away from opens old wounds and sets the stage for a poignant examination of the complex father-daughter dynamic, family legacy, and our capacity to distort memories.

Cast Dina Mušanović, Izudin Bajrović, Selma Alispahić, Džana Pinjo, Davor Sabo, Admir Šehović Prod Lukas Maier

IVAN GRBOVIC, CANADA, 2021, 105 MIN.

THU, OCT 7 SAT, OCT 9 OCT 1-11

6:15 PM 3:00 PM

HWD HWD CONN

When Willy (Jorge Antonio Guerrero), a Mexican cartel henchman, falls for Marlena (Yoshira Escárrega), his boss’ wife, the starcrossed lovers must separate and go to ground. Convinced that Marlena is secreted away in Montreal, Willy becomes a migrant worker at a Quebec farm. Employing an intricate narrative structure and visually arresting sequences, Ivan Grbovic examines how new beginnings often run afoul of cycles of exploitation. Impressionistic yet immediate, Drunken Birds is exhilarating cinema.

Cast Jorge Antonio Guerrero, Hélène Florent, Claude Legault, Marine Johnson, Maxime Du Montier, Amaryllis Tremblay Prod Kim McCraw, Luc Déry

JEREMY SCHAULIN-RIOUX, KIRK THOMAS, CANADA, 2021, 86 MIN.

FRI, OCT 8 SUN, OCT 10 OCT 1-11

9:00 PM 8:30 PM

PLAY RIO CONN

World Premiere. Vancouver’s The Notic basketball collective overcame all odds to achieve global fame 20 years ago. In defiance of their coaches’ desire for conformity, the group burst onto asphalt courts, unleashed an arsenal of tricks, and birthed the video “mixtape” that would become “the bible of streetball.” Assemblers of that influential compilation, Jeremy Schaulin-Rioux and Kirk Thomas now chronicle the group’s rise, fall, and rebirth in a documentary that’s equally euphoric and cathartic.

Prod Ryan Sidhoo

Three different types of financing.

Three different funds.

All from one source.

rogersgroupoffunds.com

North

True

31

Presented by

Hands That Bind

Islands

The Last Tourist

KYLE ARMSTRONG, CANADA, 2021, 116 MIN.

MARTIN EDRALIN, CANADA, 2021, 94 MIN.

TYSON SADLER, CANADA, 2021, 99 MIN.

TUE, OCT 5 THU, OCT 7 OCT 1-11

3:00 PM 8:45 PM

VCT VCT CONN

SUN, OCT 3 TUE, OCT 5 OCT 1-11

6:15 PM 3:45 PM

CINE CINE CONN

SAT, OCT 2 SUN, OCT 3

6:00 PM 3:45 PM

Still living with his aging parents, Joshua (Rogelio Balagtas), a Filipino immigrant, prays every night for God to rid him of his shyness.

The Almighty seemingly answers his petition when his beatific cousin Marisol (Sheila Lotuaco) arrives on his doorstep and slowly transforms Joshua’s house back into a home.

As Joshua is incrementally lured from his shell, Martin Edralin fashions a disarmingly tender, deeply nuanced character study that achieves an exquisite balance of gentle humour and humane drama.

Cast Paul Sparks, Susan Kent, Landon Liboiron, Nicholas Campbell, Will Oldham, Bruce Dern Prod Blake McWilliam

Cast Rogelio Balagtas, Sheila Lotuaco, Esteban Comilang, Pablo S.J. Quiogue, Vangie Alcasid, Bianca Yambanis Prod Martin Edralin, Priscilla Galvez

Night Blooms

Portraits From a Fire

Quickening

STEPHANIE JOLINE, CANADA, 2021, 98 MIN.

TREVOR MACK, CANADA, 2021, 92 MIN.

HAYA WASEEM, CANADA, 2021, 90 MIN.

6:15 PM 1:00 PM

CINE HWD CONN

SUN, OCT 3 SAT, OCT 9 OCT 1-11

8:30 PM 1:00 PM

SFU SFU CONN

THYRONE TOMMY, CANADA, 2021, 93 MIN.

SFU KMEK

World Premiere. As the world is poised to reopen for international travel and we consider how to move forward in the face of mounting global challenges, could tourism be a part of the solution? Traversing some of the most remote, ancient, and stunning locales on the planet, The Last Tourist addresses the myriad moral and ethical dilemmas at play when sojourning to different cultures. Travelling our vast world will soon have its revival—tourism is dead, long live tourism!

Toiling as a farmhand, Andy (Paul Sparks) sees his dreams of inheriting land dashed when his boss’ embittered son (Landon Liboiron) returns to begrudgingly claim his birthright.

Andy’s personal apocalypse is mirrored by unsettling developments: mutilated cows, a devastating drought, and strange lights in the night sky. Kyle Armstrong conjures a prairie gothic that elevates rural mundanity into something mythical. A parable about the hazards of principles, it’s also a testament to the power of the land.

FRI, OCT 8 MON, OCT 11 OCT 1-11

Learn to Swim

Featuring Dr. Jane Goodall, Elizabeth Becker, Judy Kepher-Gona, Bruce Poon Tip, Costas Christ Prod Marc Swenker

SAT, OCT 2 MON, OCT 4 OCT 1-11

SUN, OCT 3 TUE, OCT 5 OCT 1-11

8:45 PM 12:30 PM

VCT VCT CONN

In wee hours after a gig, Dezi (Thomas Antony Olajide), a talismanic saxophonist, runs headlong into Selma (Emma Ferreira), an incendiary vocalist. Their romantic chemistry is instant but combustible, sparking incidents with ramifications that reverberate through time. Punctuated by glorious jazz sequences, Thyrone Tommy’s seductive, surreal romantic drama sweeps us up in its melodic melancholy as it illustrates the euphoria of artistic expression while interrogating the toll that creativity can take.

Cast Thomas Antony Olajide, Emma Ferreira, Andrea Davis Prod Alona Metzer

Returning Home 9:15 PM 12:30 PM

SEAN STILLER, CANADA, 2021, 72 MIN.

CINE VCT CONN

Teenage Carly (Jessica Clement) subsists on quickies with her boyfriend and all-night hangs with her bestie Laura (Alexandra McDonald). When Laura’s newly sober dad, Wayne (Nick Stahl), recommits himself to parenthood, Carly sets about seducing him, threatening to shake two broken homes to their foundations. Stephanie Joline capably translates the milieu and inner workings of teenage girls into an emotionally charged narrative that navigates the moral murkiness of agency, consent, and accountability.

Undaunted by the paltry audiences that turn up to watch his DIY films on the Tl’etinqox Reserve, teenage Tyler (Wiliam Magnus Lulua) remains convinced that he’s bound for bigger things. But when a DV tape resurfaces that casts new light on his family’s history, Tyler must abandon escapism in favour of unearthing difficult truths. Mingling authenticity and invention, this accomplished openhearted first feature by Trevor Mack asserts that where there is trauma, there is also the opportunity for healing.

Pursuing a career in performing arts much to her parents’ dismay, Sheila (Arooj Azeem), a Pakistani-Canadian university student, enters a psychological tailspin when she becomes convinced that she’s pregnant. Haya Waseem’s focused character study offers piercing insights into the mental health struggles that plague many immigrants and first-generation Canadians who are straddling two cultures and balancing self-expression with familial obligations. It’s a potent reminder of how elusive belonging can be.

Cast Jessica Clement, Nick Stahl, Alexandra Mcdonald Prod Marc Tetreault, Jason Levangie

Cast Nathaniel Arcand, Wiliam Magnus Lulua, Asivak Koostachin, Sammy Stump, Pauline Bob-King, Melanie Bobby Prod Kate Kroll, Rylan Friday, Trevor Mack

Cast Arooj Azeem, Bushra Azeem, Dounia Alryani, Owen Daniel Douglas, Ashir Azeem, David Disher Prod Yona Strauss

SAT, OCT 2 SUN, OCT 3 MON, OCT 11 OCT 1-11

12:30 PM 6:30 PM 1:30 PM

PLAY KMEK SFU CONN

Intertwining narratives concerning residential school survivors, including Orange Shirt Day founder Phyllis Jack-Webstad, and Indigenous peoples’ relationship with imperiled wild Pacific salmon, Sean Stiller’s documentary is a revelatory testament to resilience. Through stunning cinematography and clear-eyed testimonies, it lays bare the ravages of colonialism, illustrates what it means to be in good relationship with the land, and shares how healing people and healing the natural world are synonymous.

Prod Gilles Gagnier, Andrew Lovesey

Presented by

North

True

32

See for Me

Sin La Habana

Ste. Anne

RANDALL OKITA, CANADA, 2021, 92 MIN.

KAVEH NABATIAN, CANADA, 2020, 95 MIN.

RHAYNE VERMETTE, CANADA, 2021, 80 MIN.

SAT, OCT 2 MON, OCT 4 OCT 1-11

3:45 PM 8:45 PM

RIO RIO CONN

When Sophie (Skyler Davenport), who is visually impaired, is targeted by home invaders, she activates a new app that allows a volunteer to remotely serve as her eyes. Fortuitously, she’s connected with Kelly (Jessica ParkerKennedy), a military vet who now applies her tactical acumen to first-person shooter video games. Abetted by Kelly’s combat know-how, Sophie flips the script as director Randall Okita serves up a progressive portrait of female camaraderie that knows how to throw one hell of a sucker punch.

Cast Skyler Davenport, Kim Coates, Jessica Parker-Kennedy, Natalie Brown, Pascal Langdale, Joe Pingue, George Tchortov, Laura Vandervoort Prod Matt Code, Krisy Neville

SAT, OCT 9 SUN, OCT 10 OCT 1-11

6:30 PM 3:30 PM

A young, impoverished Afro-Cuban couple dreams of wealth and success outside Cuba.

An Iranian-Canadian divorcée yearns for personal freedom. These three lives converge in Sin La Habana, a film that explores the lengths people go to in order to achieve their life goals. The film is a visual feast: the stunning cinematography captures the vibrant heat and colours of Cuba in sun-drenched scenes and pulsing rhythms, and the chill grey and the white blowing snow of a Montreal winter.

Cast Yonah Acosta, Evelyn Castroda O’Farrill, Aki Yaghoubi Prod Gabrielle Tougas-Fréchette, Ménaïc Raoul

Best BC Film

Best Canadian Film

• $10,000 award from Creative BC • $15,000 in post-production services credit supplied by Company 3

• $15,000 award presented by the Directors Guild of Canada

Emerging Canadian Director BC Emerging Filmmaker • $5,000 award from UBCP/ACTRA • $10,000 equipment credit supplied

by William F. White International inc.

/

CINE SFU CONN

• $3,000 award presented by the Directors Guild of Canada

Best Canadian Documentary • $15,000 award presented by the Rogers Group of Funds

Canadian Awards

THU, OCT 7 SAT, OCT 9 OCT 1-11

The White Fortress 6:30 PM 9:00 PM

Tabija

ANEX ANEX CONN

Returning to the Métis community she turned her back on, Renée (director Rhayne Vermette) is branded an outsider and left to navigate fraught reunions and drift through once-familiar landscapes that have grown abstract. Vermette employs painterly shots, abstract flourishes, and evocative collages to lend impressionistic invention to this tale of a prodigal. A heady melange of personal details and singular sensibilities, this is an immersive, meditative expedition into family histories and myths.

IGOR DRLJAČA, CANADA/BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA, 2021, 89 MIN.

SAT, OCT 9 MON, OCT 11 OCT 1-11

9:00 PM 3:30 PM

VCT HWD CONN

In Sarajevo, young Faruk (Pavle Čemerikić) is on the cusp of joining the local crime boss’ inner circle. He just needs to drive a young girl from point A to B and back again. But seeing her bruises makes Faruk wary of the shady business he’s about to enter. Especially when the potential new recruit, Mona (Sumeja Dardagan), turns his world upside down, underscoring his lack of prospects and making him re-evaluate life goals.

