Vancouver International Film Festival unveils full in-cinema program for September 29 to October 9
Marie Clements’s Bones of Crows opens, Hirokazu Kore-eda’s Broker closes, Nosferatu gets a centenary live-score performance, and much more
Triangle of Sadness
Bones of Crows
WILDLY BUZZED-ABOUT features from Cannes and Berlin, a wave of exciting Vancouver-made premieres, a powerful contingent of works by female and Indigenous filmmakers, and a new international competition for emerging directors: those were just some of the revelations as Vancouver International Film Festival announced its programming for its first, full-on in-cinema edition since the pandemic, September 29 to October 9.
The 41st annual installment will open with Bones of Crows by BC-based Métis filmmaker Marie Clements, about Cree matriarch Aline Spear (Grace Dove), who survives residential school and goes on to become a a code talker during the Second World War. The closing gala is by South Korean sensation Hirokazu Kore-eda, a director with a long relationship with VIFF, and his new Broker, about a baby kidnapping scheme; Parasite’s Song Kang-ho stars and the screening takes place October 8.
Another big ticket should be NOSFERATU 100, in which F.W. Murnau’s silent masterpiece gets a live accompaniment by BIG KILL (the latest project by We Are the City's Cayne McKenzie and Andrew Huculia) at St. Andrew’s-Wesley United Church on October 4.
In all, this year’s program features about 130 feature films and 100 shorts screening across seven Vancouver venues, with a small curated selection of titles available to stream across BC. Forty-six Canadian women and nonbinary filmmakers have work screening at VIFF.
Director of programming Curtis Woloschuk said curators had to choose from a huge variety of films that emerged after the pandemic—many by directors making their debut. “There were over 4,000 films that our programming team watched and considered this year,” he said. “That leaves us more educated and illuminated about the world we live in. Almost half the feature films in the program this year are first feature films.”
The Whale
Amid the most anticipated standouts in VIFF’s Special Presentations are Darren Aronofsky’s The Whale, Sarah Polley’s Women Talking, Force Majeure director Ruben Östlund’s Triangle of Sadness, and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri director Martin McDonagh’s The Banshees of Inisherin.
Intermixed are some exciting international works—with films spanning Iran, Slovakia, Japan, and far beyond. Closer to home, there is an unprecedented number of intriguing Vancouver stories on the roster, including Kat Jayme’s The Grizzlie Truth, about a superfan’s investigation into the disappearance of our onetime basketball team, and Nisha Platzer’s back home, about the filmmaker’s pursuit to get to know her older brother 20 years after he took his own life.
“It wasn’t just that we were spoiled for choice, but we had a greater sense of responsibility in how the films would sit in conversation with each other,” Woloschuk explained to Stir. “Some of it is around those films from communities you haven’t seen before….Communities that are sitting on the edge of extinction.” He points to Bolivia-set Utara, about an elderly couple facing drought in the remote highlands. Others, he says, circle around suppressed history and the erasure of marginalized communities: Marie Clements’s other film at the fest, the NFB’s Lay Down Your Heart, about beloved local actor and person living with Down Syndrome Niall McNeil; or Anyox, by BC directors Jessica Johnson and Ryan Ermacora, about the lives of the two last residents of an abandoned company town and BC’s complex labour and environmental history.
Crystal Pite: Angels’ Atlas
Arts lovers will want to take in the Portraits series, with highlights including Cesária Évora, Dancing Pina, and Hopper—An American Love Story. And in the Showcase series, they can look forward to the world premiere of Crystal Pite: Angels’ Atlas, Chelsea McMullan’s documentary about the Vancouver choreographic star’s celebrated pandemic-era creation for the National Ballet.
New to VIFF’s event lineup this year is Signals, presented by VIFF and DigiBC, which explores how new creative technologies can generate uncharted opportunities for storytelling, October 1 and 2 at Emily Carr University; and Vanguard, a competitive program that showcases the work of emerging filmmakers from around the globe–including Australia, India, Mongolia, and more.
Outside of screenings, the VIFF Talks program boasts visiting artists like Deborah Lynn Scott, with a masterclass on costume design; she’s clothed the actors in everything from Titanic to the new, upcoming Avatar: The Way of Water. Kate Byron, who just led production design on Olivia Wilde’s much-gossiped-about Don't Worry Darling, gives a masterclass at a date yet to be announced. And Michael Abels, the composer for Get Out, Us, and Nope will make a special performance and speaking engagement with the VSO on October 6.
The VIFF Amp symposium on music in film is set to run October 6 to 9.
In other new and expanded initiatives, executive director Kyle Fostner said that VIFF will now offer free memberships for those 19 to 25, free access to Indigenous peoples, and more free offerings to community groups. At the press conference, he also announced a major new corporate sponsorship partnership with Scotia Wealth Management.
There’s much more, including a curated selection of films showing online. Tickets and passes are on sale; find those and more schedule info here.
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