Official Selections

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Free Range

Before a long road trip back to the city, retired teacher Dave Jeffery is tasked with capturing four bullying roosters from the family chicken coop for drop-off at the butchery. Dave enlists the help of his children who, sensing disaster, take it upon themselves to create an impromptu documentary of the ordeal. What starts as a simple chroniclization unfolds into a daylong misa

Hope

This year has been tough. The clock keeps ticking and bills need to be paid. This is a unique look at persistence in times of hardship and the absurdity of societal norms.

A Certain Texture

Alex Unger, aka ELMS, lives a double life: he creates haunting music, and farms cattle. In this short, he explores how one influences the other, what drives his art, and how one of these lifestyles is more of a privilege than he thought.

Snug

Exhausted, Mark is ready to throw it all in, move to Mexico or take up a hobby. In his particularly niche and unusal profession he seems to be endlessly giving to those in his tiny, northern island community. We follow him through his last night on the job - comforting those most in need. As he ponders his path to a different life, he learns that perhaps he has as much to gain

Play the Field

A young woman describes what it was like to fall in love in the locker room with her classmates. A rock song ensues as they fumble through romance and sports.

Wheels of Life

"...Free, free like a bird!"

Wheels of Life is a short documentary that covers a single summer day in the lives of three long-term care residents as they enjoy a bit of freedom on an adaptive bicycle built for two.

Legacy Voices

Elderly members of the Halton community share their experiences as some of the first Black people to live in Ontario’s Halton Region.

BEST BITCHES FOREVER

It's Katherine's birthday and, as a surprise, her girlfriend Alex takes the staff of a restaurant hostage. The two women then argue over how to use their psychic powers.

Influenced

Influenced - Social media star Rose is thrilled with her boyfriend’s beautiful Christmas gift until her followers throw its origins into dark doubt as she live-streams an unfortunate Christmas Dinner

Falling In

Based on Danielle Braund’s experience, FALLING IN is the story of Kailey, a struggling artist who returns to her small town, at the request of her father, Jim.

Both have secrets, and today is the day they open up.

As Kailey and Jim reveal their true selves, they create the space needed to start a new relationship. One based on honesty, acceptance, and love.

Confinée

Contained

Léanne is in confinement at home, far from Gabrielle.

A tempo

In music, the return to the original movement. Reflections on the rhythm of childhood and parenthood from birth.

Even the Greats

A taxidermied hawk appears as bandleader Elliot C. Way stumbles upon writing the ultimate song. The hawk helps unite musicians across the city to perform the piece while evading a pesky cop duo who are hot on his tail.

La petite mort

The little death

Leo goes out on a date not knowing that he is walking directly into a trap.

Tulips are my father's favourite flower

Wisemen, God, and Wednesday

Samwise and Stevie grew up homeless in BC and Nova Scotia. Ianos is a gender-queer Greek. Kwaku is a single father who came from extreme poverty and famine. Featuring a juxtaposition of sound and imagery, "Wisemen, God, and Wednesday" is a sketch of these characters' intimate commentaries on life as they see it.

A Safe Distance

Alex, a woman in her thirties, and Kianna, an eighteen-year-old girl, trudge through the British Columbian forest. Both women are splattered with blood. They find a beautiful river and take the moment to rest and wash away the blood. The two women commiserate on their experiences with men as they make their way out of the woods.

Dadaji/Ode

Dadaji/Ode is a video tribute to poems written by Roshni Kashap and Anjalica Soloman. The video lays the poets’ family photos over people’s silhouettes. The ghostly visuals capture the feeling of memories that live inside us the way we carry our loved ones with us even after they are gone.

Small Bites

Home Cooking

Days Like These

Days Like These is an animated piece that celebrates dance in the midst of a global pandemic. Visually challenging and exciting, we watch a lone dancer whose image is constantly changing. Exploring tension and anxiety, it is story of the difficulty in overcoming the very natural desire to touch someone - to make contact when this is now unsafe.

Reflected

After a young woman loses someone important in her life, she struggles to find the happiness she once had.

