As of this afternoon, VanRamblings has added a further six reviews to our thrived and became an institution over the years; more than 155 reviews are now available. Included in today’s update, you’ll find new reviews for Qu�bec’s Alter Egos + shorts, Germany’s Berlin Blues, Holland’s well-reviewed Dutch Light, Abbas Kiarostami’s highly rated Five, and two ‘slag’ reviews for Sri Lanka’s Scent of the Lotus Pond, and Cuba’s Seven Days, Seven Nights.
VIFF Housekeeping Information: New Films, Additional Screenings

Hits are emerging at the 23rd annual Vancouver International Film Festival. Even though The World According to Bush will air on the CBC’s Passionate Eye on Sunday, October 17th at 10 p.m. and again on Friday, October 22nd at 10 p.m, Vancouver Film Festival attendees obviously want to experience the documentary on the big screen with fellow Festival aficionadas.
Machuca is another break out hit, as are the remaining films listed directly below. As of today, additional screenings are available for …

• 20 FINGERS: Granville 6, October 3 (2:20 p.m.)
• BERLIN BLUES: Granville 6, October 3 (5:00 p.m.)
• FOUR SHADES OF BROWN: Granville 6, October 3 (8:00 p.m.)
• HARI OM: Vogue, October 3 (1 p.m.)
• MACHUCA: Vogue, October 6 (9:30 p.m.)
• UP AND DOWN: Granville 6, October 6 (7:30 p.m.)
• THE WORLD ACCORDING TO BUSH: Granville 7, October 7 (4 p.m. and 7 p.m.)

For more VIFF programme updates, click here.
Who’da Thunk? A Pro Bush Film Added to Film Festival Lineup
Where are all the pro-Bush films? Thought you’d never ask. The fine programming folks at the Vancouver International Film Festival actually found one! Billed as “an alternative programme to Fahrenheit 9/11, George W. Bush: Faith in the White House is a timely new ‘70-Minute Documentary on the Most Resolutely Faith-Based Presidency in Modern Times’.”
Director David W. Balsinger describes his film in this way …

“He is the commander-in-chief of the world’s greatest superpower. The leader of the free world. The head of the executive branch of the U.S. government. The weight of responsibility is enormous, and it drives George W. Bush to his knees … in prayer and supplication. Like no other president in the history of the United States, George W. Bush boldly, publicly, and genuinely lives out his faith on the job.”

According to BBC correspondent Justin Webb …

“Nobody spends more time on his knees than George W. Bush. The Bush administration hums to the sound of prayer. Prayer meetings take place day and night. It’s not uncommon to see White House functionaries hurrying down corridors carrying Bibles. Decide for yourself whether President Bush’s faith has been good for America! But whatever you decide, his faith will change and inspire you!”

Says Frank Rich in The New York Times …

Of the many cultural grenades being tossed, the one must-see is George W. Bush: Faith in the White House, specifically marketed in ‘head to head’ partisan opposition to Fahrenheit 9/11. This documentary first surfaced at the Republican convention in New York, where it was previewed in tandem with an invitation-only, no-press-allowed ‘Family, Faith and Freedom Rally’, a Ralph Reed-Sam Brownback jamboree thrown by the Bush campaign for Christian conservatives. Faith in the White House gives the imagination room to run riot about what a 21st-century crusade might look like in the flesh. A documentary conceived as a rebuke to Fahrenheit 9/11 is nothing if not its unintentional and considerably more nightmarish sequel.”

No one can say that VanRamblings, or the Vancouver Film Festival, fails to provide equal time for the opposition. Frank Rich is probably right, though, when he opines that George W. Bush: Faith in the White House “is nothing if not [Fahrenheit 9/11’s] unintentional and considerably more nightmarish sequel.” George W. Bush: Faith in the White House screens at the Granville 5, this coming Thursday, October 7th at 4 p.m.
Euro Hipsters Attend the Vancouver Film Festival
German actor and co-screenwriter Jan Stahlberg will be a Festival guest for the Berlin Film Festival award winner Quiet as a Mouse, from October 6th through 8th. His award-winning film screens first on October 6th at 9:30 p.m. at the Ridge; and again on October 8th, at 2 p.m., at the Granville 4.
Dutch director Martin Koolhoven will be in town for his gripping character study, South, from October 3rd through 8th. Koolhoven’s film screens at the Granville 3 this coming Monday, October 4th at 6:40 p.m., and again on Wednesday, October 6th, at 2 p.m., at the Granville 4.

As of this afternoon, VanRamblings has added a further three reviews to our thrived and became an institution over the years; more than 150 are now available. Included in today’s update, you’ll find new reviews for Childstar, Captive, and Stella Street. This week’s Georgia Straight reviews are available here.
Vancouver Film Being Held By Customs … May Not Make Festival

