It’s that very special time of year again, when the premi&egravere arts event of the year — in this case the 36th annual edition of the entirely spectacular and humane Vancouver International Film Festival (VIFF) — is set to get underway, replete with 365+ films from more than 70 countries, commencing two weeks from today, on Thursday, September 28th, the festival set to run for the next 15 days through until Friday, October 13th.
VIFF is best approached like a planned climb of a massive mountain: with preplanning galore, for which eventuality VIFF provides some cursory advice, explained and explicated by VanRamblings in more detail below.

What movies to choose?
On viff.org, you’ll find films organized by the following major programmes:
Panorama: Comprised of galas and special presentations, contemporary world cinema, and the Spotlight on France and documentary programmes;
Sea to Sky: A showcase of the inspired works emerging from creative film artists residing and/or filming in our home province of British Columbia;
True North: A celebration of the extraordinary creativity and craft by Canadian storytellers from coast to coast to coast;
Gateway: Providing a journey into the compelling cinematic worlds envisioned by East Asia’s most adventurous artists.
In addition, the smaller and more acutely focused film series include M/A/D (music, art & design), the Impact series (social activism), ALT (the international ‘altered states’ genre programme), and Youth (a programme catering to high school students, meant to foster imaginations, inspire, educate and entertain).

As always, a number of VIFF films will be returning to theatres for regular runs post-festival. When you look at the programme (free and widely available across Metro Vancouver), if there’s a Canadian distributor in place for the film, you can bet the film will return sooner rather than later.
There’ll also be a number of guests (actors, directors, producers) who’ll attend VIFF this year to present their films. It can be both fun and enlightening to see these films during VIFF for added cinematic insight.
Apart from the Galas and Special Presentations, the vast majority of films in VIFF’s 2017 programme are meant to appeal to smaller audiences, comprising independent world cinema which won’t find its way back to our shores. See these films at VIFF in 2017, or miss them for all time.
How and where do I buy tickets?
You can buy tickets or passes online at viff.org and print your tickets at home. Note that there is a service charge for online and phone orders: $1 per single ticket, up to $4 per order. Before the festival opens, tickets can be bought in person at the Vancity Theatre on Seymour (at Davie) from noon until 7pm. Once the festival is underway, all festival venues (The Centre for the Performing Arts, The Cinematheque, Cineplex Odeon International Village, the Rio Theatre, SFU’s Goldcorp Centre for the Performing Arts, the Vancity Theatre and the Vancouver Playhouse) will act as festival box offices.
Ticket packages and passes are a great cost-saving idea. More information may be found at viff.org.
The real steal for those on a budget (think seniors) who love film, and want to bliss out at VIFF 2017? Consideration should be given to purchasing the Weekday Matinee Pass, for only $160, which if you were to plan your filmgoing properly would enable you to see all films up until 5:50pm Monday through Friday, translating into 48 (or more) screenings during the festival period, at just a bit more than $3 per film!
Throughout the Festival, VIFF offers a customer service line, open daily 9am to 7pm, staffed by friendly and informed volunteers, who can answer any of your questions. Simply call 604-683-FILM (3456) for assistance.

What about all those lines outside the theatres?
Each VIFF screening will have three separate queues: a pass-holder line, a ticket-holders line and a rush or standby line. Standby tickets, for screenings that are sold out, go on sale 10 minutes before showtime, at full price (cash preferred). No matter which line you’re in, arrive at least 30 minutes early, particularly if you’re picky about where you sit.
What about food and drink?
Though most VIFF venues serve the usual popcorn/candy/soft drinks fare, some have a few extras (there’s wine at the Vancity, and beer and wine at The Rio), while Cineplex International Village sports a wealth of restaurants.
Outside food & drink is officially not allowed in the theatrse, but VIFF-goers have been known to get away with it; be discreet, considerate and tidy.

What about parking and bus routes?
VIFF is pretty much a no-car zone — transit is definitely the way to go. Still, there’s free parking available at Cineplex International Village for VIFF patrons, with a fair bit of parking in the area around The Rio. Otherwise, you’re best taking advantage of Vancouver’s transit system, or walking.

