Vancouver International Film Festival fetes 40th anniversary with 110 movies, screened live and online
The fest opens with The Electrical Life of Louis Wain and closes with Petite Maman
The Electrical Life of Louis Wain opens the fest.
Olivia Colman and Colin Firth in Mothering Sunday.
LIVE SCREENINGS are back in a big way as the Vancouver International Film Festival unveils its 40th anniversary programming.
Kicking off on October 1 with Benedict Cumberbatch’s eclectic Victorian cat-artist biopic The Electrical Life of Louis Wain, the fest will present 113 feature films and 80 shorts at Vancouver venues. About 85 percent of films will also be available to stream online via the VIFF Connect platform.
Even though the digital platform that VIFF started during the 2020 fest attracted a successful following, a strong live-cinema component—260 screenings in all—was integral this year, executive director Kyle Fostner said at the press announcement. (Screenings will follow BC health regulations, including the need for a vaccine “passport” and masks.)
“It’s obviously been a difficult phase…but film is important and cinema is important and being here together is important,” he said, speaking in the Vancity Theatre today. “Taking a stand to celebrate community is important, and if we don’t take a moment to appreciate what we could lose, then we’ll lose it forever.
“Cinema has been threatened by streaming….We need to show our strength and solidarity toward our artform—now. So I encourage people to come out to the fest, if they feel ready.”
VIFF is moving forward with several new initiatives to expand its reach. It will be programming into the newly renovated Hollywood Theatre as well as the Annex and its own new 41-seat cinema in the just-refurbished VIFF centre; those screens join the Vancity Theatre, The Cinematheque, the Vancouver Playhouse (for marquee screenings), SFU Woodward’s, and the Rio.
In addition, VIFF will spread live screenings to other parts of the province. During the fest, VIFF will program 11 screenings into West Vancouver’s Kay Meek Arts Centre, 12 movies into the historic Patricia Theatre in Powell River, and eight into Terrace’s Tillicum Theatres.
“This means we can do what we do best: bring Canadian films and international films and bring conversations around film culture and film craft to people around the province,” Fostner said.
Amid the programming announcements, VIFF’s closing gala screens French auteur Céline Sciamma’s intergenerational Petite Maman, a film associate director of programming Curtis Woloschuk called “a profoundly moving experience at this point of time where we’ve found ourselves thinking, ‘What does time even mean anymore?’”.
Other special presentations include Mothering Sunday, starring Colin Firth and Olivia Colman in a story set in post-Second World War England; Chinese master Zhang Yimou’s One Second; Terence Davies’ buzz-creating biopic Benediction; Kenneth Branagh’s Belfast, a recent audience favourite at Telluride; and the much-anticipated debut of All My Puny Sorrows, Canadian director Michael McGowan’s touching adaptation of Miriam Toews’s beloved novel about two sisters.
Arts fans will be able to choose from a strong roster of eight films in the M/A/D series (spotlighting music, art, and design). Titles include White Cube, a documentary about a museum-art centre built on a former Congolese oil plantation; Ireland’s artful To the Moon, a cinematic lunar ode that weaves together archival footage and literary fragments with a haunting original score; and Keep Rolling, a biopic about Ann Hui, one of Hong Kong's most influential filmmakers.
All the VIFF programmers said they were blown away by the number of submissions to different categories this year—partially due to films postponed from last year. For the international shorts program alone there were 1,600 entries, with three dozen chosen after a gruelling selection process. They also found a wealth of female and BIPOC directors, especially in the Canadian category, where those filmmakers made up more than half of the selection.
Among the special sections are Gateway films from East Asia; the boundary-defying Altered States; and strong programs about activism, Indigenous storytelling, and more.
Kenneth Branagh’s Belfast
The fest’s strong contingent of new Indigenous films includes B.C. director Trevor Mack’s Portraits From a Fire. Climate films span Ayukawa: The Weight of a Life and the Canadian premiere of directors Gloria Pancrazi and Elena Jean’s Coextinction, following southern resident orcas in the Salish Sea.
Beyond screenings, online VIFF Talks take viewers behind the scenes; highlights include a directing master class with Craig Zobel, of Mare of Easttown and an editing class with Fred Raskin, of The Suicide Squad.
Other online conferences include Totally Indie Day, VIFF AMP, and VIFF Immersed.
And in yet another initiative to mark the fest’s 40th, VIFF Leading Lights will pay tribute to luminary filmmakers with a long connection with the event and its audiences. The first is Kore-eda Hirokazu (Shoplifters), who was invited to nominate an emerging director to join him in an online conversation; he chose Bora Kim (House of Hummingbird). Their VIFF Leading Light tribute talk is available for free on the VIFF Connect streaming platform from October 1 to 11. Hirokazu’s Like Father, Like Son and House of Hummingbird are available for rental on VIFF Connect from Sept. 17–Oct. 11.
A full schedule and tickets are at viff.org.
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