Canada Customs’ targeting of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender material has had an impact on more than just book stores. Independent multi-media artist Kai Ling Xue knows.
Xue’s latest short film A Girl Named Kai has been screened at festivals across North America this year, most recently at the Austin Gay and Lesbian International Film Festival. The film, en route to Canada, for screening at the Vancouver International Film Festival, was seized by Canada Customs earlier in the week, and is currently in bureaucratic limbo.
Xue received a terse letter from the Canadian government on September 29th stating that her film had been sent to the Senior Programme Advisor in Ottawa to be evaluated on for its possible ‘obscene’ content. The government letter did not contain any contact information, neither a phone nor a fax number. The government has indicated it will require seven days to make a determination as to whether the material contained in the film would be considered ‘obscene’, under the Customs Act. As of this writing, Xue has heard no further word from government officials, nor has she been advised as to a date that her film might be returned.
Ironically, the film contains no nudity or sexual content. Rather, it is a lyrical and sometimes melancholy meditation on Xue’s relationship with her family and sense of self. A Girl Named Kai is due to be screened at the Granville 5 on both October 5th at 9:15 pm and again on October 8th at 1:40pm.
New French Filmmakers: 6 First Films
Wondering what to do post-Festival? Pacific Cin�math�que, working in co-operation with Consulate General of France in Vancouver and France’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Paris, today announced a Vancouver Premi�re! film series titled New French Filmmakers: Six First Films, due to screen from October 15th to 17th and October 22nd to 24th.
Films and filmmakers in the series include Guillaume Canet’s My Idol; Julie Lopes-Curval’s Camera D’or winner at Cannes in 2002, Seaside; and noted French actress Zabou Breitman’s C�sar-winning (the French Oscars) directorial d�but — winner for best first feature, best actress (Isabelle Carr�), and best supporting actor (Bernard Le Coq) — Beautiful Memories.

Life has intruded, there’s washing to be done, work to attend to, sleep to get, and more necessary day-to-day activities that have been jettisoned over the course of the past week while attending the Film Festival became the priority, that VanRamblings must both take a break today, and announce reduced coverage of the final week of the Film Festival. Which isn’t to say that VanRamblings will not be attending Festival films — we will, but we may not have time to write fully about the experience.
All that said, VanRamblings will continue to add reviews daily to our extensive thrived and became an institution over the years. By the end of the weekend, you can expect to find a further 15 – 30 reviews to be published in the Guide.

As of this morning, VanRamblings has added a further four reviews to our thrived and became an institution over the years. Included in today’s update, you’ll find new reviews for Café Lumière, Campfire, Los Muertos, and Zero Day.
Tying Up Loose Ends, What’s Doing Well, and …

EFilmCritic.com has hired Jason Whyte to provide coverage of the 23rd annual Vancouver International Film Festival. In addition to festblog.ca and coverage on VanRamblings, EFilmCritic.com is a site worth surfing to.
A couple of items picked up on the street yesterday …

• The Festival’s new Film Centre, set to open later this autumn, will operate two, smallish 170 seat state-of-the-art theatres. Word as of last evening is that the new cinemas won’t open til February 2005, and initially will screen films only two days a week. No word as to whether the VIFF will bring back ‘hit’ VIFF films without a North American distributor in place.
• Cineworks Independent Filmmakers Society presents “A Conversation with Don McKellar”, moderated by Vancouver Sun film critic Katherine Monk, at Cineworks Studio at the Pacific Cinémathèque tomorrow, September 30, from 6:30 – 7:30 p.m. As is the case with all seminars in this series, admission is free. Everyone is welcome.
• The 42nd annual New York Film Festival kicks off this Thursday. Several films screening at the VIFF have been selected by the New York Festival jury, including The 10th District Court — Moments of Trial, Café Lumière, Moolaadé, Or (My Treasure), Tarnation, Tropical Malady, Woman Is the Future of Man, and The World.
• Sold out screenings as of this writing (tickets available at the door half-an-hour before showtime, otherwise each film is considered to have been sold out) include: 20 Fingers (Oct. 3, 11:30 a.m.), As Life Goes By (Oct. 3, 7:15 p.m.), Berlin Blues (Oct. 2, 9:15 p.m.), Camping Sauvage (Oct. 2, 6 p.m.), Captive (Oct 1, 9 p.m.), Childstar (Oct. 3, 11 a.m.), Chokher Bali: A Passion Play (Oct. 2, 3 p.m.), Clean (Sept. 30, 9:45 p.m.), Cop Festival Reloaded (Oct.1, 5 p.m.), Dutch Light (Oct. 3, 7:30 p.m.), Four Shades of Brown (Oct. 3, 3 p.m.), Journeyings and Conversations (Oct. 3, 10:30 a.m.), Machuca (Sept. 30, 7 p.m.), ScaredSacred (Oct. 5, 10 a.m.), Stella Street (Oct. 2, 11 a.m.), Travellers and Magicians (Oct. 6, 7 p.m.), What Remains of Us (Oct. 7, 7:30 p.m.), Wilby Wonderful (Oct. 4, 6:20 p.m.), and The World According to Bush (Oct. 4 & 6 & 7 @ 7 p.m. … an extra screening has been added earlier on the 7th; see below).
• For those taking in a screening of Heddy Honigmann’s otherwise well-reviewed film, the word is give her latest, Dame la Mano, a miss … “the cinematographer filmed crap, there’s hardly a scene in the entire film that’s in focus … you can’t see the damn thing” is the word on the street.

Schedule Changes and other info …
As of this morning, the VIFF Programme Updates include two additional screenings for both Machuca and The World According to Bush (certainly among the most lauded films at this year’s Festival), as well as additional screenings for 11 other films (including Or (My Treasure) and Four Shades of Brown) which have received good notices. Too bad, though, that many of the additional screenings will be held in the Granville 7’s Theatre 6, the least amenable screen in the cinema complex.