Cast Isabelle d’Eschambault, Dolorès Gosselin, Valerie Marion, Jack Theis, Roger Vermette

Cast Pavle Čemerikić, Sumeja Dardagan, Jasmin Geljo, Kerim Čutuna, Alban Ukaj, Irena Mulamuhić Prod Albert Shin, Igor Drljača, Borga Dorter, Jordan Barker, Adis Đapo, Amra Bakšić Čamo

Wildhood

Zo Reken

BRETTEN HANNAM, CANADA, 2021, 100 MIN.

FRI, OCT 1 MON, OCT 4 OCT 1-11

6:15 PM 3:15 PM

EMANUEL LICHA, CANADA, 2021, 86 MIN.

ANEX VCT CONN

SAT, OCT 2 MON, OCT 4 OCT 1-11

4:00 PM 9:00 PM

CINE CINE CONN

When Link (Phillip Lewitski) discovers that, contrary to his abusive dad’s claims, his Mi’kmaw mother may still be alive, he and his half-brother Travis (Avery WintersAnthony) finally have purpose. On the road to Mi’kma’ki, they pick up Pasmay (Joshua Odjick), a gregarious drifter who represents Link’s best chance of locating his mom and finally accepting his Two-Spirit nature. Bretten Hannam crafts a compelling road movie in which both the journey and destination offer opportunities for self-discovery.

The passenger seat of a Toyota Land Cruiser, NGOs’ favorite 4x4 vehicle, provides a window into the intimate daily exchanges of Haitian citizens ruminating on everything from the state of the country to neocolonialism and the counterproductive effects of humanitarian aid. Winning Hot Docs’ Best Canadian Feature Award, the jury stated, “Emanuel Licha uses cinematic metaphor to evoke the dignity of a people.” Eliciting lush, minimalist auteur stylings, the film unpacks a political can of worms.

Cast Phillip Lewitski, Joshua Odjick, Michael Greyeyes, Joel Thomas Hynes, Steve Lund, Avery Winters-Anthony Prod Bretten Hannam, Gharrett Patrick Paon, Julie Baldassi

Prod Emanuel Licha

33

Gateway

Barbarian Invasion

A Chat

TAN CHUI MUI, MALAYSIA/HONG KONG/PHILIPPINES, 2021, 106 MIN.

WANG XIDE, CHINA, 2021, 113 MIN.

THU, OCT 7 MON, OCT 11

6:30 PM 11:00 AM

CINE VCT

Canadian Premiere. Writer-director Tan Chui Mui puts herself in the spotlight with this delightful showbiz satire. She plays Lee Yoon Moon, a Southeast Asian movie star who has been cast in a rip-off of The Bourne Identity and must learn to perform her own martial arts stunts. What unfolds is a journey of self-discovery that contains some jarring surprises. Loopy, hypnotic, and quietly thrilling, this is a film to savour.

Cast Pete Teo, Tan Chui Mui, Bront Palarae, James Lee, Zhiny Ooi, Nik Hadiff Dani Prod Woo Ming Jin, Bianca Balbuena

SAT, OCT 2 MON, OCT 4 OCT 1-11

6:30 PM 6:30 PM

CINE STU CONN

International Premiere. With laid-back rhythm and solemn black-and-white images, A Chat conjures a serene, reflective female space inhabited by an independent divorcee and her niece. Qing runs her own tailoring shop in a quiet Southern Chinese town. One summer, her niece Yue comes to stay with Qing and learn her craft. Family secrets surface in atmospheric reveries and haunt them in an empty movie theatre. The two leads’ gentle, hushed performances evoke women’s dignity as they strive to live without the support or burden of men.

Fortune Favors Lady Nikuko SAT, OCT 9 MON, OCT 11

6:45 PM 3:45 PM

Moneyboys

Sinkhole

MAUNG SUN, MYANMAR, 2020, 98 MIN.

C.B. YI, AUSTRIA/FRANCE/TAIWAN/BELGIUM, 2021, 120 MIN.

SAT, OCT 9 MON, OCT 11 OCT 1-11

9:15 PM 3:30 PM

CINE CINE CONN

Canadian Premiere. Inspired by a Burmese proverb mocking how money eludes the poor, this sassy comedy on the trials of indie filmmaking pits an idealistic director up against tyrannical censors and crass producers, triggering one of the goofiest heists in Southeast Asian cinema. Besides capturing daily life in Yangon with frantic gusto, Money Has Four Legs is Myanmar’s most important film in years, as it tellingly alludes to the corruption, inequality, and dysfunction that gave rise to the country’s current unrest.

North American Premiere. Moneyboys takes a revelatory glimpse at China’s hushed-up gay sex industry. Fei (Kai Ko) works tirelessly as a rentboy to send money home, but his family humiliates him while pocketing his earnings.

Loneliness, police crackdowns, and fickle friendships erode short-lived joys of youth and furtive liaisons. Shot in Taiwan and dripping with tropical sensuality, this breathtaking debut by C.B. Yi caught critical attention at Cannes for its incisive, formal beauty.

Cast Okkar, Khin Khin Hsu, Phay, Ko Thu Prod Ma Aeint

Cast Kai Ko, Chloe Maayan, Yufan Bai, JC Lin Prod Gabriele Kranzelbinder, Barbara Pichler, Guillaume de la Boulaye, Patrick Mao Huang, André Logie

SFU VCT

From the director of Children of the Sea (VIFF 2019) comes another visual wonder with a gossamer whiff of magic realism. Unlike the esoteric Children, this is a kid-friendly comedy that sizzles with the most appetizing Japanese cuisine that animation can render.

Nikuko (‘Meat-girl’) is a plus-sized single mother who adores food, Japanese wordplay, and shifty men, and never loses her joie de vivre. When she and daughter Kikuko settle in an idyllic fishing village, they’re almost undone by a buried secret.

Money Has Four Legs SFU CINE CONN

FRI, OCT 8 MON, OCT 11

AYUMU WATANABE, JAPAN, 2021, 97 MIN.

Cast Shinobu Otake, Cocomi, Natsuki Hanae

12:45 PM 9:00 PM

HONG SANGSOO, SOUTH KOREA, 2021, 85 MIN.

Gyokou no Nikuko-chan

Cast Ying Ze, Mu Ruini, Xu Tao, Yao Bolan, Hou Yisong Prod Si Niang

SAT, OCT 2 WED, OCT 6 OCT 1-11

In Front of Your Face SFU SFU

Canadian Premiere. There is a mystery at the heart of Hong Sangsoo’s latest film. Sang-ok (Lee Hyeyoung) is in Seoul for the first time in years to meet a director about a comeback role. She schedules what she can around this appointment. Hong’s many films prime us to expect a narrative game—a large gathering over soju, or an unearthed romance—but instead we hear Sang-ok’s internal mantra: “Every moment is beautiful.” As the day passes, we wonder at the reasons behind the powerful restraint of Lee’s performance.

Cast Lee Hyeyoung, Cho Yunhee, Kwon Haehyo, Shin Seokho, Kim Saebyeok, Ha Seungguk Prod Hong Sangsoo

Spaghetti Code Love

Sing-keu-hol

TAKESHI MARUYAMA, JAPAN, 2021, 96 MIN.

KIM JI-HOON, SOUTH KOREA, 2021, 114 MIN.

FRI, OCT 1 TUE, OCT 5

9:00 PM 8:45 PM

3:30 PM 6:00 PM

HWD RIO

Canadian Premiere. From the Korean master of disaster movies (2012’s The Tower) comes a new blockbuster depicting the elusive dream of homeownership with spectacular visual effects and stunts. Middle-manager Dong-won saved up for 11 years to buy a home in Seoul for his family of three. During his housewarming party, the building collapses and sinks into a nearly bottomless pit below. The survivors have to improvise and cooperate to get out alive. To date, it’s South Korea’s second highest grossing domestic film of 2021.

Cast Cha Seoung-won, Kim Sung-kyun, Lee Kwangsoo, Kim Hye-jun Prod Lee Soo-nam, Kim Yang-yeon

FRI, OCT 1 SAT, OCT 9 OCT 1-11

9:15 PM 10:30 AM

CINE VCT CONN

Canadian Premiere. Hyperlink cinema gets a shot in the arm in this fluid glance at the lives of 13 characters, each of whose diverse lives and problems diverge and converge with all the exuberance, anxieties, and untrammeled emotionalism of youth. Weaving his camera freely between stories, Takeshi Maruyama’s tight but sprawling ensemble piece captures the pains of growth and the possibilities of compassion in both its structure and its intimate personal insights.

Cast Yuki Kura, Toko Miura, Hiroya Shimizu, Rikako Yagi, Nino Furuhata, Yuzu Aoki Prod Hideki Harada, Tomoyuki Miike, Yoshiteru Horie

34

Gateway

Three Sisters

Time

LEE SEUNG-WON, SOUTH KOREA, 2021, 115 MIN.

RICKY KO, HONG KONG, 2021, 99 MIN.

SUN, OCT 3 MON, OCT 11 OCT 1-11

3:30 PM 6:15 PM

RIO HWD CONN

Canadian Premiere. A blistering indictment of patriarchy laced with poisonous black humour. Three wildly different sisters are hit by life crises and their reactions aren’t pretty.

Self-harming doormat Hee-sook is diagnosed with cancer. Mi-yeon, a church choirmaster and model of piety, discovers her husband’s affair. A PTA meeting forces alcoholic Mi-oak to confront the trainwreck she is. The cause of each person’s dysfunction is revealed at their father’s birthday, when the youngest brother exhibits another level of crazy.

Cast Moon So-ri, Kim Sun-young, Jang Yoon-ju Prod Kim Sang-su

Wife of a Spy

SAT, OCT 2 MON, OCT 4 OCT 1-11

9:00 PM 3:00 PM

Cast Patrick Tse, Petrina Fung, Lam Suet, Chung Suet Ying, Sam Lee, Jia Xiaochen Prod Lam Ka Tung, Kevin Tse

Three cheers to our amazing Volunteers!

Nothing can stop these fine folks from donating their time and talents to make VIFF a reality. From behind the scenes to front of house, VIFF Volunteers do it all.

THANK YOU VOLS 8.25 viff.org x 3.9688 Learn More

VCT PLAY CONN

Thanks to Hong Kong’s lack of senior citizen welfare, a trio of dagger-throwing, whip-cracking and ace-driving geriatric assassins find a lucrative, if morally dodgy way to restart their careers. But a meddling teenager threatens to derail their business. A riotous party of 60s movie nostalgia, this action-packed dramedy is also a dazzling comeback for Patrick Tse and Petrina Fung, the Cary Grant and Shirley Temple of Cantonese cinema, while Lam Suet adds grassroots grit to their glamour.

viff.org

Yuni

Spy no Tsuma

KAMILA ANDINI, INDONESIA/SINGAPORE/FRANCE/ AUSTRALIA, 2021, 95 MIN.

KIYOSHI KUROSAWA, JAPAN, 2020, 115 MIN.

SUN, OCT 3 SUN, OCT 10 OCT 1-11

12:45 PM 6:15 PM

HWD HWD CONN

An espionage drama in the league of Hitchcock’s Notorious, a romance as glorious as David Lean’s epics, and a metafilmic charade touting cinema as savior of modern civilization.

In WWII, a Japanese industrialist discovers a shocking secret in the labs of Manchuria. To turn the tide of war, his wife must outwit a ruthless secret police chief who adores her. This film explores the existential horror of humans with a conscience in a morally compromised society under fascist tyranny.

