The Official Selections for the 19th annual VISFF!
Join us for an exciting evening celebrating some of the best short films from around the world!
Program One: March 22nd Screening Details
Time: Doors at 6:30, Screening at 7:00.
Venue: in-person and online at Malaspina Theatre.
Tickets: Individual Program & Full Festival Passes available here.
Program One will feature live and pre-recorded Q&A’s with featured filmmakers and live music, (alcoholic and nonalcoholic) beverages and popcorn to enjoy during the pre-show and intermission. Be sure to bring some cash to grab a slice from Nanaimo’s best pizza place, Mambos Gourmet Pizza, and a drink during intermission.
Death & Ramen (Tiger Ji, USA)
On his final night alive, a ramen chef goes on an unintended late night odyssey with the Grim Reaper. They share a bowl of noodles and discover what it means to be human. This short features Bobby Lee (Reservation Dogs, Mad TV) and Matt Jones (Breaking Bad, Community, The Office).
THE SPRAYER (Farnoosh Abedi, Iran)
In the land occupied with the sprayers army, no one has the right to grow any kind of plants either in public or private. One day one of the soldiers finds a seed buried deep down in the dust. His curiosity is just the beginning of something extraordinary, something big, something revolutionary.
The Breakthrough (Daniel Sinclair, USA)
Jane and Teddy are on the brink of divorce – but when their marital problems come to a sticking point, they have an unexpected breakthrough. This short features performances by Golden Globe Nominee Greta Lee (Past Lives, The Morning Show, Russian Doll) and Ben Sinclair (High Maintenance, Poker Face, Thor: Love and Thunder)
Mystic Tiger (Marc Martinez Jordan, USA)
After the accident, nothing has ever been the same.
27 (Flóra Anna Buda, France)
Alice is 27 years old today. Even though she is suffocating a bit, she still lives with her parents and tends to live in her dreams to escape her dreary everyday life. After a psychedelic party on a factory roof, she has a serious drunken bike accident. Will this give her the courage to become an adult?
The Steak (Kiarash Dadgar Mohebi, Iran)
A birthday ceremony preparation gets upside down as something horrible takes place.
The Gold Teeth (Alireza Kazemipour, BC, Canada)
Sahra, an Afghan refugee in Canada arrives at Iranian ex-Dentist, Hamed’s doorstep for help extracting her late father’s gold teeth before they bury him.
CHICKEN (Lucy Mcnulty, Emma Pollard, BC, Canada)
When Sam splits up with her partner, she is forced to move back into her childhood home with her mother and neurodivergent brother. When depression sinks in, her brother Emmett gets in her face trying to cheer her up and in doing so makes everything worse. But when Emmett is confronted with a situation at a baseball game where he is called a chicken, Sam rises to the challenge to come to his aid and is reminded of what is truly important.
Chicken features a neurodivergent cast and crew and is written and directed by women.
Reflection (Cameo Wood, USA)
A 911 call thrusts Elliot into a scene of violence and destruction and they find themselves making the ultimate sacrifice.
The Dog – A Rapidly Condensed Guide to Treading Water (Michael Makaroff, BC, Canada)
An underwriter recounts his career in body part insurance sales in an attempt to affirm his life choices.
Program Two: March 23rd Screening Details
Time: Doors at 6:30, Screening at 7:00.
Venue: in-person and online at Malaspina Theatre.
Tickets: Individual Program & Full Festival Passes available here.
Program Two will feature live and pre-recorded Q&A’s with featured filmmakers and live music, (alcoholic and nonalcoholic) beverages and popcorn to enjoy during the pre-show and intermission. Be sure to bring some cash to grab a slice from Nanaimo’s best pizza place, Mambos Gourmet Pizza, and a drink during intermission. Program Two will conclude with the Goldie Awards Ceremony!
