Each year, 75 countries from across the globe submit one very special film from their country to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, as their entry in the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar sweepstakes.
More entries are making their way to the Academy every day, with final submissions due by mid-October. Below you’ll find the 12 films that have been submitted by their respective countries that are also screening at the 34th annual Vancouver International Film Festival. As we become aware of further entries that will screen at VIFF, we’ll update the “list” below, and alert you in future VanRamblings’ posts (and/or on Twitter, @raytomlin).
With more than 200 foreign language features set to screen at VIFF 2015 — an almost overwhelming number of films from which to choose the dozen or more films you’ll take in at VIFF this year — the rationale behind today’s VanRamblings post is to offer you some small degree of direction as you review the VIFF Guide as to films that may be worthy of your attention.
The Assassin | Taiwan | Hou Hsiao-hsien | Best Director, Cannes 2015 | Review, The Playlist
600 Miles | Mexico | Director, Gabriel Ripstein | Best First Feature, Panorama, Berlin 2015
Ixcanul | Guatemala | Director, Jayro Bustamante | Alfred Bauer Prize, Berlin 2015
100 Yen Love | Japan | Review, Peter Debruge, Variety | Best Japanese Feature, Tokyo
Mustang | France | Europa Cinema, Best European Film | Directors’ Fortnight, Cannes 2015
Son of Saul | Hungary | Review, Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian | Grand Prix, Cannes 2015
The Club | Chile | Director, Pablo Larraín | Silver Bear (Grand Jury Prize), Berlin 2015
Aferim! | Romania | Radu Jude | Silver Bear (Best Director), Berlin 2015 | Review, Screen
Rams | Iceland | Grímur Hákonarson | Grand Prix, Un Certain Regard, Cannes 2015
The Second Mother | Brazil | Audience Award, Berlin 2015 | Special Jury Award, Sundance
Do you have a hankering to travel to Gotham early in this autumn season?
Thought that, as it would coincide with your sojourn to the city that never sleeps, you might take in a screening or three at this year’s prestigious 53rd annual New York Film Festival? Taking a gander at your bank account, though, you conclude, “New York in the autumn would be good, but perhaps not this year. Too bad I’ll miss out on the great films at NYFF53.”
Fear not avid cinephile, for once again this year our very own homegrown (and equally as prestigious and inviting) Vancouver International Film Festival will share many of the heavily-juried and well-reviewed films that will screen in New York; fifteen out of the NYFF53’s thirty films, to be exact. Hallellujah, for we are saved, as New York hops on a plane, a bus, a train to arrive weary, but invigorated, along the pristine shores of our west coast paradise. Here, then, is the complete list of the 15 celebrated Festival films that will screen simultaneously in both New York and Vancouver …
Arabian Nights, Vol. 1 | The Restless One | Miguel Gomes | 2015 | Portugal | 125 minutes
A contemporary rethinking of what it means to make a political film, Miguel Gomes’ epic paean to the art of storytelling — filmed during Portugal’s recent plunge into austerity — offers a generous, radical chronicle of our troubled times, one that honours its fantasy life as fully as its hard realities.
Arabian Nights, Vol. 2 | The Desolate One | Miguel Gomes | 2015 | Portugal | 131 minutes
Unfolding in a more melancholic register, Miguel Gomes’ monumental yet light-footed magnum opus shifts tones and genres at will (deadpan neo-Western, Brechtian courtroom farce, tear-jerking melodrama), all the while treating its fantasy dimension as a path to a more meaningful truth.
Arabian Nights, Vol. 3 | The Enchanted One | Miguel Gomes | 2015 | Portugal | 125 minutes
As enthralling as it is eccentric, the final installment of Miguel Gomes’ sui generis epic features a sunny interlude of freedom for the heroine Scheherazade and an affectionate documentary chronicle of Lisbon-area bird trappers and birdsong competitions.
Crystalline in beauty and oblique in narrative, this year’s Cannes Best Director winner Hou Hsiao-hsien’s eagerly awaited wuxia stars Shu Qi as a Tang Dynasty assassin, dedicated to the art of killing until memory transforms her course of action.
Brooklyn | John Crowley | 2015 | VIFF Opening Gala | Ireland | 105 minutes
Saoirse Ronan, as vibrantly alive as a silent-screen heroine, plays Eilis, who leaves her native Ireland in the early 1950s, slowly builds a better life for herself, and is then called back home, to another possible future, in this lovely adaptation of Colm Tóibín’s novel.
A hospital ward full of comatose soldiers wage war in their sleep on behalf of long-dead feuding kings in the wondrous new film by Palme d’Or winner Apichatpong Weerasethakul, a sun-dappled reverie that induces in the viewer a sensation of lucid dreaming.
