Canada
2022
English
Featured in:
VIFF Short Forum: Program 2
Fear, doubt, and loneliness give way to pleasure, empowerment, and reclamation—or, is it the other way around?
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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
Kate Fraser, Chris Strikes, Maya Annik Bedward
Screenwriter
Chris Strikes
Cinematography
Ashley Iris Gill
Editor
Maria Todorov-Topouzov
Production Design
Melissa Dawn Bessey
Original Music
Solitair
Director
Chris Strikes
Chris Strikes is an award-winning director and alumnus of both the HotDocs Accelerator Fellowship and the Reelworld E20 program. In 2021, Strikes’ first feature documentary Becoming a Queen screened in five festivals worldwide, winning Best Feature Film at the 2021 CaribbeanTales International Film Festival, the Audience Choice Award for Best International Feature Film at the 2021 Baltimore International Black Film Festival, and was nominated for Best Picture Editing for Documentary at the 2021 Directors Guild of Canada Awards.
Filmography: Becoming a Queen (2021)


