VSFF '25 Reviews | We Were, Tailor Made, The Neighbourhood at the End of the World

As a part of the Peliplat content team, I’ve had the opportunity to dive into some short films that are screening at this year's Vancouver International Short Film Festival. Although there's no set theme for the festival, I didn’t expect memory to be the thread that would tie these films together. Through complete randomness, these stories about love, heartbreak, exile, and doppelgangers are in dialogue with each other. Even more unexpected was the fact that, years ago, I was (very briefly and tangentially) involved with one of these films, and that it would randomly appear for me to review now.

This led me to think about these three short films, We Were, Tailor Made, and The Neighbourhood at the End of the Worldas some kind of memory trilogy. In a strange case of serendipity, each film offers a glimpse into how we remember, reflect and forget.

We Were: directed by Jonah Haber

The first film I decided to review was We Were, a story about relationships, memories and mementos. As it turned out, it was the right idea.

The photography in We Were is exceptional. Everything around David is often out of focus, creating a dreamy, hazy atmosphere that mirrors the way we experience memory. It’s like the film is showing us that the most important details aren’t time or place, but the emotion of the moment. This blurriness also mirrors how memories fade over time, how they become detached from their original context. In a way, this choice also shows that memories are selfish, they focus only on our own experience.

The short opens on David, a 10-year-old, on the first day of summer camp. Immediately, a girl catches his eye. Through a series of loosely connected clips and snapshots, we see their relationship grow during the summer. On the last day, she gives David a bracelet and a letter, which he keeps in an old shoe box.

As the years go by, David keeps the box with mementos through different stages of his life. After each relationship, new objects are added to the archive. Each one is hyper-specific, meaningful only for a brief period before it transforms into a memory. These snapshots show fleeting moments, they serve to leave us with the feeling of how memory works: it lingers, even if it’s imperfect and hazy.

We Were doesn’t focus on the consequences of David’s actions. Instead, it leaves an impression, just like memory does. We can only revisit old memories, reflect on them, lean on them when times are tough, put them back in their box for when we need them again.

Memory here is about the relationships that impacted us, and how we remember those moments. After his latest breakup, David goes back to those objects with meaning, to see that, just like it happened many times before, this too shall pass.

• We Were is playing Sunday, June 15 at 12:00 PM as part of Program Four: Any Way the River Flows.

Tailor Made: directed by Quan Long

For my second watch, I turned to Tailor Made, a short documentary about Tam Nguyen, a Vietnamese refugee who emigrated to Canada over 40 years ago.

Tam takes us through the highs and lows of his life: his escape from war, the crushing debt he carried as he arrived in Canada, and the challenges of starting a new life without family or friends. He shares how he became a tailor, a craft that eventually led him to a better life. The documentary bounces between shots of Tam at work in his tailoring shop in Winnipeg and archival footage from his life in Vietnam, his voyage to Canada, and the hardships he faced along the way.

In Tailor Made, memory is both a celebration and a source of pride. Tam remembers the key moments in his life, the choices he made. Sometimes, memory is also remembering the promises. One of the best parts of the documentary is when Tam explains how, as he was lost at sea on a boat with other refugees, he prayed to "any god he could think of" for help. He promised that, if he made it safely to the other side, he would help others in the same way that strangers helped him buy a place on the boat when he had no money.

After getting to Canada and working hard to repay his debt, Tam started working on how to help his family, friends and community back in Vietnam. He spent 25 years running a charity to help children in Vietnam. He got his parents a new house. He did everything he promised he would.

There's something soothing about the way sound and image blend in Tailor Made. As we hear Tam's story, we get lost in the archive footage, in the way he threads the needle at his shop, the craftsmanship of it all. It's easy to go along with the flow of the narrative.

Tam’s story is about resilience, sacrifice, and the sense of responsibility that comes with receiving help when you have nothing. His journey reflects the immigrant experience in a way that feels universal. As an immigrant myself, I can say that I feel inspired by Tam, and also feel like he's flexing and making me feel inadequate.

• Tailor Made is playing Sunday, June 15 at 4:00 PM as part of Program Five: Everything Really Matters.

The Neighbourhood at the End of the World: directed by Shane Day

Finally, I watched The Neighbourhood at the End of the World, directed by Shane Day. This film was a complete tonal shift: a tense, claustrophobic thriller/horror. The story follows a mother who is convinced that her husband has been replaced by a sinister doppelgänger. She ties him to a chair in the basement, determined to uncover the truth and to protect her child.

In a seemingly peaceful suburb, paranoia consumes the mother as she becomes increasingly sure that her husband has been replaced. The meat of the film is an interrogation scene where the mother tries to get as much information as possible. Throughout the story, eerie shadows tap on the windows and creepy neighbours staring at the house. It’s clear that something is lurking just outside, but is it real? Or is the mother losing her grip on reality?

The claustrophobia of the setting is palpable, as the walls of the house seem to close in on the characters. The basement where the interrogation takes place seems to become smaller as times goes by, as the mother becomes more determined. What makes this film intriguing is that we don’t know if the mother is right or wrong.

Without giving away spoilers, I’ll just say that the effects and makeup are fantastic, gory and realistic. There’s also some compelling symbolism about identity, as the wedding rings become a central part of the plot. Just as memories can be fragmented and tied to mementos, identity can also be linked to an object.

• The Neighbourhood at the End of the World is playing Saturday, June 14 at 8:00 PM as part of Program After Dark: Face the Fear.

Memory Serendipity

We Were and Tailor Made are similar in how they approach memory: as a map, a guide to where we’ve been and where we might go next. In We Were, when David digs through his box of mementos, it’s an exploration of how those relationships, those fleeting moments, give him comfort now. In Tailor Made, Tam’s reflection on life serves as both as testimony and a way to illuminate the sacrifices that led him to his present life in Canada.

In both films, memory acts as an archive or a monument to what has been lived. It’s something solid and truthful, a tangible representation of the past that we can return to. This archive serves as both a pretext and a metaphor for exploring the echoes of the past, whether those memories are tied to a specific moment, a place, an object, or an emotion. In We Were, memory is presented as fragments that are ephemeral and treasured. In Tailor Made, memory is presented as legacy, tribute to personal and collective history.

These two films explore growth. One does so through relationships, the other through sacrifice. In We Were, the small, intimate moments give life its flavor, while in Tailor Made, the major life events provide it with direction.

But in The Neighbourhood at the End of the World, memory becomes something different. In We Were and Tailor Made, memory provides us with shape, giving us something to cling to. But what happens when memory, tied to identity, gives us the wrong shape? If the first two films are about holding on to the past, this one is about getting swallowed by it.

The serendipitous connection between these films is impossible to ignore. The stories were never intended to be part of the same narrative thread, but memory, in its strange way, stitched them together. In We Were, memory is emotion. It’s that fragile, fleeting feeling we hold onto even when the details begin to fade. In Tailor Made, memory is a responsibility to honor our past and make something meaningful out of it. And in The Neighbourhood, memory is a threat, that makes us question who we are and whether we can trust the people around us.

I was a PA on that short, but I was only there for a day, and I had no idea about any part of the story, or even the name of the film. Standing by the trash cans and guarding the door, I spent hours trying to piece together what it might be about. I knew it was a horror story, as a grip had casually mentioned the day before that it had been "very bloody, with a lot of screaming." Based on the mood, I could tell it was a horror film centered around a family. Beyond that? I only knew where the bathroom was. After filming wrapped, I never got a chance to watch the finished film. It never came. And talk about memory, I forgot all about it until now.

For more information on the VSFF, check this link: https://vsff.eventive.org/schedule