Cast Yu Aoi, Issey Takahashi, Ryota Bando, Yuri Tsunematsu, Minosuke Hyunri, Masahiro Higashide, Takashi Sasano Prod Keisuke Tsuchihashi, Takashi Sawada, Satoshi Takada, Tamon Kondo

SUN, OCT 3 MON, OCT 11 OCT 1-11

4:15 PM 1:30 PM

VCT VCT CONN

Yuni is a typical high school girl who loves fashion, makeup, the color purple, and the martial art silat. She studies hard for a coveted college scholarship. But how much longer can she turn down marriage proposals from unfamiliar men? Two of Indonesia’s most brilliant feminist creators, Kamila Andini (The Seen and Unseen, VIFF 2018) and screenwriter Prima Rusdi, have teamed up for a devastating cri de coeur from women whose dreams of education and autonomy are systematically stifled.

Cast Arawinda Kirana, Kevin Ardilova, Dimas Aditya, Marissa Anita, Asmara Abigail, Muhammad Khan Prod Ifa Isfansyah

35

Impact

Ayukawa - The Weight of Life TU NEILL, JIM SPEERS, NEW ZEALAND/UK/JAPAN, 2021, 92 MIN.

SUN, OCT 3 MON, OCT 4 OCT 1-11

9:00 PM 6:00 PM

STU KMEK CONN

World Premiere. At once tranquil and bracing, Tu Neill and Jim Speers’ film is a portrait of a seaside town and its vanishing way of life.

Though it is now slowly emptying, Ayukawa was once a thriving coastal community, its success based on the practice of whaling.

Neill and Speers favour curiosity over judgment in their approach to the subject; their work is inquisitive, challenging, and profoundly humane. It may not change your mind, but it will certainly expand your horizons.

Behind the Headlines

Blue Box

DANIEL ANDREAS SAGER, GERMANY, 2021, 90 MIN.

MICHAL WEITS, ISRAEL/CANADA/BELGIUM, 2021, 80 MIN.

THU, OCT 7 SUN, OCT 10 OCT 1-11

6:00 PM 1:15 PM

KMEK HWD CONN

Daniel Andreas Sager’s film showcases journalism at its most vital. The main subjects are a pair of high-profile German reporters; we follow them as they investigate a shadowy arms dealer, the murder of a colleague, and flagrant corruption in Viennese politics.

Sager’s focus is on process: he portrays the cultivation of whistleblowers, crafting of copy, and painstaking revisions that go into producing exposés. This doc is a tribute without glamourization—a sharp, clear-eyed depiction of public heroism.

Prod Marc Bauder

WED, OCT 6 MON, OCT 11 OCT 1-11

From the Wild Sea 6:30 PM 4:30 PM

ANEX ANEX CONN

Director Michal Weits recalls being raised on the myth of her great-grandfather Joseph as the father of Israel’s forests, a pioneer who established Jewish settlements under the slogan of “a land without a people for a people without a land.” Through a fascinating combination of family interviews, archival footage, and her great-grandfather’s diary excerpts, Weits chronicles the deeper complexities of her family’s legacy and Israel’s national history. A profound and haunting journey of discovery.

Fra det vilde hav

ROBIN PETRÉ, DENMARK, 2021, 78 MIN.

SAT, OCT 2 OCT 1-11

9:00 PM

SFU CONN

Canadian Premiere. One end point of climate change causality gets a bracing look in this debut from Danish documentarian Robin Petré. Petré and editor Charlotte Munch Bengtsen (The Truffle Hunters, The Act of Killing) have shaped a cyclical account of the North Atlantic beaches, coastlines, and cliffs where porpoises, seals, and whales now run aground with alarming frequency, and the marine life rescuers that triage, autopsy, and record data with powerful implications.

Prod Malene Flindt Pedersen

Prod Assaf Amir, Ina Fichman, Eric Goossens, Frederik Nicolai, Uri Smoly

Prod Tu Neill, Jim Speers, Kentaro Yamada

Impact Award • $5,000 award presented by the Lochmaddy Foundation

Her Socialist Smile JOHN GIANVITO, USA, 2021, 94 MIN.

FRI, OCT 8 MON, OCT 11 OCT 1-11

6:15 PM 8:45 PM

STU ANEX CONN

We might know Helen Keller, the activist.

But what John Gianvito suggests in his new film is that we have barely begun to account for Keller’s importance as a mature writer, thinker, and challenger of assumptions. “A beautifully executed portrait of a major figure ... someone whose rougher edges have been sanded away, both by the general homogenizing tendencies of time, and the inherent sexism, ableism, and anti-leftism that defines the dominant discourse.”–MICHAEL SICINSKI, MUBI NOTEBOOK

Feat Carolyn Forché

Little Palestine: Diary of a Siege ABDALLAH AL-KHATIB, LEBANON/FRANCE/QATAR, 2021, 89 MIN.

MON, OCT 4 WED, OCT 6 OCT 1-11

9:00 PM 6:45 PM

STU CINE CONN

North American Premiere. Yarmouk district in Damascus was home to the largest concentration of Palestinian refugees in the world until 2018. Besieged during the Syrian Civil War, the community does their best to resist despair in the face of hunger, poverty, and the constant threat of bombing. Director Abdallah Al-Khatib’s eloquent approach over four years of filming recognizes how the inhabitants of Yarmouk, full of music, stoic joy, and an unshakeable solidarity with each other, find meaning in the face of destruction.

Prod Mohammad Ali Atassi, Jean-Laurent Csinidis

Secrets From Putumayo AURÉLIO MICHILES, BRAZIL, 2021, 83 MIN.

THU, OCT 7 MON, OCT 11 OCT 1-11

6:30 PM 6:30 PM

STU ANEX CONN

In 1910, Roger Casement, Britain’s Consul in Brazil, was ordered to investigate a Peruvian company leading South America’s burgeoning rubber trade. His report detailed the untold horrors of slave labour he witnessed toward Indigenous Amazonians. Narrated by Stephen Rea, director Aurélio Michiles’ film culls from journal passages, archival material, historian postulations, and moving oral histories of descendants of the enslaved to connect with the living narrative of Indigenous peoples.

Prod Patrick Leblanc

Rob Stewart Eco Warrior Award • $5,000 cash prize presented by Cineplex and RBC.

International Awards

36

Insights

Daughter of a Lost Bird

Faya dayi

BROOKE PEPION SWANEY, USA, 2020, 66 MIN.

JESSICA BESHIR, ETHIOPIA/USA/QATAR, 2021, 120 MIN.

FRI, OCT 8 SUN, OCT 10 OCT 1-11

6:30 PM 1:15 PM

SFU SFU CONN

Over seven years of collaborative filmmaking, director Brooke Pepion Swaney balances the heartwarming story of Kendra reuniting with her birth mother April and her extended family in the Lummi Nation with America’s legacy of settler-colonialism, genocide, and racism towards Indigenous peoples. “There’s a real sense of collaboration between Kendra and Swaney, and accountability on Swaney’s part to tell this story truthfully, which is refreshing to see in nonfiction filmmaking.”–ORLA SMITH, SEVENTH ROW

THU, OCT 7 FRI, OCT 8 OCT 1-11

8:30 PM 6:30 PM

STU ANEX CONN

This breakout documentary feature from Brooklyn-based Jessica Beshir is a story of rural isolation in the khat fields outside Harar, Ethiopia, where Oromo labourers dream of relief. Associative montage guides hundreds of details and dozens of stories, all built to service a meditative atmosphere, aided by Beshir’s black-and-white cinematography.

“An immersive success ... an arresting arrival for its solo director-writer-producer-DP.”–GUY LODGE, VARIETY

The First 54 Years: An Abbreviated Manual for Military Occupation AVI MOGRABI, FRANCE/FINLAND/ISRAEL/GERMANY, 2021, 110 MIN.

SUN, OCT 3 OCT 1-11

9:00 PM

CINE CONN

Canadian Premiere. Addressing the audience directly, Avi Mograbi offers a “how-to” guide to civilian subjugation along ethnic and religious lines, through the example of the Israeli occupation of Palestine. This is a jet black, ice-cold affair. But the harrowing statements of 38 former Israeli military personnel must be taken at face value as testimony of decades of statelicensed crimes against humanity. A film to be reckoned with.

Prod Brooke Pepion Swaney, Jeri Rafter, Kendra Mylnechuk Potter

Prod Jessica Beshir

Just a Movement

The King of North Sudan

Maya

DANNY ABEL, USA/CHINA/EGYPT/THAILAND, 2021, 95 MIN.

JAMSHID MOJADDADI, ANSON HARTFORD, UK/IRAN, 2020, 85 MIN.

Juste un mouvement

VINCENT MEESSEN, BELGIUM/FRANCE, 2020, 110 MIN.

SAT, OCT 2 SUN, OCT 3 OCT 1-11

6:00 PM 3:15 PM

VCT CINE CONN

Senegalese revolutionary Omar Blondin Diop was murdered in a Dakar prison in 1973, six years after his appearance in Jean-Luc Godard’s new wave masterpiece La Chinoise.

Belgian artist Vincent Meessen fashions a freeform cover version of Godard’s film, this time with Diop at its heart, but coursing with passionate reflections on Africa today, still shaped and scarred by colonialism, capitalism, and corruption. The imagery is rich, the ideas complex, compelling, and on point.

Prod Vincent Meessen, Inneke Van Waeyenberghe, Geneviève de Bauw, Olivier Marboeuf, Javier Packer Comyn, Samuel Feller

Prod Serge Lalou, Camille Laemle, Annie OhayonDekel

TUE, OCT 5 THU, OCT 7 OCT 1-11

6:00 PM 3:45 PM

VCT CINE CONN

MON, OCT 4 MON, OCT 11 OCT 1-11

6:15 PM 6:00 PM

HWD KMEK CONN

World Premiere. Danny Abel’s doc tells the incredible story of Jeremiah Heaton, who claims 500,000 acres of land between Egypt and Sudan in order to establish a kingdom and make his daughter a princess. What follows is media attention, a movie deal with Disney, and a shift in motivation: Heaton decides to create a bonafide nation, with industry, a military, and more. Hilarious, disturbing, and richly suggestive, this is a tale of American hubris scaled to the dimensions of one solitary man.

Canadian Premiere. An Iranian zookeeper takes Maya, a Bengal tiger he has raised from birth, on her first trip out of the Mashhad Zoo for a film shoot by the Caspian Sea—once home to the now-extinct Caspian tiger. As Maya prowls through the open fields, savouring her first taste of freedom, her latent instincts awaken, and the close ties between tiger and trainer begin to unravel. Full of twists and turns, Maya is an intimate and empathetic portrait of an endangered animal in captivity.

Prod Brett Blake

Prod Hugh Hartford

Flee JONAS POHER RASMUSSEN, DENMARK/SWEDEN/ NORWAY/FRANCE, 2021, 90 MIN.

SUN, OCT 3 TUE, OCT 5

6:30 PM 3:45 PM

RIO PLAY

Amin Nawabi, the pseudonymous subject of Flee, says the diary where he first documented what happened to him during the Soviet-Afghan war is written in Dari, a language he now only barely recollects. Flee, then, is not strictly Amin’s story—forced departure from Kabul, fearful year waiting in Russia, eventual asylum in Denmark. Instead, it is an attempt by filmmaker Jonas Poher Rasmussen (a longtime friend of Amin’s) to illustrate how the incomplete nature of this story profoundly shapes Amin’s daily life.

Cast Daniel Karimyar, Fardin Mijdzadeh, Milad Eskandari, Belal Faiz, Elaha Faiz, Zahra Mehrwarz, Sadia Faiz Prod Monica Hellström, Signe Byrge Sørensen

My Childhood, My Country - 20 Years in Afghanistan PHIL GRABSKY, SHOAIB SHARIFI, AFGHANISTAN/UK, 90 MIN.

SUN, OCT 3 TUE, OCT 5 OCT 1-11

3:00 PM 3:45 PM

SFU HWD CONN

International Premiere. This film documents two decades of a precious life—and, beyond that, the tumultuous recent history of a nation. When directors Phil Grabsky and Shoaib Sharifi discovered him, Mir Hussein was just a headstrong little boy living in rural Afghanistan.