What movies should I choose? Part Deux
The can’t miss films at VIFF this year include …
Call Me by Your Name: Sundance’s smash summer idyll tracks a young man’s sexual awakening in the Italian Riviera of 1983;
The Florida Project: Director Sean Baker’s Cannes favourite tells the compassionate underclass story of six-year-old Moonee who spends her days both dodging and creating trouble;
The Square: Ruben Östlund’s Cannes 2017 funny and utterly humane Palme d’Or winner takes aim at the pomposity and hypocrisy of artists;
A Fantastic Woman: Rising Chilean director Sebastián Lelio celebrates the endurance of a woman under suspicion of murder in a film that could bring the first major acting award for a transgender performer to Daniela Vega;
BPM (Beats Per Minute): The Grand Prix at Cannes this year went to director Robin Campillo’s wrenching, deeply humanistic look at the early-’90s war on AIDS;

Loveless: Russian director Andrey Zvyagintsev’s ice-cold masterpiece delivers a desolate image of Russia’s middle class, ruled by selfishness, envy, anger & anxiety, in a story told with riveting sincerity and nuance;
Meditation Park: Vancouver’s Mina Shum’s textured, tender, reflective and charismatic portrait of first and second generation immigrant life.

Also keep your eye out for director Michael Haneke’s follow-up to his Oscar-winning film Amour in a return to form (read: sinister grand tragedy) with Happy End, which is taking TIFF by storm; plus Best Foreign Film entries, Germany’s In The Fade starring Diane Kruger who won Best Actress at Cannes this year and Switzerland’s The Divine Order, an Audience Award winner at Tribeca about the Swiss suffragette movement.
In the coming days, VanRamblings will present a detailed preview analysis of three films — most days — that are scheduled to play at VIFF, beginning this Saturday concluding just before the Festival proper gets underway on Thursday, September 28th. The previews and excerpted capsule reviews we’ll have on offer have been gleaned from superlative critic raves coming out of Telluride / Cannes / Locarno / Berlin / Toronto / Seattle / Los Angeles / New York / London / Venice / Sundance / Tribeca / SXSW.
VanRamblings will publish trailers where available, and as above include excerpts of reviews from The Guardian and The Telegraph, Screen Daily, Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, IndieWire, The Playlist, The Film Stage, New York Magazine (The Vulture), CineVue, Paste Magazine, Consequence of Sound, The Village Voice, and other trusted review sources.

It’s that time again — Vancouver’s yearly 16-day immersion in films from across the globe.
The 35th annual Vancouver International Film Festival is as always a daunting prospect. This year’s edition of VIFF, which begins today and runs through until Friday October 14th, will screen 365+ films, including 219 full-length features, from 70 different countries.
Here are some tips on navigating it.
Programme, tickets and venues
As you get ready for a cinematic onslaught, you’ll want to pick up a copy of the glossy 2016 VIFF programme, available at no charge all across Metro Vancouver, at the Vancity Theatre, as well as at libraries, bookstores and coffee shops.

You can skip the box office lines and buy your tickets online at viff.org, or simply by pressing on the buy option when choosing of a film of interest to you, and then simply print the ticket at home. Note that there is a service charge for online orders: $1 per single ticket, up to $4 per order. Patrons can save by purchasing ticket packs or all-access screening passes.
Tickets or passes can be bought in person at the Vancity Theatre, or at any of the Festival venues: The Centre for the Performing Arts, The Cinematheque, the Rio Theatre, SFU’s Goldcorp Centre, the Vancouver Playhouse or Cineplex International Village. The box offices will be open daily, one half-hour before the day’s first screening.
Throughout the Festival, VIFF offers a helpful customer service line, open daily 9am to 7pm, staffed by friendly and informed volunteers, who can answer any of your questions. Simply call 604-683-FILM (3456) for assistance.
What about all those lines?
Each VIFF screening will have three separate queues: a pass-holder line (for those with passes hanging around their necks; you’ll know them when you see them), a ticket-holders line (for those who’ve purchased tickets in advance, and have the tickets in hand) and a rush line. Standby tickets, for screenings that are sold out, go on sale 10 minutes before showtime, at full price (cash preferred). No matter which line you’re in, arriving at least 30 minutes early — or for popular screenings (the VIFF website will let you know which screenings are popular and almost sold-out) is a good idea, particularly if you’re picky about where you sit.
Food and drink, parking, bus routes
Though most VIFF venues serve the usual popcorn/candy/soft drinks fare, some have a few extras (there’s wine at the Vancity, and beer and wine at The Rio, for example). Most venues have a wealth of restaurants just steps from the door.
Outside food and drink is officially not allowed in the theatres, but VIFF-goers have been known to get away with it; be discreet, considerate and tidy (and, please, please, do not eat during the course of a film screening).
VIFF is pretty much a no-car zone — transit is definitely the way to go. Still, there’s free parking available at Cineplex International Village for VIFF patrons, with a fair bit of parking in the area around The Rio. Otherwise, you’re best taking advantage of Vancouver’s transit system. Typing m.translink.ca into your smartphone browser will give you all the information you need to navigate between venues.
What movies should I choose?
There is always something new to see at the Vancouver International Film Festival.
Many of the 365+ films have already screened elsewhere, though, either in their home countries or at other festivals such as Cannes, Sundance, Berlin, Telluride, Locarno and Venice, among other far flung places across the globe.
As a service to readers, for the past nine days, VanRamblings has published previews of award-winning and lauded films that have been scheduled as a part of VIFF 2016. Just click here to read 36+ previews of celebrated VIFF feature films (most with trailers, all with reviews from erudite critics).

