VTIFF film schedule october 20th-22nd

Monday, October 20

1:00 PM Hedda at Film House

Hedda, a newlywed thrill-seeker, throws an extravagant party in the hopes of helping her husband receive a professorship. However, a lover from her past appears, and disrupts this event.

1:15 PM Timestamp at Black Box

Following teachers and students across Ukraine over the course of a school year, Kateryna Gornostai captures their evolving relationships with the current conflict.

2:00 PM Walk With Me at The Screening Room

a personal documentary about director Heidi Levitt's husband, Charlie Hess, and their journey navigating his early-onset Alzheimer's diagnosis.

3:30 PM Sound of Falling at Film House

Four girls, Alma, Erika, Angelika, and Lenka, each spend their youth on the same farm in northern Germany. As the home evolves over a century, echoes of the past linger in its walls. Though separated by time, their lives begin to mirror each other.

4:00 PM The Librarians at Black Box

The film follows the resistance of librarians against extremist-fueled book bans that have targeted them for stocking books on race, gender, and sexuality.

7:00 PM The Little Sister at Film House

Fatima, 17, the youngest of three daughters, treads carefully as she searches for her own path, grappling with emerging desires, her attraction to women, and her loyalty to her caring French-Algerian family. Starting university in Paris, she dates, makes friends, and explores a whole new world, all while confronting a timeless and heartrending dilemma: How can one stay true to oneself when reconciling different parts of one’s identity feels impossible?

7:15 PM Home Is the Ocean at Black Box

A Swiss couple and their six children have been sailing around the globe, conducting field research, inspiring Enviromental awareness, and living aboard a small boat for 25 years. 

Tuesday, October 21

1:15 PM Resurrection at Film House

In a world where humanity has lost the ability to dream, one creature remains entranced by the fading illusions of the dreamworld. This monster, adrift in reverie, clings to visions no one else can see—until a woman appears. Gifted with the rare power to perceive these illusions for what they truly are, she chooses to enter the monster’s dreams, determined to uncover the truth that lies hidden within.

1:30 PM Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk at Black Box

Corresponding with the 25-year-old Palestinian journalist, Fatma Hassona through FaceTime, director Sepideh Farsi chronicles her everyday while living through war. The film captures Fatma’s courage and spirit, seeing what she has endured as atrocities become her reality.

2:30 PM Four Mothers at The Screening Room

After finding himself caring for four elderly women, one of which is his mother women, a reclusive writer must learn to let go of excuses and start living.

4:00 PM So Long a Letter at Black Box

Having to navigate emotionally and societally to the fallout of her long-term husband taking on a 20-year-old second wife, the film examines the clash between religious traditions vs. Feminist ideals.

4:30 PM Snow Leopard Sisters at Film House

Two Nepali women, one driven by duty, the other by necessity, combine forces to protect endangered snow leopards in the Himalayas.

7:00 PM A Useful Ghost at Black Box

A man finds out his vacuum is a reincarnated woman named Nat. 

7:15 PM Sirāt at Film House

A father (Sergi López) and his son arrive at a rave deep in the mountains of southern Morocco. They’re searching for Mar — daughter and sister — who vanished months ago at one of these endless, sleepless parties. Surrounded by electronic music and a raw, unfamiliar sense of freedom, they hand out her photo again and again. Hope is fading but they push through and follow a group of ravers heading to one last party in the desert. As they venture deeper into the burning wilderness, the journey forces them to confront their own limits.

Wednesday, October 22

12:45 PM Magellan at Film House

Tracing the steps of Magellan’s doomed voyage with minimal dialogue and immersive natural soundscapes, the film looks at a classic story through a lens of haunting beauty and historical reckoning.

1:30 PM Renoir at Black Box

Suburban Tokyo, 1987. 11-year-old Fuki’s father, Keiji, is battling a terminal illness, and in and out of hospital. Her mother, Utako, is constantly stressed out from caring for Keiji while holding down a full-time job. Left alone with her rich imagination, Fuki becomes fascinated by telepathy and falls ever deeper into her own fantasy world…

4:00 PM Orwell: 2+2=5 at Film House

1949. George Orwell finishes what will be his last but most important novel, 1984.
ORWELL: 2+2=5 delves deep into Orwell’s final months and visionary works to explore the roots of the vital and troubling concepts he revealed to the world in his dystopian masterpiece… Doublethink, Thoughtcrime, Newspeak, the omnipresent spectre of Big Brother… disturbing socio-political truths which resonate ever-more powerfully today.

4:30 PM Promised Sky at Black Box

Marie, an Ivorian pastor and former journalist, has lived in Tunisia for ten years. Her home becomes a refuge for Naney, a young mother seeking a better future, and Jolie, a strong-willed student carrying her family’s hopes. The arrival of a little orphan girl challenges their sense of solidarity in a tense social climate, revealing both their fragility and strength.

7:00 PM Female Trouble with John Waters at Film House

The film follows Dawn Davenport, a spoiled teenager whose tantrum over not receiving cha-cha heels on Christmas inspires her to run away from home. While hitchhiking, she becomes pregnant. However, this mess results in a career as a fashion model for two people who enjoy photographing women while they commit crimes.

7:15 PM Khartoum at Black Box

Civil war transforms a simple documentary about life in Sudan’s capital into a powerful story of survival and mourning. Despite deep loss, it’s a moving portrait of human resilience.