Hesar

Hesar (Gate)

Hesar (Gate)

The music video is the backdrop to the song Hesar, a persian flamenco exploration of themes around immegeration, uprooting and planting roots in a new land, belonging and nostalgia. Farnaz explores her journey from Iran to Candada tackling mental health issues along the way.

Ho.Me

Ho.Me is a short dance film that explores themes of belonging, comfort and discomfort in relation to the notion of inhabiting the body. The piece is comprised of three portraits of individuals who live in very different bodies linked together through a loose narrative.

Asteroid Season

In a lonesome frozen land, a feisty hermit lives a charmed life. When an enormous asteroid arrives overhead, her sheltered reality will face a cosmic shake-up.

Caught Dead-Handed Redux

A true-crime documentary crew interviews various people intimate to a shocking murder as the behind the scenes production unravels into the absurd.

Redux Edition has an alternate (and the script's original) ending.

That Thing You Did

Llyn's coworkers react to the news of her being fired by changing their expressive face masks.

Fish Bone

Sue Sada Was Here

An experimental film that turns written texts Muriel Kitagawa (1912–1974) into scores of physical movement. Kitagawa’s editorial writing and unpublished manuscripts speak to the pre- and post-war periods in Vancouver, particularly the injustices of the Canadian government’s policies towards Japanese and Japanese Canadians.

Think of You

Terror Fervor

Terror Fervor follows seven different characters through a psychedelic dystopia. This wasteland echos the past and future of loss and abandon. Each character holds their vices tightly to them as they sway and morph from space to space. A warning tale of the dangers of malaise and malicious behaviors. Overconsumption, brainwashing, murder! But also beautiful colors and sounds.

The Curtain

The Curtain: Two hospitalized strangers develop an unlikely friendship by revealing painful, intimate details about their lives through the safety and anonymity of the room's curtain divider. They bond through grief and humour, encouraging one another to make brave choices that hold personal consequences.

B-Side

B-Side is the Coming of Age story of 17-year old Mal, who when invited into a group of female skateboarders, is challenged to face her longtime, repressed fear of getting back on the board. She ends up falling for Britt, a skater, who tries to help her overcome her affliction. Forced to confront the grief of the loss of her father, a once legendary Pro Skateboarder, Mal must de

Raven Steals the Light

Raven is the craftiest of all creatures. In this live action/animation, Raven steals the light of the world, pursued by his nemesis who wants to keep it all for himself.

Dépression saisonnière

Seasonal Depression

Elisa doesn't want to go out. Vincent doesn't hear it that way.

Pierre St. Denis

Unofficial Selection

A con-artist is introduced to a new form of deception. A swimmer breaks into a pool. A wedding is rudely interrupted. An interview takes an odd turn.

Silence

Silence is a short film celebrating the raw beauty of the Canadian Rockies in winter. Featuring a quote from one of the most influential landscape photographers in history, reminding us that it's important to sometimes put our cameras away and mindfully experience a moment for ourselves.

Rage Monster

A little girl struggles to understand her uncontrollable anger.

Don't Die

Montreal based doom pop band NOBRO go for a stroll through a haunted graveyard. What could go wrong?

Skipping Stones

A portrait of a boy growing to a man, expressing his struggles and frustrations through the simple act of skipping a stone.

Girl And A Polar Bear

A convenience store worker is having a rough night when she is greeted by a very unusual customer.

voice memo 9

Annie, Alicia and Michelle are three friends who have a picnic then a walk in a stretch of urban forest behind Annie's house. They encounter food hazards, bugs, dogs and shaky bridges on their little exploration, and with this- interesting reactions come about. Michelle records these reactions and her iphone saves them under the name "voice memo 9".

Exercises in Being Close to You: A Story for the Arctic Refuge

Exercises in Being Close to You: A Story for the Arctic Refuge

In this experimental documentary a group of hikers travel through Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in hopes of intercepting the Porcupine Caribou migration. Documentary footage is intercut with experimental vignettes — exercises to rethink our relationship to the land and animals we hope to protect.