Several of these titles — among them Kenneth Lonergan’s Manchester by the Sea; Jim Jarmusch’s Paterson; Ken Loach’s I, Daniel Blake; Asghar Farhadi’s The Salesman; Olivier Assayas’ Personal Shopper; Jean and Luc Dardennes’ The Unknown Girl; Paul Verhoeven’s Elle; and Barry Jenkins’ Moonlight will look to build on their enthusiastic early acclaim. All of these films have been previewed by VanRamblings.

Another one, Nate Parker’s Sundance prizewinner The Birth of a Nation, although it has become a lightning rod for controversy given director Nate Parker’s 1999 sexual assault charge, promises an unflinching look at slavery, and emerges as a must-see at VIFF 2016.
And those are just the movies everyone recognizes and talks about. That the Festival programme contains still more multitudes – that it counts short masterworks, below-the-radar genre items and avant-garde mind-blowers among its essential offerings each year is a fact that can sometimes be lost amidst the deafening reams of Oscar hype that can issue forth throughout the fall season.
A massive annual confluence of art and industry, as well as a cinematic buffet of tremendous cultural and aesthetic diversity, is invariably reduced to just a handful of heat-seeking titles.
As much as we may look forward to the more lauded VIFF entries, many of which will reach our local multiplex in the weeks and months to come, there are many more VIFF films worth seeking out than the films VanRamblings has highlighted in our nine-day preview. But when a Festival boasts nearly 365+ films to choose from, a critic must start somewhere.

Despite the obstructive jaundice diagnosis VanRamblings wrote about yesterday, we do not have pancreatic cancer. Phew! Spent the day in the hospital yesterday undergoing a series of tests, and am scheduled for surgery tomorrow, on the opening day of the 35th annual the Vancouver International Film Festival, and will continue to write daily about VIFF through the end of the this year’s Festival, on Friday, October 14th.
So, it is on to the final three previews of lauded films that will arrive on our shores beginning tomorrow in what is a very strong year for VIFF.

Before we get started today, this: Andrew Poon, long one of VanRamblings favourite Communications folks with VIFF — this year working with the very wonderful Owen Campbell, and the doyenne of all things Communication with VIFF, Helen Yagi — wrote yesterday to say that there are six Asian films — all part of the Gateway | Dragons & Tigers series — he believes are worthy of your attention, so take note — Andrew is never wrong …

• Crosscurrent. Winner of Best Cinematography in Berlin this year, director Yang Chao brings a beautifully shot film perfect for cinephiles to VIFF this year, Andrew says. Writes Patrick Gamble in Cinevue, “Traversing China, from the riches of Shanghai’s financial hub, to the nation’s impoverished hinterlands, Yang combines a daring mix of realism and lyrical fantasy to create a sense of where China is drifting, merging imagery and poetry to create a film of uncontrollable sadness, arresting visuals and ruminative grace;

• Out of the Frying Pan, a phantasmagoria of six dazzling anime shorts, ranging from powerful evocations of earthquakes and tsunamis to scenes from the life of a girl whose mother is a ghost and whose father is a cat (which, by the way, won the Grand Prix award at the 2016 Image Forum Festival), conceptually brilliant works all, and very much deserving of your consideration;

• Lifeline. Making its North American premiere, Japanese director Shiota Akihiko will be in attendance at VIFF to present his new film, a slapstick, bloody battle between mortality and immortality, and a darkly comedic exploration of the depths one person will sink to save herself and the lengths another will go to in order to lose himself;

• The Bacchus Lady. No, this film by E Jyong is not about our indefatigable Vancouver School Board trustee, the fabulous Patti Bacchus, but rather is a tour de force from the grand dame of Korean cinema, 69-year-old Youn Yuh-jung, who delivers a powerful performance as a sex worker confronting her and her ex-patron’s problems in old age, in a graceful film that while exploring a bounty of taboo subjects provides an engaging picture of the lonely lives of people considered by society as past their sell-by date. Says Clarence Tsui in his review in The Hollywood Reporter, “The Bacchus Lady is certainly audacious, and a powerful reminder of how lives could or would be lived once the youthful vigor is gone”;

