This year at HIFF, we’re proud to present a selection of new short films from across Canada that examine loss — losses of loved ones and of former selves. Point and Line to Plane (Sophia Bohdanowicz) is an intimate meditation on the physical senses during a period of mourning. In The Long Wail of a Passing Train Slips into the Heart of the Ghosts and Everything Explodes in Silence (Anne-Marie Bouchard), tactile animated forms haunt live-action landscapes. Landscape also looms large in Marie-Ève Juste’s As Spring Comes, an elliptical, fantastical narrative of metamorphosis; and another young woman’s life is transformed in Aniksha (Vincent Toi) by her arranged marriage and excitement in a new job. In exquisite black and white, Isabelle Kanapé’s Ka tatishtipatakanit (Ethereal) tells a compact tale of regret. The program culminates in a collage of old family photos, home movies, and healing acts of commemoration in Sophy Romvari’s powerful, deeply personal essay film, Still Processing. —Dr. Shannon Brownlee