The last short cuts programme at TIFF this year puts women’s stories on the foreground, which, thank God. I prefer this programme over the fifth one even if I’m less verbose here but I’m just tired. And without a minute’s worth of waiting let’s begin by going to Ibiza, which is paradise for some.

Loving isn’t easy and  Louis Bhose’ The Cost of Hugging shows just the toll it takes on some. A comedy taking place in Ibiza, Erica (Josie Walker) is a professional panda hugger receiving compliments from strangers. She tells one stranger, Jacques (Jonathan Aris), that she wants to die by suicide, Virginia Woolf style. In revealing that Jacques is actually a reality host, this is a short that does twists right. I didn’t expect for this to be my favourite of the pack but alas, here we are.

The programme keeps its consistency, for now, with Joe Weiland and Finn Constantine’s Marion and its big production. It shows that fitting in can mean different things, doing so while hyping up its bull-jumping titular character. Drums greet her (Caroline Noguès-Larbère) as she enters an arena in what I assume is in southern France. A short that hypes its viewers up as well as giving us enough realism in its depictions. Sienna Miller and Cate Blanchett serve as producers in a short showing that women can do dangerous sports.

There’s also an element of danger in the next film, Gianluigi Toccafondo’s animation short La Voix du Sirenes. Toccafondo uses a little under 20 minutes and mostly succeeds to tell an story covering sea and land. The sunset bleeds red as two kinds of mermaids leave the sea – the first tall just like humans. The second is small enough to find itself in the net of a greedy fisherman, monetizing her voice. Letterboxd reviews overhype its freakiness but I like the Guaguin and Matisse references in the animation here. My least favourite, but again, I’m not mad at a film that ambitiously uses its vivid imagination.

Lastly, the programme leaves the sea and returns to land thanks to Catherine Chantal-Boivin. Her documentary hybrid short Anotc ota ickwaparin akosiin uses a split screen to capture  Chantal-Boivin and her little daughter. On the left, Chantal-Boivin does dishes and to the right, her daughter Maskowisi is playing with toys. Chantal-Boivin narrates in a mix of French and an Indigenous language about a traumatic moment in her childhood. Not a perfect short, but it shows that we live to prepare and to expurgate our past ghosts. People do so in the hopes of making sure that future generations don’t bear the scars we wear.