• Emma (Mother). An International premiere at VIFF 2016, Indonesian director Riri Riza (who will be in attendance this weekend at VIFF, along with the producer) to present his new film, an adaptation of Alberthiene Endah’s novel Athirah, which focuses on social, political, sexual and psychological issues centering on questions of emotional and moral strength, says longtime Dragons & Tigers programmer Tony Rayns, who goes on to say, “Emma (Mother) is infused with Riza’s signature lyrical realism, wise and humane as it deals with Athirah’s stoic efforts to keep herself and her family together”;

• The Road to Mandalay. Debuting at the Venice Film Festival at the beginning of this month, Chinese-Burmese director Midi Z’s Bangkok-set drama revolves around the loves, fears and loathing of two migrant workers in the Thai capital, the film an engrossing drama that works on an intimate level of moving human tragedy while providing insight into the travails that face the Burmese people. Say Vittorio Scarpa in his review in Cineuropa, “A blunt and accurate portrayal of the condition of the many Burmese migrants living in Thailand, searching for opportunities that often end in disaster, based on a number of true stories (among them, the story of the director’s brother), Road to Mandalay shows us how the world, when it comes to problems of integration, is extraordinarily small.”

Six more films for you to consider as VIFF film fare in 2016.

A Copy of My Mind. Comes highly recommended from VanRamblings’ friend Mathew Englander who saw A Copy of My Mind at TIFF, and wrote to us to rave about it. Says Jason Bechervaise in his review in Screen Daily …

“Prominent Indonesian filmmaker Joko Anwar (The Forbidden Door) sets his new film in Jakarta, telling the story of young couple who fall in love but end up in trouble when the woman steals a DVD from a client. Both affecting and absorbing in equal measure, A Copy of My Mind shirks melodrama to explore the difficulties faced by those living in a city marred by political corruption. Conveys the political and social turmoil faced by so many in Jakarta through the eyes of the two protagonists, it’s the pair’s genuine and natural abilities that give the film more than a touch of authenticity and sincerity.”

Next on to this year’s Un Certain Regard winner at Cannes …

The Happiest Day in the Life of Olli Mäki. Finnish newcomer Juho Kuosmanen chronicles the buildup to the 1962 world featherweight championship title match in this idiosyncratic boxing drama that is, as Sarah Ward says in her review in Screen Daily, “contemplative, inspirational and sweet rather than brutal and action-packed, a quietly charming film that will punch above its weight on its way to finding a broader audience.” Tender, lyrical and bittersweet, as Guy Lodge says in his review in Variety, “It punches its way into the upper ranks of cinematic pugilist portraits by virtue of its exquisite craft and a lead performance of heart-bruising melancholy by Jarkko Lahti.”

The Salesman. Iran’s Best Foreign Film Oscar entry, Asghar Farhadi, the masterly Iranian director of Oscar winner A Separation offers another finely cut gem of neorealist suspense, Irish Times critic Donald Barnes writing, “The Salesman is flawlessly acted. Ordinary-looking people pass through huge emotions without ever resulting to histrionics. Outbreaks of violence are rare and, thus, when they do occur, they are all the more shocking, Farhadi once again trading in the poetry of the unsaid.” Variety film critic Owen Gleiberman writes …

“The film’s title refers to an amateur production of Death of a Salesman that the film’s two central characters are both performing in. He’s playing Willy Loman, and she plays his wife, the beleaguered Linda. It’s a conceit that comes off as something of a contrivance — at least, until the very end, when the parallel between Emad and Willy at last hits home. They are good men who, through the tragedy of their choices, wind up letting down the people they love. Farhadi has fashioned a dramatic critique of what he portrays as the Iranian male gaze — a gaze of molten judgment and anger. As a filmmaker, though, his gaze is true.”

And thus concludes VanRamblings 36+ film preview of the 35th annual Vancouver International Film Festival.
A coda: broadcasting legend and longtime VIFF aficionado J.B. Shayne called yesterday to say that he feels a screening of Jim Jarmusch’s documentary Gimme Danger is mandatory viewing VIFF 2016, for any one who has any appreciation of rock history and who loves Iggy Pop and The Stooges. Mr. Shayne will be present at the sure-to-be-raucous 9:15pm screening at The Rio on VIFF’s opening night, Thursday, September 29th. Betcha his friend John Tanner will be there, as well.

VanRamblings has now previewed 36+ acclaimed VIFF films that are about to arrive on our shores having garnered critical acclaim at film festivals in every far flung community across the globe. For a survey of all the VIFF films VanRamblings has previewed for VIFF 2016, just click here.