Chat Mort (Annie-Claude Caron, Danick Audet, QC, Canada)
What were Catherine and Louis thinking when they chose a cat with distinctive white spots? It would have been much easier to replace if they had picked the all-back one! Now, they will have to tell their daughter Sophie that Nugget’s dead. Unless…
FÁR (Gunnur Martinsdóttir Schlüter, Iceland)
A bird hits a window of a café and disrupts its customers. A woman faces a decision on whether to ignore nature or to react.
Ah Boy Yah!!! (Gerald Ng, BC, Canada)
After returning from his studies abroad, Ah Boy finds himself in a sea of questions from his fellow relatives, with each additional question steamrolling into an absurd mob consisting of relatives, cashiers, news anchors, and the paparazzi to name a few. This builds up to a crescendo where everyone swarms into his home. The realization of the inevitability of questions remains, as the mob stares patiently at Ah Boy. Wanting to know if Ah Boy is the successful boy that they want him to be.
The Girl with the Red Beret (Janet Perlman, QC, Canada)
A girl takes a wild ride on the metro in Montreal. Traveling from station to station, she encounters an array of colourful characters in a bizarre musical journey that’s peppered with hilarious and unexpected incidents. This joyful, heartwarming animated film portrays Montreal in all its vitality, creativity and diversity, with plenty of humour and good cheer, to the tune of Kate and Anna McGarrigle’s timeless hit “Complainte pour Ste-Catherine.”
Groove, Slam, Work It Back (Amélia Simard, BC, Canada)
Groove, Slam, Work It Back gives a glimpse into Sayla and Ishi’s grief, as they meet at Sayla’s mother’s for the new year. They prepare to watch the sunset by dressing in colourful outfits, having a dance party and poking fun at each other. However, when it comes the time to talk about Sayla’s late sister, simultaneously Ishi’s late girlfriend, they have conflicting approaches. As Sayla continuously withholds information, Ishi prods to know more about the sisters’ mystery tradition.
When everything comes to a head, who decides the best way to grieve? Through their interactions, Ishi and Sayla learn to be more patient with each other and look ahead to this journey of mixed memories and shared joy.
Cranberry Juice (Rebeca Spiegel, BC, Canada)
After a threesome proposal, Beatrix drinks cranberry juice non-stop hoping it will improve her sexual life.
Lupe Q and the Galactic Corn Cake (Javier Badillo, BC, Canada)
When Lupe gets stuck in space, she uses her abuela’s cooking lessons to kick alien butt.
The last thing Lupe wants right now is to get cooking lessons from her abuela. She has enough with her music skills – notorious for shattering stuff with her epic punk rock loudness. But Abuela Josefina has the final word – her wisdom may save Lupe’s life, sooner or later. So when Lupe and her band are stuck battling a monstrous creature in outer space, as one is bound to eventually, Abuela’s lessons finally remind Lupe that connecting to her Latin roots is important, and punk rock is more than just loud music.
Nalujuk Night (Jennie Williams, NL, Canada)
Nalujuk Night is an up close look at an exhilarating, and sometimes terrifying, Labrador Inuit tradition. Every January 6th from the dark of the Nunatsiavut night, the Nalujuit appear on the sea ice. They walk on two legs, yet their faces are animalistic, skeletal, and otherworldly. Snow crunches underfoot as they approach their destination: the Inuit community of Nain.
Despite the frights, Nalujuk Night is a beloved annual event, showing that sometimes it can be fun to be scared. Rarely witnessed outside of Nunatsiavut, this annual event is an exciting chance for Inuit, young and old, to prove their courage and come together as a community to celebrate culture and tradition.
Inuk filmmaker Jennie Williams brings audiences directly into the action in this bone-chilling black and white short documentary about a winter night like no other.
Soleil de nuit (Fernando Lopez Escriva, Maria Camila Arias, QC, Canada)
During an astronaut training in an abandoned open-pit mine, a crew of Canadian astronauts is interrupted by an Atikamekw elder. They ask him to leave, as they are training for an important mission to the moon. The elder hesitates, but decides to leave on one condition: the astronauts must deliver a sacred message to the spirits of his community on the moon.