The 37th annual Vancouver International Film Festival — home to all that is good, great and life-changing in independent film, and award-winning film from countries spanning the globe — wrapped one month ago.
For many, the Festival closing for another year is cause for despair, for where else other than VIFF will lovers of film discover authentic cinema?
As we have written many times previously on VanRamblings, Tom Charity is the year-round programmer of the Vancouver International Film Festival’s Vancity Theatre, on Seymour just north of Davie & across the street from the expansive, much-cherished community amenity, Emery Barnes Park.
Eleven months of the year, the good and great Mr. Charity programmes the very best in independent and world cinema, home to transcendently lovely films of import, award winning cinema that finds a home in the gorgeous, comfy and intimate 175-seat Vancity Theatre. For our new Mayor and ten new Vancouver City Councillors, the Vancity is not only our — which is to say, the citizens’ — cinema, it is your cinema. Why, your cinema?
The home of the Vancouver International Film Festival, and the creation of the Vancity Theatre, occurred consequent to a demand by the city of Vancouver with the developer of the overshadowing Brava condominium complex that a constituent element of the Brava development, as the developers’ community amenity contribution, would be the realization of a year-round home for VIFF, and the creation of a city and a neighbourhood state-of-the-art cinema, which came to be known as the Vancity Theatre.
As our new City Council’s point person on the arts, and as a member of our community who fought hard for the preservation of the east side’s Rio Theatre, Councillor Michael Wiebe — who, on occasion, we have seen in the audience of the Vancity, as we have seen other of our newly-electeds, as well as recent and past members of Council — should, from time to time, remember that the Vancity Theatre is their home, as it is home for so many of us who look to VIFF for cinematic insight into the human condition — and you know what, the Vancity Theatre always, always comes through.
As is the case today, with two outstanding films that have captured the interest of cinéastes everywhere, and this year have taken the globe, and film festivals across the globe, by storm as ineffable, astonishing and triumphantly inventive cinema of the first order, compelling, extraordinary and intoxicating cinema magic that demands your attention & attendance.
Madeline’s Madeline, Vancity Theatre, 1181 Seymour Street. Now playing.
Friday, November 9th, at 6pm
Saturday, November 10th 2018, at 5pm
Sunday, November 11th, at 8pm
Wednesday, November 14th, at 4pm
Thursday, November 15th, at 1pm
Written and directed by Josephine Decker and starring remarkable newcomer Helena Howard, Madeline’s Madeline is a stunner, a hit at Sundance earlier this year, cinema considered by many critics to be one of the best films of the year. Described by IndieWire’s David Ehrlich as …
“… an ecstatically disorienting experience that defines its terms right from the start and then obliterates any trace of traditional film language, achieving a cinematic aphasia that allows Decker to redraw the boundaries between the stories we tell and the people we tell them about, Madeline’s Madeline emerges as one of the boldest and most invigorating American films of the 21st century, a dazzling hall of mirrors, a mesmerizing and unshakeable cinematic experience that demands your attention.”
Madeline’s Madeline opens at 6pm tonight at the Vancity Theatre.
Burning. Opens tonight at 7:50pm, at the Vancity Theatre, on Seymour.
Saturday, November 10th, 2pm
Saturday, November 10th, 6:50pm
Sunday, November 11th, at 5:10pm
Wednesday, November 14th, at 1pm
Thursday, November 15th, at 3pm
Friday, November 16th, at 8:30pm
Lee Chang-dong’s masterful thriller and Cannes FIPRESCI Prize winner, Burning is South Korea’s 2018 Best Foreign Language Film Oscar entry, and a film sure to end up on a raft of critical top-10 lists, cinema that shudders with ravenous desire, a meticulous and mysterious slow-burning thriller that transforms into a masterful look at jealousy, class, and revenge that, despite its 148 minutes, quickens its pace as it moves along, all the while torching genre clichés, Burning emerging as a subtle, teasing mystery that develops into a full-blown thriller, and cinema that leaves a lasting, scorching blister that purifies the soul. Clearly, then, a must-see film.
