In Vancouver there is a cinema of beauty, programmed by the indomitable Tom Charity, who has turned the Vancity Theatre into the most successful year-round cinema attached to a film festival, anywhere on the continent.
Tom, an arts journalist of some note and distinction, and as we are wont to say on VanRamblings, a person of conscience — as is our friend Selina Crammond, the chief programming director of the recently-wrapped, and wildly successful 17th annual DOXA Documentary Film Festival — to employ an oft-used phrase, is a “man of the people”, which is to say that he is one of our city’s true social justice heroes, an activist of substance, meaning and involvement in the affairs of our city, our province, our land and the world, and in simple terms on Vancouver’s arts scene, a creative genius.
Since assuming the helm of the Vancity Theatre in 2012 — yet another acute hire by then Festival Director, Alan Franey, now the festival’s Director of International Programming — Tom has found the pulse of Vancouver’s cinema arts-going public, and programmed the Vancity Theatre to a fair thee well, a reflection of his core values of engagement, equity and humanity, and an extension of the empathetic window on the world values of the Vancouver International Film Festival, of which the Vancity is very much a part. If you’ve not been to the Vancity: GO! Attend! You must!
That’s Curtis Woloschuk pictured above, VIFF’s ‘RUPTURE’ series programmer
Tom points out that it is not he, but another creative genius (VanRamblings’ wording, but only because it is true!) who is responsible for the inaugural edition of the Vancouver International Film Festival’s RUPTURE series — which, if we had our wits about us, we would have figured out on our own … alas — the one, the only, the very huggable collective hope of our future and Associate Director of Programming at VIFF, Curtis Woloschuk, who has long programmed VIFF’s Altered States (or ALT, if you will) programming, an amalgam of “international genre films come out to play” (read: films that are a little off-centre), having assumed that responsibility when VIFF’s Sandy Gow turned his focus to programming VIFF’s absolutely stunningly beautiful Shorts Programme — a part of VIFF you should never, ever miss.
On Arts Friday, a preview of the upcoming programming at the Vancity …
Débuting last December at the 17th annual Whistler Film Festival, film critic Lucy Lau writing in The Straight says of Venus …
A feel-good film that admirably defies the conventions of white, straight, and cis-gendered Hollywood, Venus tells the tale of Sid (played dazzlingly by Debargo Sanyal), a transitioning woman whose life takes a surprising turn when Ralph (Jamie Mayers), the 14-year-old biological son she never knew she had, shows up unannounced at her door” … ending her review with, “Heartwarming and an absolute delight to watch — with an infectious bilingual soundtrack, to boot.
Venus will play at the Vancity, as is usually the case at the idiosyncratic and successful Vancity Theatre, on six occasions, beginning tonight, ending next Wednesday, May 23rd. Screening times may be found by clicking here.
Advance tickets for Ma vie de courgette are sold out, but if you get down to the Vancity by 11:30am, there may be some standby tickets available.
Check out the full programme of Vancity screenings this and next month.
Next Saturday, there is what VanRamblings considers to be a very special event occurring at the Vancity, followed by a Sunday once only screening of a film that took Sundance by storm this past January.
Filmmaker David Lowery ready for his Creator Talk at the Vancity Theatre on May 26th
Here’s the Vancity programme on next Saturday’s ‘Creator Talk’ event …
The Vancouver International Film Festival is thrilled to welcome David Lowery back to our city for the inaugural edition of Rupture (May 24-27), a celebration of films that bend rules, blend genres and uncover innovative takes on venerable tropes. David has always been refreshingly forthcoming with his daily routine as a filmmaker and we look forward to our conversation with him as he shares his insights into a unique creative process that has sent him on a trajectory from beautifully handcrafted short films to an astonishing assured indie début (the lyrical, fatalistic Ain’t The Bodies Saints) to an inspired re-imagining of a storied Disney property (Pete’s Dragon, one of VanRamblings’ three favourite films of 2016) to setting out to make the idiosyncratic A Ghost Story that, in wowing the critics, became a fixture on a surfeit of Best of 2017 lists.
Tickets for the Telus STORYHIVE Creator Talk with David Lowery are still available — Curtis advises that you should go, immediately, to the VIFF website, and click this link to order your tickets to the “you’ll regret it if you miss it (our words),” Creator Talk with David Lowery! Tickets are only $20.
Tickets are still available for Damsel, starring Robert Pattinson and Mia Wasikowska — otherwise known as ‘the’ actress of her generation. Here’s what Owen Gleiberman had to say in his Variety review …
A mega-deadpan Western comedy starring Robert Pattinson as a cracker-barrel hero on a romantic mission – who hits the perfect note of drawling flaked-out good cheer – set to marry his beloved financée, Penelope (Mia Wasikowska), but things go awry.
Penelope turns out to be the toughest character in the movie: a righteous and self-protective post-feminist Calamity Jane, who takes out her bent shotgun and uses it only because of how badly she’s been wronged. She has no patience for any man who would destroy her happiness. Wasikowska, under a chopped wedge of blonde hair, gives her true grit; her straight-shooter line readings are punchlines of rationality. She’s as alone in the world as any of the other characters, but she’s the one who won’t be dragged down.
See Damsel at the Vancity on Sunday, May 27th, or miss out on it forever.
