CIFF Streams: Best of CIFF50

In order to get out of debt, an analytical young man makes a series of radically frugal lifestyle choices without telling his girlfriend that he’s fixing up an old bike and going off the grid.

BARBARA FOREVER explores the films, archive, and ongoing cultural impact of experimental filmmaker Barbara Hammer, revealing her ingenious lifelong artistic effort to create and record lesbian histories, personal and societal. Through her own images and words, the film centers Hammer as a prism of the cultural ecosystems around her—through the feminist and queer movements in 1970s San Francisco, the male-dominated New York art world of the 1980s, the New Queer Cinema movement of the 1990s, and expanded LGBTQIA+ representation in art and culture in the 2000s.

In a remote Romanian village, where everyone is living off questionable disability claims, a government inspection sparks an unexpected act of communal creativity, transforming bureaucratic absurdity into a lesson in resilience.

This program features 49 award-winning short films from the history of our festival. Seven films will play in this program – and seven more in each of the 7X7+1 programs – plus a bonus new short film for CIFF50. We’re excited to share so many favorite short films from our CIFF archive!

This program features 49 award-winning short films from the history of our festival. Seven films will play in this program – and seven more in each of the 7X7+1 programs – plus a bonus new short film for CIFF50. We’re excited to share so many favorite short films from our CIFF archive!

This program features 49 award-winning short films from the history of our festival. Seven films will play in this program – and seven more in each of the 7X7+1 programs – plus a bonus new short film for CIFF50. We’re excited to share so many favorite short films from our CIFF archive!

This program features 49 award-winning short films from the history of our festival. Seven films will play in this program – and seven more in each of the 7X7+1 programs – plus a bonus new short film for CIFF50. We’re excited to share so many favorite short films from our CIFF archive!

This program features 49 award-winning short films from the history of our festival. Seven films will play in this program – and seven more in each of the 7X7+1 programs – plus a bonus new short film for CIFF50. We’re excited to share so many favorite short films from our CIFF archive!

This program features 49 award-winning short films from the history of our festival. Seven films will play in this program – and seven more in each of the 7X7+1 programs – plus a bonus new short film for CIFF50. We’re excited to share so many favorite short films from our CIFF archive!

This program features 49 award-winning short films from the history of our festival. Seven films will play in this program – and seven more in each of the 7X7+1 programs – plus a bonus new short film for CIFF50. We’re excited to share so many favorite short films from our CIFF archive!

A collection of Black Cinema short films curated especially for our FilmSlam program.

A collection of Chinese Cinema short films curated especially for our FilmSlam program.

A collection of multicultural short films curated especially for our FilmSlam program.

A collection of French language short films curated especially for our FilmSlam program.

A collection of vividly told stories via short films curated especially for our FilmSlam program.

A collection of Spanish language short films curated especially for our FilmSlam Program.

In modern-day Cairo, an eight-year-old maid Toha goes to great lengths to ensure that her best friend Nelly, the daughter of her wealthy employer, has a successful birthday party.

IN THE EVER is the visual manifestation of a love letter, blending intimate voice-over with the fractured memories of a 1970s renowned folksinger grappling with grief and love.

A rural Iowa schoolteacher becomes a national voice against racism after leading a controversial 1968 lesson in discrimination with her all-white third-grade class. Now nearly 90, she refuses to hold back amid today’s fights about race, history, and power after a lifetime of speaking out.

As a Nairobi journalist probes a land battle entangling her community and a powerful multinational corporation, hidden wounds are revealed and family secrets are exposed.

After a painful rupture with her father, a renowned Houston minister, an opera soprano loses him to COVID-19 and finds a poem he left behind. With her musical friends, she creates an orchestral “final conversation” to face loss and find atonement.

Denny, a lonely petty thief living with his mother, signs up for a penpal service in hopes of finding a friend, or maybe more. Unfortunately, his penpal has other plans, and soon Denny is trapped in an ever-deepening spiral of deception, false identity, and suspense as he tries desperately to cling to what he’s attained.

A collection of audience award winners and favorite short films from CIFF50.

A collection of CIFF50 Jury Award Winners as well as the Programmer’s Choice Award.

Faced with sudden hearing loss, Bruce (played by Coda’s Daniel Durant) embarks on a dangerous journey to raise money to pay for a surgical intervention he desperately wants but can’t afford.

From deep behind enemy lines, a hidden chapter of American military history is uncovered, prompting the question of whether reckoning with the past can bring peace to those who lived it. The Vietnam War’s first Black special operations team reunites to tell their story.

Renowned journalist Amy Goodman takes on soldiers, politicians, and corporate media in a fearless pursuit of truth.

America’s greatest cheesemongers attempt the impossible: beat the French at their own game and aim for the podium at the Olympics of cheese. The eccentric underdogs of Team USA battle cultural clashes, personal struggles, and melting cheese in pursuit of respect, redemption, and a historic victory.

A failed novelist gets trapped in a bizarre time loop on a remote island. He recruits his ex-wife onto the sub-Antarctic island, in a desperate attempt to escape “yesterday.”