HIFF Program Launch + Free Screenings • May 25, 2021

HIFF LAUNCH + FREE SCREENINGS

TONIGHT! • 7 PM • Online

Join us for our online program launch this evening as we announce everything this year's fest has in store, followed by a free virtual screening of Ecstasy, the docufiction feature debut from Brazillian filmmaker Moara Passoni, and Millefiore Clarkes' spellbinding short Solastalgia.

HIFF 2021 is coming your way June 24–27 with an electrifying lineup of beautiful, boundary-pushing films from around the world, including a special 15th Anniversary Retrospective to celebrate some of the most memorable Atlantic shorts in HIFF history.

Plus filmmaker Q+As, artist talks, professional development and more!

Tune in for the program launch HERE!

ECSTASY

dir. Moara Passoni
2020 | Brazil | 75 mins | Portuguese with English subtitles

Ecstasy is a non-fiction documentary situated in Brazil in the '90s. As Moara Passoni’s autobiographical feature debut, the film introduces the altering political landscape in that period through the story of a young girl, Clara, who uses anorexia as the weapon against her altering surroundings, as she can find a piece of autonomy in herself through starving. With extremely rich textures, the film reveals the complex and dynamic relationship between a young girl and her body in the turbulent world. —Zhu Dinghui

Check out the trailer here:

SOLASTALGIA

dir. Millefiore Clarkes
2019 | Canada | 13 mins | English

Solastalgia is a lyrical film that explores the anguish that climate change and a global state of uncertainty can impart upon the human psyche. Ava, a mother of two young children, is bombarded throughout her day with news of global disasters. Over the airwaves, on the internet, overheard at a grocery store—cataclysmic stories of the effects of climate change steadily erode Ava’s inner peace. She acutely feels the burden of guilt for her entire species. She worries about her children's futures. Her mental health is unwinding.

Solastalgia gestures toward the vast timeline of the earth, poetically evoking the idea that life has meaning beyond human life.

Watch the trailer here: