Vancouver International Film Festival: Shorts Lineup

Afterglow is a sensorial movie about finding the joy of living again.

Pulitzer-prize winning Journalist, Author and Activist Chris Hedges, discusses modern day consumerism, totalitarian corporate power and living in a culture dominated by pervasive illusion.

As a young child our protagonist is left by his mother and has to live with his violent father. He fights his way through adolescence and falls in love with the woman of his dreams and just as everything seems to be finally working out for him, a sudden event changes the course of his life forever. A story about how everything we love, everything we learn, everything we build, everything we fear, will one day be gone.

"Once upon a time, before people came along, all the creatures were free and able to be with one another", narrates the voiceover. "All the animals danced together and were immeasurably happy. There was only one who wasn't invited to the celebration - the frog. In his rage about the injustice, he committed suicide." Something Romani and frogs have in common is that they will never be unseen, or stay unnoticed. In her film, young director Leonor Teles weaves the life circumstance of Romani in Portugal today with the recollections of a yesterday. Anything but a passive observer, Teles consciously decides to participate and take up position. As a third pillar, she establishes an active applied performance art that becomes integrated in the cinematic narrative. Thereby transforming "once upon a time" into "there is". "Afterwards, nothing will be as it was and the melody of life will have changed", explains a voice off-camera.

A woman secretly starts taking skateboarding lessons from a handsome teenager to avoid dealing with the problems in her marriage.

When Sam, a woman mired in regret, goes to visit her aged parents, the disappearance of her mother's pet bird threatens to unravel her tenuous hold on life.

A portrait of the exotic bird-trade industry.

Escaping city life, a young man takes a trip to a remote cabin - only to discover that something ominous may be lurking close by.

A Journey by train through the beautiful landscape of Switzerland with scenes of the starry night skies of some of the most beautiful Alpine regions.

Two drag queens move through the city on a night of debauchery, insight, and revenge.

A young woman returns to her home town after the death of her father. As a single daughter, she must empty the house of her father, who was a compulsive accumulator (or hoarder). She will then revisit, through the various stacks of objects, the life of her father, trying to find out what her specific place is among this multitude of memories.

A man is drawn into the footsteps of the historic Haitian slave leader; Mackandal. Following a man trapped in a curse which started centuries ago, this modern fable folds accounts of the past with the resilience of the present.

A high school hustler is bullied by a basketball star into doing his schoolwork until his hard work yields surprising results for both of them.

In this horror fantasy, a supernatural force helps a girl fight back against a group of bullies and a dark creature that haunts her.

Little Genti wants a puppy. He expresses his wish at the family gathering, after his Roma coeval Xeni shows at the door, with his stray dog friend Aaj. This brings up a fired up discussion among the grown ups. After a quick disapproval, discussion changes its path into a clash of generations, conflict between traditional beliefs and new contemporary way of life. Ignored by grownups and despite his mother's disapproval, Genti joins Xeni and Aja on the street, continuing to find his new puppy-friend.

Find Fix Finish delves into the stories of three US-Drone pilots revealing the clandestine operational strategies practiced by the US Government.

What Stela's parents don't suspect is that her goldfish isn't her only pet. The others, however, appear only when the house is flooded.

After several years together William and Cecilie breaks up. To treat the sorrow with love the same night they decide to do the drug, MDMA, together. This results in a emotional rollercoaster ride for better or worse over a whole weekend, where they're isolated together in their apartment.

Terrance is told that his ex-girlfriend is pregnant with his child during the infamous full moon party in Thailand. We follow him through the night and into the early morning as he wrestles with the notion of becoming a father.

A new kid in town tests the limits at the high school basketball tryouts.

Teresa, a young nun, wants to explore her sexuality before taking her final vows and committing to a lifetime of celibacy.

Two sisters navigating the no man's land between childhood and adulthood have to deal with the consecuences of their actions after one of the horses of their farm loses one eye.

A First Nations boy struggles to deal with the death of his grandmother, but finds a connection with her through an old VHS camcorder.

Behind a green screen, a foreigner finds his way in an enchanting - and yet turbulent - Brazil.