Sunday, March 3rd, 2024 at 7:00pm
VIFF’s Vancity Theatre
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Blue: a wavelength hardly visible to the human eye, a reminder of the colours we are incapable of seeing, that surround us – but have been rendered invisible. In this two-part XINEMA presentation, notes on the colour blue consists of a series of international and local experimental films that recount experiences of grief, love, distance, and interiority associated or felt through blue hues.

Screening: Marzieh Mosavarzadeh, Anna Hawkins, Iris Blauensteiner + Christine Moderbacher, Holly Fisher, and Hope Tucker
Plus a screening of "Blue" (1993) directed by Derek Jarman

Sunday, January 21st, 2024 at 7:30pm
VIFF’s Studio Theatre
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These five short experimental films by local and international filmmakers observe Palestinian place, relation, and history as they are and have been represented through images and artifacts. The program reflects on each filmmaker’s experience in and apart from their homeland, and speaks to personal and familial perspectives on displacement and occupation.

Screening: Kamal Aljafari, Alaa Abu Asad, Razan AlSalah, Basma al-Sharif, and Natali Karajeh

Special Program
Thursday, November 16th, 2023 at 7:00pm
VIFF’s Vancity Theatre

Celebrating one year of XINEMA, this open submission screening showcases short works by alumni and close supporters. Celebrating BC’s rich film community, the program will showcase films from 1997 to present that explore topics of love, longing, new imaginaries, the Anthropocene, and more.

Screening: Kaila Bhullar, Dave Biddle, Dana Bontempo, Nita Bowerman, Inanna Cusi, Celina de Leon, Andy Dongan Liu, Barry Doupè, Deborah Edmeades, Mena El Shazly, Owen Ellis, lisa g, Jo Gaffney, Chantal Gering, Miriam Goi, Sidney Gordon, Patricia Gruben, MilleFeuille, Miss Marr, Richard Martin, Richard Martin, Tizeana La Melia, Oliver New, Hân Phạm, Ileana Pietrobruno, Jaewoo Kang, Niloufar Samadi, Juli Saragosa, Coral Short, Michael V Smith, Joshua Stevenson, Amanda Thomson, Kirk Tougas, Richard Reeves, Sara Wylie, and Rafael Zen + Khalil Alomar.

XINEMA Program 11
Sunday, October 29th, 2023 at 7:30pm
VIFF’s Vancity Theatre
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A three-film spooktacular including a viscous cockroach invasion, an inspiring severed-head haunting, and a bodacious bloody threesome. Follow the sun and be confronted with life's deepest low-budget lessons through the twisted missions of an insectuous gamer, gatekeeping god, and bloodthirsty femme-doms.

Screening: schnüdlbug, Owen Ellis, and Jo Gaffney

XINEMA Program 10
Sunday, September 17th, 2023 at 7:15pm
VIFF’s Vancity Theatre

A collection of short films that explore the impact the queer and diasporic experience have on temporal and bodily manipulation. Using the screen as a space to research and connect, these five artists return to the personalized domestic and familiar to better understand themselves and the world around them.

Screening: danielle Mackenzie Long, Gabi Dao, Jasmine Liaw, Alisa Tarabrina, and Wendel Vistan

XINEMA Program 9
Sunday, July 16th, 2023 at 7:30pm
VIFF's Studio Theatre

Explore the chasms of the human subconscious and confront the creatures of cannibalistic psychedelia in this hypnotic film experience. If you haven’t entered into deep slumber by the end of the program, something has gone terribly wrong…

Screening: Dave Biddle, Pablo Garcia Garcia, Phoebe Parsons, and Rafael Zen

XINEMA x EPFC North Workshop Series
July 8th, 2023 to July 22nd, 2023
Echo Park Film Center North

In this three-session workshop series, participants learned hands-on filmmaking processes including Super8 camera operation, eco-development and handmade cinema techniques. Group discussions guided the creation of individual or group experimental films that were featured in an open community screening celebrating collective queer experiences!

XINEMA Program 8
Sunday, June 25th, 2023 at 7:30pm
VIFF’s Studio Theatre

A seven-film exploration of the intersections between identity & fantasy. Experience the depths of queer imagination and resiliency in the face of earthly alienation – done through the lens of a Lesbian Vampire, Pink Fairy, Jesus, Tom Waits and more!