He and his family agreed to be recorded, and the result is a work of intimate proximity and epic timespan. The directors have, in collaboration with Mir himself, created a rich human portrait and a powerful political statement.

Feat Harmid Karzai, Tony Blair, Robert Gates Prod Phil Grabsky

37

Insights

The Six

Taming the Garden

The Velvet Queen

ARTHUR JONES, CHINA, 2020, 107 MIN.

SALOMÉ JASHI, SWITZERLAND/GERMANY/GEORGIA, 2021, 92 MIN.

MARIE AMIGUET, VINCENT MUNIER, FRANCE, 2021, 92 MIN.

MON, OCT 4 FRI, OCT 8 OCT 1-11

6:00 PM 3:30 PM

VCT PLAY CONN

North American Premiere. The Titanic sank in 1912, leaving only 705 survivors. Among them were six Chinese men whose stories were previously lost to history after they were denied entry to America due to the Chinese Exclusion Act. Masterfully intertwining the history of American immigration policy at the time of the Titanic to contemporary views on race and citizenship, The Six uncovers the sacrifices and discrimination these men suffered, finally granting them their rightful place in history.

Feat Steven Schwankert, Grace Zhang, James Cameron, Paul Wade, Matthew Baren, David Lee Prod Luo Tong

WED, OCT 6 FRI, OCT 8 OCT 1-11

4:30 PM 8:30 PM

CINE STU CONN

In a small town on the Georgian coast of the Black Sea, a team of lifelong labourers are assigned the monumental task of excavating gigantic trees to be shipped to the property of a former Prime Minister and billionaire for his personal garden. Director Salomé Jashi unleashes an astonishing sequence of events with both fantastical visuals and unwavering honesty as we are invited to sit quietly and observe man’s attempt to conquer giants.

Prod Vadim Jendreyko, Erik Winker, Martin Roelly, Salomé Jashi

FRI, OCT 1 THU, OCT 7

4:00 PM 8:30 PM

Venetian Molecules ANEX KMEK

Canadian Premiere. Within the vast, mountainous region of the Tibetan plateau, Vincent Munier, a wildlife photographer, and Sylvain Tesson, a travel writer, are determined to find and photograph one of the region’s most elusive creatures: the snow leopard. As we are treated to glimpses of these stunning landscapes, the pair and director Marie Amiguet begin to consider man’s position within nature and humanity’s place on earth, mourning a time when “beasts, humans, and gods conducted a common conversation.”

Feat Vincent Munier, Sylvain Tesson

High School Program Each year, VIFF welcomes hundreds of secondary students to experience exceptional international cinema at the festival.

In answer to the past year’s challenges, we’re now offering our education programming to British Columbia classes both incinema and online via our VIFF Connect streaming platform. From stories of Indigenous youth exploring identity to films that capture historic events as they’re unfurling, great world cinema challenges our perspectives, confronts our preconceptions, promotes inquiry, develops critical thinking skills, and ignites imaginations. Be they set in China, on board the Titanic, or right here in Canada, this year’s selected films present stories that connect youth with the most powerful forces shaping our contemporary world and identities.

Exclusive Dialogue with Filmmakers and Subject Experts After seeing the film, students will have the rare opportunity to be part of a Q&A with directors, producers, or subject experts connected to the film.

Educational Resources We have selected these films for their bold approach to pressing social and environmental concerns, and for their thought-provoking connections to multiple subjects across the BC curriculum. Prior to the screenings, teachers will have access to resource guides tailored to each film. Written with the curriculum in mind, these resources will facilitate engaged discussion and are built to open up in-depth exploration that connects the cinema and the classroom.

How to Book This year, we are pleased to offer free access for all school groups who wish to book, selecting either to stream in school from our VIFF Connect platform or to book for an in-person morning screening at our VIFF theatre. Please note that some films are only available in-person. Capacity for all films is limited. Full film details and resource materials can be found at goviff.org/education.

Molecole

ANDREA SEGRE, ITALY, 2020, 68 MIN.

SAT, OCT 2 MON, OCT 11 OCT 1-11

6:30 PM 9:00 PM

STU CINE CONN

Andrea Segre’s memoir film, which begins with the unanswered questions posed by his late father’s early photographs, began shooting in February 2020, when the pandemic arrived with full force in Italy. So instead of answers, Segre is met by silence, dead ends, and detours, left to wander the tourist-emptied and suddenly placid canals of his father’s city. “An interlude of mournful and mirrorlike tranquillity ... and also a diary, soaked in personal reminiscence.”–ANTHONY LANE, THE NEW YORKER

Prod Andrea Segre

Gala & Special Presentations Audience Award

Contemporary World Cinema Audience Award

True North Audience Award

Gateway Audience Award

Impact Audience Award

Insight Audience Award

M/A/D Audience Award

Altered States Audience Award

Audience Awards VIFF’s Audience Awards allow you to take your festival experience to the next level by championing your favourite films. At the end of the festival, we’ll announce audience award-winners for every one of our series. So be sure to vote after every screening, be it online or in-person.

Fine Art Films Supported by

39

M/A/D

Charlotte ERIC WARIN, TAHIR RANA, CANADA/FRANCE/ BELGIUM, 2021, 92 MIN.

SUN, OCT 3 WED, OCT 6

3:00 PM 9:15 PM

PLAY PLAY

The tragically short life of German Jewish artist Charlotte Salomon (voiced by Keira Knightley) and her remarkable body of autobiographical work (including her masterpiece Life? Or Theatre?) are honoured in this expressively animated biopic by Eric Warin and Tahir Rana. Despite the hardship endured by its namesake in World War II, Charlotte serves as an inspirational testament to what can be achieved if one lives and creates as if there was no tomorrow.

Cast Keira Knightley, Brenda Bleythyn, Jim Broadbent, Sam Claflin, Eddie Marsan, Helen McCrory, Sophie Okonedo, Mark Strong Prod Julia Rosenberg, Jérôme Dopffer, Eric Goossens, Anton Roebben

The Endless Moment The Painter Rolf Kuhlmann CLAUDIA SCHMID, GERMANY/GREECE, 2020, 135 MIN.

SUN, OCT 3 SAT, OCT 9 OCT 1-11

6:00 PM 6:00 PM

STU VCT CONN

International Premiere. In her remarkable documentary, Claudia Schmid spends a year following realist painter Rolf Kuhlmann as he visits German forests, and ancient archeological sites and refugee camps in Greece.

The Endless Moment takes the viewer along on an extraordinary creative journey in the creation of ambitious double triptych paintings, capturing the moments of conception, rumination, execution, and revision, as pieces coalesce to make a luminous whole.

Keep Rolling MON, OCT 11 OCT 1-11

6:15 PM

Prod Jacqueline Liu, Man Lim Chung

To the Moon

FERN SILVA, USA, 2021, 70 MIN.

TADHG O’SULLIVAN, IRELAND, 2020, 76 MIN.

World Premiere. Twenty-one years after his groundbreaking first feature documentary Vinyl, Alan Zweig returns to the topic of compulsive record collecting with newfound introspection and a sunnier disposition. Punctuated by his signature mirror-confessionals, Records compiles colourful interviews with vinyl enthusiasts, swirling around the proverbial maxim that music has the power to connect us all.

Prod Felicity Justrabo, Kevin McMahon, Michael McMahon

GONZALO GARCÍA PELAYO, PEDRO G. ROMERO, SPAIN/FRANCE, 2020, 165 MIN.

SUN, OCT 3 SAT, OCT 9 OCT 1-11

10:00 AM 1:00 PM

VCT STU CONN

Canadian Premiere. An exhilarating celebration of the city that birthed flamenco, Nine Sevilles features nine vibrant artists and thinkers walking us through the meandering streets of Seville. At once playful and loose, the filmmakers’ love of the city and its art is indelible.

At the heart of this movie are the glorious rhythms of palmas, powerful percussive footwork, the melodic flourishes of the guitar, and the passionate, soaring voice of the cantes.

Prod Claudia Schmid

Rock Bottom Riser RIO HWD CONN

Nueve Sevillas

Prod Roberto Butragueño, Nathalie Trafford, Joaquín Vázquez

ALAN ZWEIG, CANADA, 2021, 87 MIN.

6:15 PM 3:30 PM

CINE CONN

Canadian Premiere. The recipient of Venice Film Festival’s 2020 Lifetime Achievement Award, Ann Hui’s 40-year artistic trajectory not only mirrors the roller-coaster ride that is Hong Kong cinema, but parallels the poignant yet resilient course of its history. Hui displays her storytelling genius not only with celluloid but in humourous, candid conversation. This documentary seamlessly weaves interviews and archival material into a Who’s Who of Asian cinema, and is catnip for cinephiles anywhere.

Records THU, OCT 7 SUN, OCT 10 OCT 1-11

Nine Sevilles

MAN LIM CHUNG, HONG KONG, 2020, 118 MIN.

WED, OCT 6 SUN, OCT 10 OCT 1-11

6:00 PM 9:15 PM

STU ANEX CONN

TUE, OCT 5 MON, OCT 11 OCT 1-11

8:30 PM 6:30 PM

White Cube STU VCT CONN

Canadian Premiere. Since 2014, an enormous telescope has been under construction on the peak of a dormant Hawaiian volcano, one held as sacred in the archipelago’s native culture. Protests and debates have followed, forming the bedrock for Fern Silva’s new essay film. Rather than a conventional overview of its complicated subjects, Rock Bottom Riser adopts its own telescopic view of earthbound themes, erupting in volcanic textures and playful associations, from island flowers to smoke rings to the crawl of molten rock.

Canadian Premiere. Admirers of Christian Marclay’s The Clock and Kogonada’s video essays will find themselves in familiar territory with Tadhg O’Sullivan’s To the Moon, an archival supercut with a literary bent. You could say it’s a survey of the ways cinema cameras have watched people watching the moon, from the silent era onward. “Gracefully edited ... O’Sullivan has carefully woven the fabric of his film so it pulls you along in the same imperceptible way as the moon draws the tides.”–AMBER WILKINSON, SCREEN INTERNATIONAL

Prod Fern Silva

Prod Clare Stronge

RENZO MARTENS, NETHERLANDS/BELGIUM, 2020, 79 MIN.

SAT, OCT 2 SAT, OCT 9 OCT 1-11

8:15 PM 9:00 PM

STU SFU CONN

Canadian Premiere. In his project The Repatriation of the White Cube, Dutch ironist Renzo Martens seeks out Congolese workers at two Unilever palm oil plantations and suggests a profit-share model where the workers will get paid for their art, which will be shown in galleries in the West. Martens casts himself as salesman, but also knowingly steps aside for a moving portrait of sculptor Matthieu Kasiama.

Prod Pieter van Huystee

Altered States

40

Saloum

Kicking Blood

JEAN LUC HERBULOT, SENEGAL, 2021, 84 MIN.

BLAINE THURIER, CANADA, 2021, 80 MIN.

FRI, OCT 1 SUN, OCT 3

Bipolar

QUEENA LI, CHINA, 2021, 110 MIN.

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 3 SATURDAY, OCTOBER 9 OCTOBER 1-11

9:00 PM 4:00 PM

RIO CINEMATHEQUE VIFF CONNECT

Canadian Premiere. In the Tibetan capital of Lhasa on a luxury pilgrimage, a broken-hearted musician (Chinese star Leah Dou) impulsively decides to liberate a sacred rainbow lobster from a cramped tank in hopes of returning it to the ocean. The catch? The endless kilometres of weirdness that lay between them and the water. A legitimate trip that asserts “travelling is just like dreaming,” Queena Li’s hallucinatory road movie is delightfully all over the map as it sends the Orpheus myth crashing through the looking glass.

