L'angle mort d'une hirondelle

In 1896, three survivors of a whaling ship-wreck in the Canadian Arctic are saved and adopted by an Eskimo tribe but frictions arise when the three start misbehaving.

After her grandfather's death, 20-year-old Alma decides to go back to her childhood home - a little island in the heart of the majestic Canadian forest. Whilst there, she rescues two helpless cubs: a wolf and a lion. They forge an inseparable bond, but their world soon collapses as the forest ranger discovers the animals and takes them away. The two cub brothers must now embark on a treacherous journey across Canada to be reunited with one another and Alma once more.

The only thing colder than a Canadian winter is Canadian bureaucracy (probably). Based on five real life stories, Romy Boutin St-Pierre and Joe Nadeau pay homage to the nation-wide stress headache of phone calls with the government in this surprising short.

The story of the first cloned human being - told in her own words: At the age of thirty the world-famous composer Iris Sellin learns that she has an incurable illness. She - a person who wanted to live for ever - does however not give in. In order to preserve her art and also herself, beyond death, for all posterity, she has herself cloned. Her daughter Siri, whom, in this way, she turns into her virtual twin, learns as a child that she is the world's first cloned human being. In fact a blueprint: a blueprint of her mother. From that moment on nothing is as it was before...

Marcos, an independent film and video editor, works editing late into the night. On a typical night at work, he has a seizure that causes him to lose consciousness. Upon waking up, he discovers that his way of perceiving life has changed in such a way that he now lives everything and sees it in the same way as a cinematographic montage.

A short, three minute documentary exploring audio recordings from the year 1894 to 1922, layered over home-footage from the year 1920 to 1985, as an indulgent social-commentary on our collective human experience as well as a testament to the everlasting nature of art.

The Story of Mouseland was a story first told by Clarence Gillis, and later and most famously by Tommy Douglas, leader of the Saskatchewan Co-operative Commonwealth Federation that became the New Democratic Party of Canada, both social democratic parties. It was a political fable expressing the CCF's view that the Canadian political system was flawed in offering voters a false dilemma: the choice of two parties, neither of which represented their interests.

This documentary reveals the impacts of the Sixties Scoop, a period in which a series of Canadian policies enabled child welfare authorities to take, or “scoop up,” Indigenous children from their families and communities for placement in white foster homes. Explore Indigenous resilience through narrative sovereignty as experienced through the Little Bird series’ Indigenous creatives, cast, crew & community members.

Salamander Days is an atmospheric meditation on friendship, grief, self-discovery, and adolescent consciousness. Set in an American high school, taking place in the midst of a student’s passing, and deeply rooted in the mythology of the salamander, the film explores the concepts of memory and creation, as well as the transformative experience of loss.

Darkness and light, as seen by VIFF’s favourite Buddhist erotist. Part of the TOKYO LOOP animation anthology produced by ImageForum Japan.

In an effort to understand where she came from, Fabiola asked a question that became the central phrase of the film: what would my life have been like if I'd stayed in Haiti? Taking as her starting point her biological mother's precarious economic situation, she had no choice but to entrust her daughter to her care. Fabiola could have ended up restavek, or in a loving foster family, or on the streets abandoned to her fate, or adopted abroad.

Bill Ramsbottom sells his English pub and drags his family off to Canada where he has inherited a ranch from his grandfather Wild Bill Ramsbottom. He ends up tangling with outlaw Black Jake, an Indian chief Blue Eagle, and the local law.

A vlogger whose life is seemingly controlled by an unknown presence begins to spiral as he falls further into surrealism and imaginary worlds.

When the body of the executive of hockey Benoit Brisset is found on the billboard of the border of Quebec and Ontario, the jurisdiction of the crime is shared between the two police forces and detectives David Bouchard from Montreal and Martin Ward from Toronto are assigned to work together. With totally different styles, attitudes and languages.

The artist stalks and serenades Joe Dimaggio in her car as he strolls the docks unaware that she is videotaping his every step.

Em Branco

Experimental filmmaker Rubén Gámez explores the iconography of the maguey plant in Mexican cinematic history.

An actress finds herself trapped by an algorithm that hijacks extracts from her films for distribution on porn sites. After months with no help from anyone, she decides to regain control of her own story, using her imagination to heal and reclaim her identity.

An Experimental Film about Manchester's "Great Flood". In July 1872, Manchester's River Medlock overflowed its banks due to heavy and continuous rains, resulting in the "Great Flood." The flood severely damaged areas around the River Medlock, with parts of Ancoats and Hulme being particularly affected.

By light, or lack thereof, and sound, or lack thereof, I’ve tried to disassociate and then return to find something strange in the most familiar.