Experimenter | Michael Almereyda | 2015 | USA | 108 minutes
Michael Almreyda’s portrait of Stanley Milgram (Peter Sarsgaard), the social scientist whose 1961 “obedience study” reflected back on the Holocaust and anticipated Abu Ghraib, is both appropriately uncompromising and surprisingly compassionate.
The Forbidden Room | Guy Maddin, Evan Johnson | 2015 | Canada | 132 minutes
In his insane magnum opus, cinema’s reigning master of feverish filmic fetishism embarks on a phantasmagoric narrative adventure of stories within stories within dreams within flashbacks in a delirious globe-trotting mise en abyme, diving deeper than ever.
The exquisite new film by the great Philippe Garrel offers a close look at infidelity — not merely the fact of it, but the particular, divergent ways in which it’s experienced and understood by men and women.
The Lobster | Yorgos Lanthimos | 2015 | United Kingdom, Greece | 118 minutes
In the future, single people are rounded up and sent to a seaside compound, given a finite number of days to find a match, and turned into animals if they fail. Welcome to the latest dark, dark comedy from absurdist Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos. Winner of a Cannes Jury Prize.
Dispassionately monitoring the progress of its stoic unemployed everyman (Vincent Lindon, in his finest performance to date, which earned him the Best Actor prize at Cannes) as he submits to a series of quietly humiliating ordeals in his search for work, this powerful and troubling film reveals the realities of our new economic order.
An epically scaled canvas of life in contemporary China, Jia Zhangke’s new film spans three decades in the lives of its increasingly estranged characters, from the dawn of the capitalist explosion to the near future.
My Golden Days | Arnaud Desplechin | 2015 | France | 123 minutes
Arnaud Desplechin reaches Shakespearean heights with his intimate yet expansive new film, three varied but interlocking episodes in the life of his hero, with the wondrous experience of first love between Paul (Quentin Dolmaire) and Esther (Lou Roy-Lecollinet) at its core.
A middle-aged art-film director and a fledgling artist meet — she knows he’s famous but doesn’t know his films, he’d like to see her paintings. Every word, pause, facial expression, and movement in Hong Sangsoo’s masterful new film is a negotiation between revelation and concealment.
The Treasure | Corneliu Porumboiu | 2015 | Romania | 89 minutes
A man is approached by his neighbour with a business proposition: lend him some money to look for buried treasure in his family’s backyard and they’ll split the proceeds. Romanian director Corneliu Porumboiu’s magical modern-day fable stays continually surprising and funny.
Throughout the year, the Vancouver International Film Festival’s team of programmers travel the globe in search of the very best in world cinema, attending the better-known festivals such as Sundance in January, Berlin in February, Hong Kong and South by Southwest in March, Tribeca in April, Cannes in May, Seattle in late May through mid-June, as well as the myriad smaller but still prestigious film festivals in Rotterdam, Edinburgh, London, Locarno and the Czech Republic, among many, many other Festivals.
In late September of each year for 16 days, world cinema arrives on our shores, providing a window on the world, screenings scheduled once, twice or three times at VIFF, the vast majority of films never to be seen in our cinemas ever again. Either you see that very special, award-winning Turkish or Iranian, Japanese or Romanian, Chilean or Ugandan film as part of the annual Vancouver International Film Festival, or you will have missed out.
And what of those very special, award-winning films you’ll want to place on your VIFF 2015 screening schedule.
The 34th annual Vancouver International Film Festival kicks off Thursday, September 24th with the Opening Gala screening of the probable Oscar contender Brooklyn, at the sumptuous 1800-seat Centre for the Performing Arts (see viff.org for details), offering a dizzying 16-day array of movies — 355 of them to be exact, from 70 countries across the globe.
Here’s some advice on how to navigate the madness.
VIFF Executive Director Jacqueline Dupuis’ 7-film Style series returns for a second year, as does the annual Spotlight on France series, which in 2015 features 12 outstanding Gallic features. Word out of VIFF has it that the five Romanian films are all excellent, and deserving of cinephile attention.
Wondering about how and where to buy tickets? There’s no one central box office; you can, however, purchase tickets anytime online at viff.org, and print out your tickets at home. Note that there is a service charge for online and phone orders: $1 per single ticket, up to $5 per order. Purchase of the annual $2 membership is required by law before ordering tickets.
Tickets are also available at all of the theatre box offices.