Cast Leah Dou, Giver He Prod Queena Li, Zhang Linhan, Zhang Xu, Chang Bin

9:00 PM 1:00 PM

Cast Yann Gael, Evelyne Ily Juhen, Roger Sallah, Mentor Ba Prod Pamela Diop

Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched: A History of Folk Horror

Tin Can

ALBERT BIRNEY, KENTUCKER AUDLEY, USA, 2021, 91 MIN.

SETH A. SMITH, CANADA, 2020, 103 MIN.

Canadian Premiere. When two college friends (Madeline Quinn and Betsey Brown) secure a cheap Manhattan apartment, it’s not only too good to be true but worse than they could’ve ever imagined: the suite was previously Jeffrey Epstein’s love nest and is now home to other malevolent forces. Transmitting on frequencies both sinister and comic, Dasha Nekrasova’s outrageous psychosexual thriller employs ‘70s giallo and grindhouse aesthetics to take dead aim at contemporary gender dynamics, internet culture, and power structures.

Cast Betsey Brown, Madeline Quinn, Dasha Nekrasova, Mark Rapaport Prod Adam Mitchell, Mark Rapaport

SAT, OCT 2 SAT, OCT 9

9:00 PM 4:15 PM

RIO RIO

RIO RIO

Cast Alanna Bale, Luke Bilyk, Benjamin Sutherland, Ella Farlinger, Vinessa Antoine, Shaun Austin-Olsen, Rosemary Dunsmore Prod Jennifer Jonas

Strawberry Mansion

RIO RIO CONN

6:30 PM 1:00 PM

Having successively orchestrated a coup, extracted a foreign drug lord, and absconded with a gold bounty, the Bangui Hyenas find their run of good luck ends abruptly when they’re shot down over Senegal’s Sine Saloum region. Taking refuge at a holiday camp, the mercenaries instantly arouse suspicion and soon unleash something otherworldly. As supernatural chaos rains down and predatory creatures wreak havoc, Jean Luc Herbulot orchestrates an action-horror film that’s a heady mix of mysticism and mayhem.

DASHA NEKRASOVA, USA, 2021, 81 MIN.

9:00 PM 3:30 PM

FRI, OCT 8 SUN, OCT 10

When Anna (Alanna Bale), a high-on-hemoglobin vampire, becomes enchanted by Robbie (Luke Bilyk), a despondent alcoholic, she nurtures his sobriety and considers forsaking her immortality. But her newfound nurturing instincts and fascination with humanity don’t sit well with her blood-sucking brethren.

Sensual and soulful, Blaine Thurier’s latest idiosyncratic genre piece explores the more metaphorical elements of vampirism with considerable inventiveness and precisely the right measure of irreverence.

The Scary of Sixty-First THU, OCT 7 SUN, OCT 10 OCT 1-11

RIO RIO

TUE, OCT 5 FRI, OCT 8 OCT 1-11

9:00 PM 9:00 PM

RIO CINE CONN

In 2035, James (Kentucker Audley) audits people’s dreams, assessing them back taxes for their fantasies. Diving into the deep end of an archive of dreams belonging to elderly Bella (Penny Fuller), he embarks on a rollicking adventure featuring seafaring rats, mythical beasts, and a younger Bella (Grace Glowicki). Transforming practically every shot into a showcase of candy-coloured sets, analog technology, and stop-motion creatures, Audley and Albert Birney have dreamt up a beguilingly absurd confection.

Racing to find a cure for a global outbreak, a parasitologist (Anna Hopkins) is abducted and awakens in a suspended animation chamber. As she kicks and screams her way to freedom—or whatever the plague has laying in wait—Tin Can trades claustrophobic tension for undiluted nightmare fuel. Seth A. Smith (The Crescent) confirms his credentials as one of genre cinema’s most singular voices with this deftly executed, undeniably deranged wedding of classic body horror and contemporary anxieties over isolation.

Cast Penny Fuller, Kentucker Audley, Grace Glowicki, Linas Phillips, Reed Birney Prod Emma Hannaway, Matisse Rifai, Sarah Winshall, Taylor Ava Shung

Cast Anna Hopkins, Simon Mutabazi, Michael Ironside, Tim Dunn, Amy Trefry, Sam Vignault, Chik White Prod Nancy Urich

KIER-LA JANISSE, USA, 2021, 193 MIN.

FRI, OCT 8 OCT 1-11

8:45 PM

RIO CONN

Tracing folk horror’s winding path from the influential likes of The Wicker Man to more recent fare like Midsommar, Kier-La Janisse has fashioned an astonishingly ambitious deep dive into every recess of one of the genre cinema’s most spiritually resonant and culturally specific strains. Assembling clips from 200 films and insights from 50 interviewees, Woodlands Dark explores how these works are deeply rooted in myriad storytelling traditions and alternately embrace and interrogate chequered histories.

Prod Kier-La Janisse, Winnie Cheung

International

41

Shorts Neko and Flies

Wake

Chants From a Holy Book

Al-Sit

Animation

Have We Ever Learned?

Life Labs

TOTAL RUNNING TIME: 118 MIN.

TOTAL RUNNING TIME: 114 MIN.

TOTAL RUNNING TIME: 112 MIN.

SAT, OCT 2 SUN, OCT 3 OCT 1-11

6:15 PM 1:15 PM

ANEX ANEX CONN

SUN, OCT 3 MON, OCT 4 OCT 1-11

6:15 PM 3:30 PM

ANEX ANEX CONN

MON, OCT 4 SUN, OCT 10 OCT 1-11

Seniors Day 6:15 PM 6:30 PM

TOTAL RUNNING TIME: 121 MIN.

ANEX ANEX CONN

TUE, OCT 5 SUN, OCT 10 OCT 1-11

6:15 PM 1:00 PM

ANEX ANEX CONN

Anyhow, Anyway

The Black Disquisition

Apart, Together

Al-Sit

CATARINA ROMANO, PORTUGAL, 13 MIN.

QUINCY G. LEDBETTER, USA, 11 MIN.

OLIVIA HANG ZHOU, USA/CHINA, 19 MIN.

SUZANNAH MIRGHANI, SUDAN/QATAR, 20 MIN.

A lonely woman has a routine to her days, though she rarely leaves her apartment.

A traumatic event in a boy’s life underlies a surprising answer to a guidance counselor’s question.

A teen girl and her mother from China are in Los Angeles, searching for her older sister who was abandoned as a baby.

In a cotton-farming village, a girl’s arranged marriage to a businessman requires approval by the village matriarch.

ZACH DORN, USA, 2021, 13 MIN.

Chants From a Holy Book

Carrier

All Dogs Die

A 1970s folk singer’s life is transformed when a current pop star records one of her songs.

CASSIANA DER HAROUTIOUNIAN, CESAR GANANIAN, BRAZIL, 2021, 25 MIN.

MAX OVASKA, FINLAND, 2020, 23 MIN.

NINNA PÁLMADÓTTIR, ICELAND, 2020, 17 MIN.

A woman takes advantage of her pregnancy to smuggle drugs through customs for her brother.

On a foggy weekend in an isolated part of Iceland, an aged farmer and his dog confront mortality.

Goodbye Tornio

Charon

EMILIA HERNESNIEMI, FINLAND, 2021, 15 MIN.

YANNICK KARCHER, FRANCE, 2020, 15 MIN.

A girl who just graduated from high school is moving to the big city, leaving her family and her best friend behind.

A recently retired man is spurred into action by the fear of death and boredom, so he initiates a crazy project.

MeTube: August Sings ‘Una Furtiva Lagrima’

Don vs Lightning

Charlotte

FALL OF THE IBIS KING MIKAI GERONIMO, JOSH O’CAOIMH, IRELAND, 2021, 10 MIN.

The antagonist of a dark opera is unsettled following the return of the lead actor.

Flowing Home SANDRA DESMAZIÈRES, FRANCE/CANADA, 2021, 15 MIN.

Two sisters from Vietnam, separated by war, exchange letters and relive the tragedy for 20 years.

Granny’s Sexual Life URŠKA DJUKIC, ÉMILIE PIGEARD, SLOVENIA/FRANCE, 2021, 14 MIN.

Five women reflect on old times and how different sexual relations between men and women were.

In the film’s own words, “the objective is to recreate in five chants the synergy that generates revolutions.”

The Following Year MIGUEL CAMPAÑA, SPAIN, 2021, 22 MIN.

On his anniversary, a widowed farmer receives a clone of the woman he lost under tragic circumstances years ago.

The Night I Left America LAKI KARAVIAS, USA, 2020, 14 MIN.

A teen immigrant boy starts questioning the American Dream while his mother awaits the decision on her visa.

A Quiet Man NYIMA CARTIER, FRANCE, 2021, 15 MIN.

The Monkey

Looking out an office building window, voices speculate about a man sitting on a park bench down below.

LORENZO DEGL´INNOCENTI, XOSÉ ZAPATA, PORTUGAL/SPAIN, 2021, 17 MIN.

A Roll in the Hay

1588. A shipwrecked member of the Spanish Armada is found washed up on shore and alive.

GEOFFREY FIGHIERA, FRANCE, 2020, 19 MIN.

Nuevo Rico KRISTIAN MERCADO FIGUEROA, USA, 2021, 16 MIN.

Twin musicians on the run steal a magical contract that will make them reggaetón stars.

Unnecessary Things DMYTRO LISENBART, UKRAINE, 2020, 14 MIN.

Could intelligent robots grow as thinking entities with needs and desires?

Wake MARK BOSTON, UK, 2020, 6 MIN.

The creation of nine fantastical paintings is depicted as they evolve and transform.

A man takes his mistress to his country house for the weekend where a surprise awaits.

Your Street GÜZIN KAR, SWITZERLAND, 2020, 8 MIN.

A nondescript street in Bonn is linked to one of the most painful episodes in the history of reunified Germany.

BIG RED BUTTON, UK, 2021, 13 MIN.

A pair of intergalactic music nerds with telekinetic powers hijack an opera performance.

All Don wants is a quiet life in the Scottish Highlands. Unfortunately, the universe has other plans.

Neko and Flies

Dona

TSAO SHIH HAN, TAIWAN, 2020, 25 MIN.

MARGA MELIÀ, SPAIN, 2020, 20 MIN.

In the brutal summer heat, a security guard looks after boats tied up at a dock and a sex worker with an intellectual disability.

After a lifetime of silence, an elderly woman in a mental hospital decides to confess her family secrets to a doctor.

Quality Time

Roy

OMER BEN-DAVID, ISRAEL, 2020, 22 MIN.

TOM BERKELEY, ROSS WHITE, UK, 2021, 16 MIN.

When his mother goes away on vacation, a stoner teenager and his recently retired father are forced to spend time together.

Trapped in a lonely existence, a reclusive widower desperately seeks brief moments of companionship.

DANIEL MOSHEL, AUSTRIA, 2020, 8 MIN.

The Saverini Widow LOÏC GAILLARD, FRANCE, 2020, 20 MIN.

In the 1890s, an older widowed midwife lives a quiet life with her son and dog in a Corsican town until one eventful night.

42

International Shorts + MODES

Best Canadian Short Film • $2,000 award presented by VIFF

Best BC Short Film

• $2,500 award presented by Pass-Through Productions inc.

Short Film Awards

Neon Phantom

Reel Youth Film Festival TOTAL RUNNING TIME: 84 MIN.

SAT, OCT 9 OCT 1-11

Help Raise $40,000 for our 40th Festival!

Make a donation during VIFF’s landmark 40th edition and the Reel Friends Giving Society will match your gift up to a total of $40,000.

1:00 PM

ANEX CONN

The Reel Youth Film Festival is a collection of short films made by emerging youth filmmakers from around the world. Chosen by an international selection panel from 400 submissions and 30 countries, this collection will show you the world through the eyes of an incredibly gifted group of young media-makers.

This year we are featuring 25% BC films, 50% Canadian films, and Indigenous stories from across Turtle Island.

