Canadian Premiere
An isolated father haunted by his child’s cries of hunger takes up work as a timber feller, only to find operations halted by a mysterious alarm coming from deep in the woods. This is a cautionary tale about a man just trying to provide for his family, and nature coming up with inventive ways of protection against man’s ruthless invasion. Featuring stunning cinematography, Nest is a demonstration of extreme precision, a masterclass of pace and tone, featuring images that work on almost microscopic levels. It is an elegant, black and white, almost haunting tale about the choices we as humans have made that have severely impacted our world, while showing us a relentlessly difficult life in close-up detail.
Community Partner
Lasarus Ratuere, Ana Nguyen, Kevin Ryan, Robbie Durrant, Marcus Davila
Australia
2021
English
Featured in:
International Shorts: Family Ties
The bonds of family form the basis of this program of short films. Bonds with history and responsibility—sometimes close, sometimes strained—now and for the future.
Missing VIFF? Check out what's playing at the VIFF Centre
Late Fame
Based on a novella by Arthur Schnitzler (Eyes Wide Shut) this is a sly, poignant comedy about vanity and art from director Kent Jones, starring Willem Dafoe as a mailman belatedly acclaimed for a book of poetry he wrote in his youth.
Memory of Princess Mumbi
In 2093, a filmmaker arrives in the African village of Umata, where he meets Princess Mumbi, a woman torn between love, legacy, and the future of storytelling. It's a fabulous genre-blending fable about memory, invention and cinematic resistance.
Lessons of Darkness
Werner Herzog's unforgettable documentary reveals the unfolding disaster of the Kuwaitian oil fields in flames in 1991 as a sweeping inferno of mesmerizing power.
Beau Travail
Inspired by Herman Melville's Billy Budd, Claire Denis' transfixing Beau Travail is set in East Africa. Sgt Galoup (Denis Lavant) reflects on his time in the French Foreign Legion, and the impact of the handsome Sentain (Gregoire Colin).
But I'm a Cheerleader
Megan (Natasha Lyonne) is the perfect All-American Girl, or so she thinks. That is until she’s shipped off to conversion therapy. This pitch black comedy is wrapped in a saccharine bow, featuring the icon herself, RuPaul, as a conversion counsellor.
Credits
Producer
Faith Guoga
Screenwriter
Steve Anthopoulos
Cinematography
Campbell Brown
Editor
James Hunter, Shannon Michaelas
Production Design
Laura Murray
Original Music
Mitchell Sloan
Director
James Hunter
A multi-award winning director of shorts, commercials, and music videos, James Hunter grew up in Canberra, Australia. After being gifted his first video camera as a child, he began to experiment and make his own films using family and friends as cast and crew, while utilizing his small town as a backdrop. As a teenager, he moved to Sydney to study the screen arts, picking up many of the notable local and national awards for his short films over the following decade. He has since relocated to Melbourne, Australia, where he has been developing feature film projects.
