Documentary Short Film Competition: Vantage Points
In the first ever competition programme for documentary shorts at LIFF we traverse five continents, reach into the past, race through the present, and peer into the future.
Observe cities from unfinished tower blocks, as bodies of water, and through maps of militant bombing sites. Delve into the mind of a child who yearns to squeeze reality, another trapped in the past, and a woman with strange dreams of American cryptographer Hal Finney. Including experiments with collective filmmaking, psychogeography and mixed material techniques, our selection offers an expansive view of what documentaries can be.
Bacata
From the 28th floor of Colombia’s tallest building—a long-awaited, still-unfinished tower block in the centre of Bogota—Laura observes the city below, its secrets and its struggles, as a colourful cast of gardeners, activists, and human statues go about their daily lives in the shadow of the country’s history.
Fanny Liatard & Jérémy Trouilh | France | 2024 | 24 mins | England Premiere
At that very moment
Life, death, and all the rest, as seen through the chaotic, obsessive, surprisingly philosophical eyes of a child in the mountains of Argentina. First-person filmmaking at its finest.
Federico Luis Tachella, Rita Pauls | Argentina | 2023 | 12 mins | Premiere
Fluid Lagos
Ebbing, fluvial, dripping... we are all bodies of water. The eponymous filmmaking collective presents a triptych of experimental portraits capturing life in the Nigerian capital in all its slippery, spectacular glory.
Fluid Lagos Collective | Nigeria | 2024 | 12 mins | UK Premiere
Very Gentle Work.
A fictional flaneur strolls through the streets of Manhattan opining on the histories and mysteries of various left-wing revolutionary movements. But what do all these buildings have in common? And what exactly does a proposed police training centre near Atlanta have to do with a 100-year-old Parisian murder case?
Nate Lavey | United States | 2024 | 24 mins | UK Premiere
Is this now the time I should let you go?
.jpg)
Thirteen years after losing her father, a filmmaker combines old home movies with abstract animation to create an immersive, diary-like reflection on her otherwise unspeakable feelings of grief, love and loss.
TSAI Yi-Chin | Taiwan | 2023 | 9 mins | UK Premiere
for here am i sitting in a tin can far above the world
A woman recounts an unsettling dream: when an economic crisis threatens the cryptocurrency market, investors follow in the footsteps of American cryptographer Hal Finney by cryogenically freezing themselves. Will they wake to a better world or fall further into the void? A speculative essay about our uneasy relationship with the future.
Gala Hernández López | France | 2023 | 19 mins | Yorkshire Premiere
Content Guidance
Includes discussions of grief.
LIFF Shorts
A whole programme section dedicated to the best new short films from around the world, including eight competitions.