Pitoc e icinakosian EYE ROBOT A Letter to Hong Kong All Alone Sophie and Jacob Christopher Hunte The art of being in a world of not being Witch’s Hunt Day 10am kwenánet né?

Kamayan The Secret of Colors hahuupacakukqin The Moments Wicket From the North Music for the end of the world

The Canyon

MODES 1

MODES 2

TOTAL RUNNING TIME: 85 MIN.

FRI, OCT 1 SAT, OCT 2 OCT 1-11

9:15 PM 4:00 PM

TOTAL RUNNING TIME: 81 MIN.

ANEX ANEX CONN

9:00 PM 4:00 PM

ANEX ANEX CONN

I’ve Been Afraid

The Coast

CECELIA CONDIT, MEXICO, 7 MIN.

SOHRAB HURA, INDIA, 18 MIN.

Since the cult sounds of Possibly in Michigan, Cecelia Condit employs her catchy musical stylings to align the imposing allure of emojis as critique of abuse and why victims stay.

The margin between land and water becomes a point of release as the ocean washes away emotional multitudes, shedding the masquerade.–LOST HEAD & THE BIRD (MODES 2018), BITTERSWEET

Once Upon a Screen: Explosive Paradox KEVIN B. LEE, GERMANY/USA, 2020, 10 MIN.

A family outing to see Platoon sets the scene for a minimalist and personal video essay underscoring how past and present interrupt one another, like movies being perpetually edited.

New Abnormal SORAYOS PRAPAPAN, THAILAND/SOUTH KOREA/ SINGAPORE, 2021, 15 MIN.

The reality of COVID-19 in Thailand collides with entrenched and absurd political polemics. –DIGITAL FUNERAL: BETA VERSION (MODES 2020)

Motorcyclist’s Happiness Won’t Fit Into His Suit GABRIEL HERRERA, MEXICO, 2021, 10 MIN.

Poking fun at the hubris of Spanish colonial forces on Indigenous lands, a modern motorcyclist flips the script, vainly exclaiming himself the sole explorer.

In Flow of Words ELIANE ESTHER BOTS, NETHERLANDS, 2021, 23 MIN.

Interpreters of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia retrace their responsibility to perpetrators of heinous war crimes and their victims.

Neon Phantom LEONARDO MARTINELLI, BRAZIL, 2021, 20 MIN.

A rousing musical rendition of life as a pedalpowered delivery man, João dreams of something more.

goviff.org/donate

SAT, OCT 2 SUN, OCT 3 OCT 1-11

(MODES 2019)

Happiness Is a Journey IVETE LUCAS, PATRICK BRESNAN, USA/ESTONIA, 2021, 12 MIN.

The independent contractors comprising the foundation of Austin’s dwindling newspaper delivery service have to work on Christmas Eve. –ROADSIDE ATTRACTION (MODES 2017)

Show Me Other Places RAJEE SAMARASINGHE, SRI LANKA/USA, 2021, 12 MIN.

Shot on various cameras and a video synthesizer, a Sri Lankan woman accesses multiple spaces in digital form. Relationships between creator, tool, and subject are questioned, shattered, and reconstructed.

Adversarial Infrastructure ANNA ENGELHARDT, RUSSIA, 2020, 10 MIN.

Deepfake Putin exclaims the underlying impetus to erect the Crimean Bridge (in an offline landscape) as an artifact of Russian colonial violence.

The Canyon ZACHARY EPCAR, USA, 2021, 15 MIN.

A portrait of urban residential development as it slips into oblivion.

Corps Samples ASTRID DE LA CHAPELLE, FRANCE, 2021, 14 MIN.

Fossilized remains of brief organic lives signify transformation of life to mineral, and viceversa—a temporal existence. Is man looking at stone, or is stone looking at man?

Short Forum Nalujuk Night

Militant Mother

VIFF Short Forum: Programme 1 MON, OCT 4 TUE, OCT 5 OCT 1-11

9:00 PM 4:00 PM

TUE, OCT 5 WED, OCT 6 OCT 1-11

9:00 PM 4:00 PM

Kiri and the Girl

VIFF Short Forum: Programme 3

TOTAL RUNNING TIME: 71 MIN.

ANEX ANEX CONN

Community Broadcast Partner

Flower Boy

VIFF Short Forum: Programme 2

TOTAL RUNNING TIME: 76 MIN.

43

VIFF Short Forum: Programme 4

TOTAL RUNNING TIME: 81 MIN.

ANEX ANEX CONN

WED, OCT 6 THU, OCT 7 OCT 1-11

8:45 PM 4:00 PM

TOTAL RUNNING TIME: 90 MIN.

ANEX ANEX CONN

THU, OCT 7 FRI, OCT 8 OCT 1-11

9:00 PM 4:00 PM

ANEX ANEX CONN

Canucks Riot I

Bad Seeds

Flower Boy

Evan’s Drum

LEWIS BENNETT, CANADA, 2021, 10 MIN.

CLAUDE CLOUTIER, CANADA, 2020, 7 MIN.

ANYA CHIRKOVA, CANADA, 2020, 17 MIN.

OSSIE MICHELIN, CANADA, 2021, 15 MIN.

The chaos on the streets of Vancouver that unfolded in the wake of the Canucks’ loss in the 1994 Stanley Cup Finals is revisited from dozens of perspectives.

In a bizarre world where carnivorous plants can change shapes, a shocking duel is peppered with allusions to the Western, the Cold War, board games, and much more.

In this intimate look at Inuit family and culture, seven year-old Evan Winters from Happy Valley-Goose Bay learns the once-lost tradition of Labrador Inuit drum dancing from his mom.

Jean Swanson: We Need a New Map

Boobs

As August creeps in, Nav forms intimate bonds with an audacious painter and a middle-aged laser tag arena owner. Just as he begins to find himself, summer abruptly comes to an end.

TERESA ALFELD, CANADA, 2021, 8 MIN.

Veteran activist and first-term Vancouver city councillor Jean Swanson works alongside the next generation of anti-poverty activists fighting systemic inequality.

Mary Two-Axe Earley: I Am Indian Again COURTNEY MONTOUR, CANADA, 2021, 34 MIN.

Mary Two-Axe Earley spent much of her life fighting against the injustices that the Indian Act created for Status Indian women. Her work eventually led to the passing of Bill C-31 in 1985, an amendment to the Indian Act to correct gender discrimination.

Nalujuk Night JENNIE WILLIAMS, CANADA, 14 MIN.

Every January 6th, the Inuit community of Nain, Labrador, awaits the Nalujuit, eerie figures that come in from the sea dressed in tattered fur clothing, frightfully descend on homes, and playfully chase locals with sticks and chains.

Solitary Skies AMANDA CASSIDY, CANADA, 2021, 10 MIN.

A meditative stop-frame animation exploring our connection to the natural world through sound and slow movement.

MARIE VALADE, CANADA, 2021, 8 MIN.

A surrealist journey through a woman’s lovehate relationship with her breasts, her body, her femininity.

Defund KHADIJAH ROBERTS-ABDULLAH, ARAYA MENGESHA, CANADA, 15 MIN.

Millennial twins are trapped in their apartment, watching the BLM uprisings unfold on their phones. Fed up with sitting on the sidelines, they head out under the cover of night.

Hatha ASIA YOUNGMAN, CANADA, 2020, 10 MIN.

After a near collision at an intersection, two women find themselves face-to-face and at each other’s throats in a yoga class.

Militant Mother CARMEN POLLARD, CANADA, 2021, 8 MIN.

To get to class on time, children from the Raymur social housing project were forced to cross perilous train tracks. Twenty-five mothers made their voices heard by blockading CN Rail.

A Safe Distance GLORIA MERCER, CANADA, 2020, 8 MIN.

Trudging through a forest, two blood-splattered women stop to wash themselves, smoke a joint, and share thoughts about men, relationships, and bodily autonomy.

The Untouchable AVAZEH SHAHNAVAZ, IRAN/CANADA, 2021, 15 MIN.

Yassi is in the middle of a busy street, jumping in front of cars as she desperately searches for someone. The police try to contain the situation but only send things spiraling into further chaos.

Indigenous Dads PETER BRASS, CANADA, 2021, 12 MIN.

Four Indigenous dads candidly discuss their fears and hopes in raising their kids in today’s world.

News From Home SARA WYLIE, CANADA, 2021, 9 MIN.

Two phone calls between a mother and daughter on opposite sides of the country, recorded in March 2020.

Srikandi ANDREA NIRMALA WIDJAJANTO, CANADA/INDONESIA, 2020, 9 MIN.

Teenage Anjani reunites with her late father’s spirit through the puppets he left behind and sets out to realize her own future—becoming a modern Srikandi.

Things We Feel But Do Not Say LAUREN GRANT, CANADA, 2021, 10 MIN.

A woman struggles with the isolation of her grief following a miscarriage.

Tla-o-qui-aht Dugout Canoe STEVEN DAVIES, CANADA, 2021, 11 MIN.

After working as a clearcut logger in the Clayoquot Sound, master carver and land defender Joe Martin reconciles his past by revitalizing the ancestral knowledge and artistic practice of the traditional Tla-o-qui-aht dugout canoe.

Together ALBERT SHIN, CANADA/SOUTH KOREA, 13 MIN.

Two anonymous strangers meet in a motel room by the sea.

The Horses LIZ CAIRNS, CANADA, 13 MIN.

After several horses are euthanized at her barn, a woman must find a mare to put with the sole remaining horse.

The Isobel Imprint ALI GRANT, CANADA, 2021, 7 MIN.

Years after her sister’s devastating suicide, Ali Grant travels back through old letters, photos, and home movies to arrive at a pivotal moment in their intertwined destinies—Toronto in the summer of 1978.

Kiri and the Girl GRACE DOVE, CANADA, 2021, 22 MIN.

Inspired by the experiences of Tlingit artist Kiri Geen, this is the story of a young girl navigating the loss of her mother, reclaiming her Indigenous heritage, and becoming her true self.

Like the Ones I Used to Know ANNIE ST-PIERRE, CANADA, 2021, 18 MIN.

December 24, 1983, 10:50pm: everyone has had too much sugar, Santa Claus is late, and Denis, alone in his car, is anxious about setting foot in his ex-in-law’s house to pick up his kids.

The Mohel CHARLES WAHL, CANADA, 2020, 15 MIN.

Family expectations and financial strain force James to confront the transactional nature of religion, and the realities of maintaining old traditions in a modern world.

Short Forum

44

On Either Side

VIFF Short Forum: Programme 6 TOTAL RUNNING TIME: 78 MIN.

TOTAL RUNNING TIME: 79 MIN.

FRI, OCT 8 SAT, OCT 9 FRI, OCT 1-11

9:00 PM 4:00 PM

ANEX ANEX CONN

Ajjigiingiluktaaqtaugut (We Are All Different) LINDSAY MCINTYRE, CANADA, 2021, 17 MIN.

Using antique wind-up bears, layered animation, and analogue techniques, this animated documentary explores identity and belonging, by Inuit both inside and outside of community.

Big Things ERIC PETERSON, CANADA, 2021, 18 MIN.

An aspiring musician experiences the loss of his grandfather, annoying coworkers, and the anticipation of “big things.”

On Either Side ELISA JULIA GILMOUR, CANADA, 2021, 12 MIN.

A Torontonian of Corsican-Moroccan descent learns he must renew his late grandfather’s expired cemetery plot in Corsica. As he considers unearthing a cadaver, he contends with his own fears of displacement.

Personals SASHA ARGIROV, CANADA, 13 MIN

When an encounter at a glory hole sparks an unexpected connection, two socially anxious loners must risk vulnerability to find the intimacy they yearn for.

Twelve Hours PAUL SHKORDOFF, CANADA, 2021, 14 MIN.

Sequestered to the confines of a hotel room, an overworked healthcare worker struggles to find relief amidst the incessant demands of her day to day life.

Without You MINA SHUM, CANADA, 2020, 5 MIN.