Screening: Coral Short + Pippi Zornoza, TJ Cuthand, Aryo Khakpour, Debora O., Julia Sagarosa, Mo Bradley, and Michael Venus

XINEMA Program 7
Sunday, May 21st, 2023 at 7:00pm
VIFF’s Vancity Theatre

This program features a live-action “girl horror”, an obscure excerpt from a 3D computer animated film, and a multimedia stop-motion short. Enter into the psychotropic effects of social isolation, the dark beauty of chaos, and discomfort of the unknown...

Screening: Barry Doupè, Avalon Fast, and Oliver New

XINEMA Program 6
Sunday, March 19th, 2023 at 7:15pm
VIFF’s Vancity Theatre

A duo of gender-defying films — a 2002 feature-length erotic pirate adventure and a 2013 short film, a tender homage to the Czech feminist filmmaker, Věra Chytilová.

Screening: Ileana Pietrobruno and Jaewoo Kang

XINEMA Program 5
Sunday, February 19th, 2023 at 7:15pm
VIFF’s Vancity Theatre

What happens between birth and death? This program invokes the existential feeling you get when you remember you're a living entity on a floating ball in space. These films illustrate earth as a foreign site of creation, sustenance, and destruction; encompassing life's experiences through personal contemplations, precarious documentation, and a karaoke sing-along.

Screening: Rafael Zen + Khalil Alomar + Luciana Siebert, Inanna Cusi, Ann Marie Fleming, MiruFiyu, Lisa G., and Evan Swain

XINEMA x The Polygon Gallery
December 28th, 2022 to December 31st, 2022
The Polygon Gallery

The Polygon Gallery and XINEMA present The Pulse of the Screen, a program of experimental films that proposes the screen as a vibrant, lifelike body. Rhythmic vibrations and syncopated movements, which arise simply from the images’ pixels or the camera’s focus, suggest organic activities such as metabolism, sensory experience, and breath.As screens become increasingly integrated in everyday life, these six abstract, hypnotic shorts imagine ways in which the moving image might resemble a living entity in its own right. The films played on a continuous loop at the Gallery from December 28 – 31, 2022.

Screening: Barry Doupé + Yota Kobayashi, Richard Reeves, Joshua Stevenson, Ovide Cohen, and Nita Bowerman

XINEMA Program 4
Sunday, January 22nd, 2023 at 7:00pm
VIFF’s Vancity Theatre

This program studies moving images' ability to influence and construct our senses. Through a series of eight short films, perception becomes a filmic language, spoken through an illusive spectacle of grain and pixels. This program explores the registration of light, sound, and motion; observing our interpretation of existence and the factors that contribute to it.

Screening: Kaila Bhullar, Andrew Power, David Jeric Avelino, Amanda Thomson, Elysia Bourne + Ross Birdwise, Cam Kletke, Sidney Gordon, and Kirk Tougas

XINEMA Program 3
Sunday, December 18th, 2022 at 6:00pm

An eclectic collection of eight short films that dismantle and mock systemic structures of normalcy. This program dissects the impressionable nature of human behavior; using humor, reflection, and vulnerability to celebrate autonomy. In parallel to their content, the forms of these films know no boundaries.

Screening: Sean Brennan, Deborah Edmeades, Denise Kenney, Celina de Leon, Ivan Li, Coral Short, and Michael V. Smith

XINEMA Program 2
Sunday, November 20th, 2022 at 6:00pm
VIFF’s Vancity Theatre

This program screens nine films that embody the dual existence of language within communication. Vocal absence and presence acknowledge language’s ability to exclude, construct, and bind. Some investigate the foreign as form; dissecting words into shapes and vibrations. Others render intimate portrayals of connection and disconnection. Together, these films display the vastness of voice, conveying the necessity of communication, and the implications of silence.

Screening: Dana Bontempo, Nita Bowerman, Mena El Shazly, Patricia Gruben, Alger Ji-Liang, Xinyue Liu, Hân Phạm, Rea Saxena, and Svava Tergeson

XINEMA Program 1
Sunday, October 23rd, 2022 at 6:00pm
VIFF’s Studio Theatre

"Times Long Past" is a phrase derived from the feeling of an unportrayable memory, an allusion to how objects, people, and places represent and convey the past. This program brings together seven films that reflect on the materialization and embodiment of time through fragmented structures, abstract recollections, and emblematic degradation.

Screening: Brittney Appleby, Sammy Chien, Richard Martin, Lindsay McIntyre, Luis Serrano, and Sydney Southam