The Vancouver International Film Festival will celebrate its 29th birthday September 30th thru October 15th, all across Vancouver.
For the first time, VIFF will offer screenings at the Park Theatre on Cambie Street, which replaces longtime Festival venue The Ridge. Otherwise, venues operating throughout the entire fest are the same as last year: the Empire Granville 7 (again, ‘home’ to VIFF), Pacific Cinémathèque on Howe Street, and the VIFF’s own Vancity Theatre on Seymour.
On those screens, VIFF will unspool 600 screenings of 230 feature-length films and 150 shorts, from 80 countries. And, as always, 80% of the films screening at VIFF will never screen in Vancouver again (so see them now).
As Canada’s largest Festival venue for Canadian film, in 2010 VIFF will present 87 Canadian films, including 20 dramatic features, 16 nonfiction features, one mid-length film, and 50 ‘shorts’. Selected from 700 submissions, VIFF will also present 115 non-fiction films, of which 98 are feature-length. The Non-Fiction Features series represents Canada’s second-largest “documentary festival,” with an estimated 63,000 of VIFF’s total 150,000 admissions last year attending this portion of the fest.
As in past years, in 2010 overall VIFF will present 85 premières: 12 world, 23 international, and 50 North American.
This year’s Festival officially kicks off this evening with Barney’s Version, Mordecai Richler’s acclaimed 1997 satire, which tracks the life of Barney Panofsky (Paul Giamatti), a Montreal Jewish mensch, marital philanderer, foul-mouthed social liability, hard drinker, self-hater, low-grade TV producer and possible murderer, through four decades of his messily authentic life. Directed by Richard J. Lewis, Barney’s Version arrives in Vancouver after débuting at the Venice Film Festival earlier this month.
VIFF will close two weeks later with a gala screening of master animator Sylvain Chomet’s The Illusionist (Gala, Fri, Oct 15 7 pm, Empire Granville Th7; & Fri, Oct 15 9:45 pm @ Empire Granville Th7), a follow-up to his award-winning 2003 tour-de-force, The Triplets of Belleville. Bathed in self-aware melancholy and lightened by slow-burn humour and a sensibility rooted in silent-era filmmaking, The Illusionist offers plenty to look at, all of it magnificently rendered, as it deploys superb hand-drawn imagery to bring to life an unproduced screenplay the late Jacques Tati finished in 1959.
In between — during the 17 days of the Festival — are numerous special events and multiple daily screenings, as many or more screenings, says VIFF artistic director Alan Franey, than in previous years.
In 2010, VIFF places a focus on a Best of Cannes 2010 film series, including Palme d’Or winner Uncle Boonmee Who Recalls His Past Lives, which screens next Wednesday, October 6 at 9 p.m. (Granville 7, Theatre 3) and Tuesday, October 12th at 4:15 p.m. (VanCity Theatre).

Continue reading Vancouver International Film Festival projectors are set to roll →