A love letter to all the humans.

SAT, OCT 9 SUN, OCT 10 OCT 1-11

6:30 PM 4:00 PM

This year, we’re welcoming 15 emerging local filmmakers to enjoy an immersive introductory film festival experience.

The VIFF Catalyst mentorship program is designed to open doors and eliminate barriers for up-and-coming filmmakers, offering opportunities to those who are often under- or misrepresented in the film industry. Through exclusive, intimate sessions, our diverse cohort will develop a network of peers and mentors from Vancouver and beyond as part of their tailored festival experience.

Heavy Petting

VIFF Short Forum: Programme 5

Catalyst Program

ANEX ANEX CONN

We’re excited to include:

The Blactor RUKIYA BERNARD, CANADA, 2021, 14 MIN.

On her way to another demeaning audition for another stereotypical role, a Black actress is stopped by an undercover cop who believes she’s involved in a break and entry.

Anna Anaka

Mariam Barry

Kathleen Edwards

Jamuna Galay-Tamang

Jenny Lee-Gilmore

Mily Mumford

Natalie Murao

Sean Patterson

Hân Phạm

Rosie Pidcock

Rachel Rose

Morgan Strug

Ian Tan

Cole Vandale

Andrea Nirmala Widjajanto

chocolate CHARLENE MOORE, CANADA, 2021, 4 MIN.

A study of shedding away colonial patterns in order to find truth within the ways of life of one’s natural self.

Heavy Petting BRENDAN PROST, CANADA, 2020, 17 MIN.

An eerie, bifurcated character drama about a queer encounter between two lonely cat enthusiasts, and a macabre test of one’s social obscurity.

Meneath: The Hidden Island of Ethics TERRIL CALDER, CANADA, 2021, 20 MIN.

A young girl of mixed ancestry endures a challenging journey of self-discovery through an unflinching examination of the European and Indigenous ethics embedded inside her.

Prometheus MARIE FARSI, CANADA, 2020, 7 MIN.

This radical visual adaptation and re-imagining of the Greek myth recasts Prometheus as a woman and crafts a poem about resilience, the reclamation of the natural order, and of feminine power inside the patriarchy.

A Void DOMINIQUE VAN OLM, CANADA, 16 MIN

While working as a caretaker at an old concert hall one summer, an anxiety-prone young woman invites an otherworldly presence into her life.

Presented by

Supported by

45

Community Broadcast Partner

Supported by

Mare of Easttown: Directing Masterclass with Craig Zobel MONDAY, OCTOBER 4

5:00 PM

The Green Knight: Production Design Masterclass with Jade Healy VIFF CONNECT

MONDAY, OCTOBER 4

7:00 PM

VIFF CONNECT

Emmy-nominated director Craig Zobel has helmed multiple episodes of Westworld, The Leftovers, and American Gods, plus the feature films The Hunt and Z for Zachariah. Craig also directed the Emmy-nominated HBO crime drama Mare of Easttown. We’re excited to hear from Craig about shaping the look and feel of a crime show that leaves room for the human drama, shooting emotional and technically daunting scenes, and working with DOP Ben Richardson on letting character guide the shot styles.

Canadian award-winning production designer Jade Healy has created the look of some of our favourite films, including A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, Marriage Story, The Killing of a Sacred Deer, A Ghost Story, Pete’s Dragon, Mississippi Grind, and Ain’t Them Bodies Saints.

2021 sees her reunite with her frequent collaborator David Lowery on the visual masterpiece and epic fantasy adventure, The Green Knight. Come hear about Jade’s process in designing the look, feel, and shape of a fantasy realm.

GUEST

HOST

GUEST

HOST

Craig Zobel Director

Zach Lipovsky Director, Freaks

Jade Healy Production Designer

Sophie Jarvis Production Designer The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open

Presented by

Creator Talk: Sierra Teller Ornelas, Rutherford Falls TUESDAY, OCTOBER 5

5:00 PM

VIFF CONNECT

Sierra Teller Ornelas is the co-creator/showrunner/executive producer of the Peacock show Rutherford Falls which, when it aired during the pandemic, made Sierra the first Native American showrunner in history. The series is a Native-centred story with Native talent both in front of and behind the camera. Join us for a deep dive into Sierra’s process in creating a sitcom that breaks down Indigenous stereotypes through humor playing out on mainstream TV and running a writers’ room.

GUEST

HOST

Sierra Teller Ornelas Co-Creator/Showrunner

Duana Taha Writer/Producer

Supported by

Presented by ACFC WEST, LOCAL 2020 UNIFOR

The Suicide Squad: Editing Masterclass with Fred Raskin WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 6

2:30 PM

VIFF CONNECT

BAFTA-nominated editor Fred Raskin is best known for his collaborations with Quentin Tarantino (Once Upon a Time… In Hollywood, Kill Bill, The Hateful Eight), Justin Lin (The Fast and the Furious films), and James Gunn (Guardians of the Galaxy 1 and 2). The Suicide Squad is Fred’s most recent collaboration with Gunn. Fred will talk about how the story takes its final shape in the editing room, collaborating with directors, his favourite scenes from The Suicide Squad, and his advice to emerging editors.

GUEST

HOST

Fred Raskin Editor

Matthew Hannam Editor, Possessor

Presented by

You have skills.

The film industry has jobs.

goviff.org/plus

When you become a VIFF+ member, you help us share the power and joy of exceptional storytelling.

OURWORK

As a member, you’ll join a VIFF community of inspired film lovers and share experiences that extend beyond the theatre. Whether you see a few films or dozens of films each year, there is a membership level just for you.

.ca

Join Today!

47

Community Broadcast Partner

Supported by

Creator Talk: Jonas Poher Rasmussen, Flee WED, OCT 6

5:00 PM

VIFF Talk: Out of the Box: Stories That Transform Us CONN

Sundance Grand Jury Prize-winning Flee tells the personal story of Amin Nawabi as he grapples with a painful secret that threatens to derail the life he has built for himself and his husband-to-be. Through the animation of director Jonas Poher Rasmussen, Amin tells the story of his journey as a child refugee from Afghanistan. Jonas joins us to talk about how he blended animation and archive footage, blurred the line between documentary and narrative filmmaking styles, and his unique editing process.

WED, OCT 6

8:30 PM

Creator Talk: Julie Cohen, My Name Is Pauli Murray VCT

Director Corey Payette and guests discuss their journeys as changemakers pushing artistic boundaries while working in both the theatre and film sectors. The conversation will follow the world premiere screening of Stories That Transform Us by Urban Ink. GUEST

Corey Payette Director

THU, OCT 7

GUEST

Jonas Poher Rasmussen Director

Julie Cohen Director/Writer

THU, OCT 7

6:00 PM

VCT

We’re thrilled to screen Episode 1 of Global TV’s Family Law from creator/showrunner Susin Nielsen. The show follows a lawyer and recovering alcoholic struggling to put her career and family back together after hitting rock bottom. The result is a dysfunctional family law firm helping other families with their own dysfunctions. After the screening, the show’s writing team talk about their roles, breaking stories, and blending character drama and procedural elements to create a satisfying episode.

GUESTS

Susin Nielsen – Creator/Showrunner • Sonja Bennett – Writer/Supervising Producer • Jordan Hall – Writer/Junior Story Editor • Ken Craw – Writer/Supervising Producer • Miriam van Emst – Executive Producers’ and Writers’ Assistant • Sarah Dodd – Writer/Co-Executive Producer • Corey Liu – Writer/ Executive Story Editor HOST

Jennica Harper Co-Creator/Showrunner, Jann Supported by

The Many Saints of Newark: Directing Masterclass with Alan Taylor FRI, OCT 8

6:00 PM

HOST

Alan Taylor Director

Tim Southam Director The Good Doctor

Presented by

HOST

Kevin Eastwood Writer/Director British Columbia: An Untold History

Creator Talk: British Columbia: An Untold History FRI, OCT 8 CONN

Emmy-winning director Alan Taylor has helmed some of our favorite episodes from such shows as Game of Thrones, Mad Men, Boardwalk Empire, and, of course, The Sopranos, HBO’s landmark award-winning series. On October 1, Tony Soprano is back! The Many Saints of Newark debuts in theatres and is the much-anticipated movie prequel to The Sopranos with Alan Taylor directing. Watch the film and join us for a behindthe-scenes look Alan’s directing style and some of his favourite scenes.

GUEST

CONN

We’re thrilled to host Oscar-nominated filmmaker Julie Cohen to talk about her latest documentary, My Name Is Pauli Murray that was co-directed by Betsy West. The film is about the trailblazing LGBTQ and civil rights activist Pauli Murray. Told largely in Pauli’s own words, the film is a candid recounting of her unique and extraordinary journey as a pioneering attorney, activist, priest, and dedicated memoirist who shaped landmark litigation—and consciousness—around race and gender equity.

GUEST

Creator Talk: In the Writers’ Room with Family Law

3:00 PM

8:00 PM

VCT

British Columbia: An Untold History is an immersive four-part documentary series centred on retelling the history of British Columbia from a diverse and inclusive perspective by the people who lived it and those who have studied it. The project, commissioned by Knowledge Network, is led with a pluralistic and multi-narrative approach that highlights the history, the people, the rebels, and the dreamers that shaped this province. VIFF will premiere Episode 1, followed by a talk with the creative team.

GUESTS

HOST

Trish Dolman Executive Producer Kevin Eastwood Writer/Director Leena Minifie Producer

Naveen Girn Community Engagement Strategist

Presented by

Supported by

YOUR WORK INSPIRES OUR WORK WarnerMedia is here and interested in the stories you want to tell. Access Canada is present all across Canada to find talent like you.

Shape your story here.

WarnerMedia is a proud supporter of the Vancouver International Film Festival.

D O W NTO W N VA N C O U V E R

A PROUD SPONSOR OF THE VANCOUVER INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL

@downtownvan dtvan.ca

49

Community Broadcast Partner

Supported by

Detailing how indie creators guide their ambitious projects from the page to the screen, Totally Indie Day offers the next generation of filmmakers insights into how to employ both vision and resourcefulness.

The one-day conference is an opportunity to share stories, gain insights, and learn more about the art and business of cinema.

Case Study: Portraits From a Fire OCT 2

10:00 AM

CONN

Join us for a behind-the-scenes look at the the making of Portraits From a Fire, the debut feature of Tsilhqot’in filmmaker Trevor Mack. The film tells the story of a teenage boy on a reserve who fights through distorting realities as a family secret unravels. The film’s director, producer, cinematographer, and editor will share their experiences about the development, financing, and production of the feature, plus the importance of partnering the film’s key creatives with Indigenous talent.

PRESENTERS

Trevor Mack – Writer/Director • Kaayla Whachell – Cinematographer • Kate Kroll – Producer • Elad Tzadok – Editor • Rylan Friday – Producer Presented by

Opportunity Knocks: Below-the-line Talent OCT 2

1:30 PM

OCT 2

Ever driven by a film set and wondered, “who are all those people with walkie talkies?” The below-the-line (BTL) crew are involved with the day-to-day operations of getting a series made and are some of the most creative people on set! These are the folks turning the showrunners’ vision into a reality. Meet BTL talent from hit Warner Bros. shows as we discuss some specific careers in the industry, their roles in a production, collaborations with departments, and opportunities for career advancement.

PRESENTERS

Graysen Sangster – Assistant Location Manager, Superman & Lois • Maya Mani – Costume Designer, Batwoman • Erika Kumar – Program Manager, WarnerMedia Access to Action Canada • Marnie Gee – BC Film Commissioner + Director of Production Services • Roxanne Rejfek – 2nd AD, Superman & Lois • Amanda McGowan – Key Makeup Artist, DC’s Legends of Tomorrow Presented by

OCT 2

11:15 AM

CONN

Award-winning director Jim Cummings (Thunder Road, The Wolf of Snow Hollow) is a multi-hyphenate, having worked pretty much every job one can on a film set. He is an expert on crowdfunding and self-distribution, collaborative approaches to team building, and employing great DIY strategies to getting an indie film off the ground. His latest film, The Beta Test, co-written/co-directed with PJ McCabe, is a comedy thriller about the packaging fight between the agencies and the Writers Guild of America.

PRESENTERS

Jim Cummings – Writer/Director/Actor/Editor • PJ McCabe – Director/Writer/Actor • Albert Shin – Director, Together

/

Behind the Scenes of Cryptozoo CONN

Deep Dive: The Beta Test

2:45 PM

CONN

Indie Spirits OCT 2

4:00 PM

CONN

Dash Shaw is a cartoonist and animator whose latest feature, Cryptozoo, premiered at Sundance to rave reviews, won the NEXT Innovator Award, and continues to receive critical acclaim. The film features the voice talents of Lake Bell, Zoe Kazan, Michael Cera, and Louisa Krause, among others. We’re excited to hear Dash share his singular process of conceiving, writing, drawing, animating, voicing, and directing his psychedelic, groovy, and dazzling animated film, Cryptozoo.

From stories of immigration and spiritual journeys into the highlands of Harar to the drama of a young woman joining a scrap metal crew to pay for her education, our featured writer/ directors have unique perspectives that speak to bigger issues. They’ve risen to the challenge of debuting their films in a disrupted marketplace, earned multiple awards, and garnered critical acclaim along the way. We’re thrilled to chat with them about their process in bringing their stories to the screen.

PRESENTERS

PRESENTERS

Dash Shaw – Writer/Director • Ann Marie Fleming – Writer/ Director, Window Horses

Nicole Riegel – Writer/Director, Holler • Megan Park – Writer/ Director, The Fallout • Jessica Beshir – Writer/Director, Faya dayi • Nana Mensah – Writer/Director, Queen of Glory •Curtis Woloschuk – Associate Director of Programming, VIFF

We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada and Canada’s private radio broadcasters. Nous reconnaissons l’appui financier du gouvernement du Canada et des radiodiffuseurs privés du Canada.

51

Community Broadcast Partner

Supported by

Expanding the festival experience beyond the cinema screen, VIFF Immersed showcases the power of XR technology. Immerse yourself in exceptional virtual and augmented reality stories from around the globe, available for free across six online platforms as part of the VIFF Immersed Exhibition. In addition, the VIFF Immersed XR Market provides a platform for XR creators to connect with industry leaders, distributors, investors, producers, and executives to accelerate the next wave of immersive storytelling.

XR Market The VIFF Immersed XR Market connects top XR creators and industry leaders with their colleagues from around the globe. Hosted at the Museum of Other Realities, the Market features a showcase of live-action, documentary, and animated VR/AR content from the next wave of XR creators. Selected artists are given the opportunity to pitch their projects in front of investors, distributors, producers, and curators, as well as compete for the VIFF Immersed Grant.

Presented by

Produced by

Exhibition The VIFF Immersed Exhibition honours VR and AR storytelling at its finest. Transport yourself to other worlds from the comfort of your home, with cinematic live-action, animation, documentaries, and cuttingedge virtual reality and augmented reality.

Held across six online platforms, this is one of the most widely accessible festival programs for XR. Included are the finalists from the Immersed Competition and content produced in British Columbia, home to the second largest XR ecosystem in the world.

Baba Yaga

Beat

Namoo

The Passengers: The Kit

dir. Eric Darnell (United States) Canadian Premiere

dir. Keiskuke Itoh (Japan) Canadian Premiere

dir. Erick Oh (United States) Canadian Premiere

dir. Ziah Touma (Canada) Canadian Premiere

Red Eyes

Uku Pacha

Hydrocosmos

Symphony VR

dir. Sngmoo Lee (Republic of Korea) North American Premiere

dir. Diego Bonilla (Ecuador) World Premiere

dir. Milad Tangshir (Italy) North American Premiere

dir. Igor Cortadellas (Spain) North American Premiere

Inside COVID19

Don’t Forget Me

Mission to Mars AR

Crime Door: The Delphi Murders

dir. Gary Yost (United States) B.C. Premiere

dirs. George Brent, Ken Winikur (United States) B.C. Premiere

dirs. Piotr Baczyński, Bartosz Rosłoński (United States) North American Premiere

dir. Neil Mandt (United States) World Premiere

A New Normal

Chord VR dir. Ryan Atimoyoo (Canada) Canadian Premiere

Awaken the Giants: Sinisteria & Shrek

Jingle Ville

dir. Asavari Kumar (India/United States) World Premiere

JURORS

Valerie Creighton – President and CEO, Canada Media Fund Jenni Ogden – Chief Operating Officer and Co-Founder of 4D FüN, Inc. and President, Executive Producer of Eye Q Productions Loc Dao – Executive Director, DigiBC Alton Glass – CEO, Storyteller, GRX Immersive Labs Eric Cheng – Immersive Media Lead, Facebook Reality Labs Alexey Marfin – Film Director Loretta Todd – Creative Director, IM4 Tamara Shogaolu – Founder, Creative Director, Ado Ato Pictures Jingshu Chen – Co-Founder, VeeR Exhibition pieces will be available to view through Oculus TV, VeeR VR, Museum of Other Realities, SideQuest, rad., Kreis Immersive and YouTube VR between October 1–11, 2021. Further instructions on how to access content on each platform will be provided on viff.org closer to the Exhibition opening.

Curated by

dir. Julianna Loh (Canada) World Premiere | BC Showcase

dir. Julianna Loh (Canada) World Premiere | BC Showcase

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The VIFF AMP summit covers every angle of screen music, from composition to artist management to having your songs featured in film, TV, advertising, and gaming. Composers, music supervisors, managers, filmmakers, and students are given the opportunity to step up their film music game with pro tips, case studies, and networking opportunities through a program of masterclasses, Q&A’s, panel discussions, and music showcases.

Supported by

AMP Opening Keynote: Linda Perry OCT 8 OCT 8

2:00 PM 2:00 PM

VCT CONN

PRESENTERS

Aamina Gant – Music Supervisor, Salt-N-Pepa, Love Island • Janine Scalise Boyd – Music Supervisor • Evelin Garcia – Music Director, Reminiscence, Godzilla vs. Kong, Peter Rabbit 2 • Everton Lewis, Jr. – Music Supervisor, Anyone’s Game, Yo! MTV Raps, All or Nothing • Rob Calder – AMP Program Curator • Tony Scudellari – Senior VP Television Music, Sony Pictures Entertainment

Presented by

2:00 PM 2:00 PM

VCT CONN

Hosted by Tarun Nayar (Delhi 2 Dublin, Snakes x Ladders, 5X Festival), we return to this popular panel with a new group of artists who will share their experiences on how they have successfully made the crossover from the pop world to working in music for media: Dean “DC” Charles (J Cole, Patti LaBelle, Raphael Saadiq), Dan “The Automator” Nakamura (Gorillaz, Deltron 3030, Dr. Octagon) and Isa Summers (Florence and The Machine).

PRESENTERS

Isa Summers – Songwriter, Composer, Little Fires Everywhere, Physical, Sex/Life • Dan “The Automator” Nakamura – Producer, Composer, Engineer, and DJ, Booksmart, and Always Be My Maybe • Dean “DC” Charles – Composer, Producer, The Boondocks, CSI: Miami • Tarun Nayar – Manager, Artist, Snakes x Ladders

Community Broadcast Partner

Presented by Music BC, SOUNDOFF is a platform for our most promising local musicians with a focus on song placement and sync licensing in film and TV. Local artists perform songs and connect with music supervisors at this expansive yet intimate live gathering.

OCT 9 OCT 9

What do P!nk, Celine Dion, Alicia Keys, James Blunt, Christina Aguilera, Adele, and Gwen Stefani all have in common? All have recorded songs by the legendary Linda Perry. Perry has also composed songs and musical scores for film and television. AMP is honoured to open our weekend of programming with a one-onone conversation between this musical icon and Producers Lounge creative director Jane Aurora to go over Perry’s career and do a deep dive into her working process.

Linda Perry – Producer, Songwriter • Jane Aurora – Producer, Musician

MUSIC BC’s SOUNDOFF

AMP’s Stages to Screens: The Sequel

AMP Masterclass: The Music for “Daughter of a Lost Bird” OCT 10 OCT 10

2:00 PM 2:00 PM

VCT CONN

A look inside the process of creating the evocative score for the film Daughter of a Lost Bird with director Brooke Pepion Swaney and composer Laura Ortman. Swaney and Ortman will share their process of working together and the importance of cultural identity and sensitivity in creating a film about personal discovery in the context of Indigenous culture.

PRESENTERS

Laura Ortman – Composer, Daughter of a Lost Bird • Brooke Pepion Swaney – Director, Daughter of a Lost Bird • Tony Scudellari – Senior VP Television Music, Sony Pictures Entertainment • Rob Calder – AMP Program Curator

PRESENTERS

AMP’s The Art of Composition: Scoring Epically OCT 10 OCT 10

4:00 PM 4:00 PM

VCT CONN

In 2021, how do we define superheroes and how does a composer score a superhero project to reflect this new era? Scoring a superhero project has its unique set of challenges and opportunities. Moderated by composer and Sound Composers Guild of Canada Vice President Adrian Ellis, Natalie Holt (Loki) and Laura Karpman (What If…?, Lovecraft Country) will share what it means to score epically in today’s world of film and television.

PRESENTERS

Laura Karpman – Composer, Ask Your Mama, What If...?, Lovecraft Country • Natalie Holt – Composer, Loki • Adrian Ellis – Composer, Vice President, SCGC • Nora Kroll Rosenbaum – Composer, Bird Karma, Lenny, Stockholm Pennsylvania

AMP’s The Art of Music Supervision: Theatrical Trailers OCT 9 OCT 9

4:00 PM 4:00 PM

VCT CONN

Did you know that music supervision for theatrical trailers requires an approach vastly different from music supervision for the film and television world? Learn about the process, including sound design and what music supervisors for trailers look for when choosing music.

Our panel will have three of the top talents in the business of theatrical trailer music supervision: Disney’s Brian Vickers, SILO Music’s Reuben Sears, and Wild Card’s Evelin Garcia.

PRESENTERS

Evelin Garcia – Music Director, Reminiscence, Godzilla vs. Kong, Peter Rabbit 2 • Reuben Sears – SVP, Trailers and Promos, SILO Music • Brian Vickers – Music Supervisor, Walt Disney Studios • Tony Scudellari – Senior VP Television Music, Sony Pictures Entertainment

AMP Closing Keynote: Laura Karpman OCT 10 OCT 10

7:30 PM 7:30 PM

VCT CONN

VIFF AMP closes our programming with a conversation about music and culture with Vancouver Symphony Orchestra President and CEO Angela Elster and Grammy and Emmy Award-winning composer Laura Karpman. Karpman’s music is on the cutting edge of various musical genres (film and television scoring, symphonic music, opera, jazz, and pop) and she has been one of the leaders in the fight for greater diversity and inclusion in the entertainment industry.

PRESENTERS

Laura Karpman – Composer, Ask Your Mama, What If...?, Lovecraft Country • Angela Elster – President and CEO, Vancouver Symphony Orchestra

Buy tickets and read full film descriptions at viff.org

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FIÈRE DE PROMOUVOIR ET DE FAIRE RAYONNER LES TALENTS CANADIENS ET LEURS HISTOIRES AU PAYS COMME À L’ÉTRANGER. TÉLÉFILM EST AU CŒUR DE L’INDUSTRIE AUDIOVISUELLE CANADIENNE. A PROUD CHAMPION OF CANADIAN TALENT AND STORIES, AT HOME AND ABROAD. TELEFILM IS AT THE HEART OF THE CANADIAN AUDIOVISUAL INDUSTRY.

TELEFILM.CA