The venues this year are, once again, The Centre for the Performing Arts, on Homer at Robson; Cineplex’s International Village, on Pender Street (the old Tinseltown); the eastside’s Rio Theatre, Commercial Drive at Broadway; SFU’s Goldcorp Theatre for the Arts, at 149 West Hastings, at Abbott; the Vancouver Playhouse, on Hamilton Street at Dunsmuir; The Cinematheque, on Howe; and the always inviting and oh-so-comfy Vancity Theatre, on Seymour (VIFF’s year-round venue!).
Please note: you can buy tickets for any Film Festival screening at any one of the seven Festival venues (during hours of operation). Tickets prices range from $10 for youth to $14 for adults, with Gala screenings priced at $22. There are a range of discount ticket packs, as well as passes that may be acquired, ranging in price from $180 for the Matinee Pass to $330 for the student or senior pass, and the $420 full 16-day Festival pass.
Patrons can find out how busy a screening is expected to be by going online, and checking tickets.viff.org.
Confused? Any questions you may have can be answered by e-mailing the Festival at info@viff.org, or by calling 604-683-FILM (3456), anytime between 10am and 7pm. Most questions can be answered, as well, simply by going online to viff.org/festival, or by taking a gander at the gorgeous, absolutely free booklet, VIFF – The Complete Guide, available almost everywhere across Metro Vancouver.
Once again this year, a VIFF app will be available on Apple’s App store, or through Google Play, for Android phones. Twitter will also prove a good resource for Festival information (@VIFFest).
Wondering about all those lines? Each VIFF screening will have three: a pass-holder line (for those with passes hanging around their necks; you know who you are), a ticket-holders line (for those with 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 is a good idea, particularly if you’re picky about where you sit.
Wondering about food and drink? Though most VIFF venues serve standard cinema fare, there are a great many eateries nearby all of the venues where you might purchase a snack, or sit down to a meal. Outside food is officially not allowed, but VIFF-goers have been known to get away with it; be discreet and tidy (absolutely no food to be taken inside at The Centre, though).
Wondering about travel to, and around, the Festival? Transit is best, walking is second best. Parking is spotty, and expensive. All of the venues are located in the downtown core, so getting around shouldn’t prove too much of a challenge.
Room, Audience Award winner at the Toronto Film Festival, and certain Oscar contender
Wondering which movies will be back post-VIFF? Here are just a few VIFF movies that will return soon for regular runs: the Telluride / Toronto Film Festival stunner Room, certain Oscar nominee Brooklyn, I Saw The Light, Youth, Cannes Palme d’Or winner Dheepan, multiple Berlin Film Festival award winner 45 Years, Brazil’s 2015 Best Foreign Film Oscar nominee, The Second Mother, the film that took Cannes by storm Son of Saul, Meru, The Assassin, and doubtless many more. You might, of course, want to see these movies at VIFF because of the possibility of special guests, or the fun of catching something early — but you also might want to wait and see the films without the VIFF crowds.
Most years, VanRamblings presents a list of the 20 must-sees; this year we’ll depart from our usual practice by presenting the favourite, can’t miss films as identified by the Vancouver International Film Festival’s retired Festival Director (who has now taken on the title of Chief Programmer), Alan Franey.
“A central mandate of the Vancouver International Film Festival is to entertain, but more than that we want VIFF films to enlighten,” says Franey. “We’re different than any other film festival because of our commitment to the multi-cultural mosaic. VIFF patrons have told us over the years that they’re not interested in the big Hollywood films, or the presumed Oscar contenders, although we have programmed a handful of those often worthy films, titles that you’ll find in this year’s VIFF Guide.”
“VIFF is a community-based Festival serving the broadest cross-section of the 2.4 million of us who live across Metro Vancouver, in every ethnic community, from every part of the world. No other Canadian festival brings in 355 films, or more, from 70 different countries, with as strong an emphasis on the films of East Asia, and world cinema. Vancouver’s continued dedication to the dynamic of multi-cultural films has contributed greatly to VIFF’s ongoing success.”
Here they are then, Alan Franey’s favourite “under the radar” films screening at VIFF 2015 …
France’s The Measure of a Man. Vincent Lindon picked up the Best Actor award at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, in a film the VIFF guide describes as “Stéphane Brizé’s profoundly humanist and exceedingly timely film,” various critics stating that Measure is social drama similar to the work of the Dardennes Brothers (or even Ken Loach), a film that spares no harrowing detail in this working-class chronicle of an unemployed father trying to make ends meet, his unemployment benefits soon to run out, his income so reduced that there is not enough money to pay the mortgage, and maintain his wife and handicapped teenage son. In the film, Brizé seeks to evoke the resistance in the working class to the wave of factory closures and mass layoffs since the outbreak of the global financial crisis in 2008.
Also among Alan’s favourites, there’s New Zealand’s A Flickering Truth, Holland’s Schneider vs. Bax, Iceland’s Rams, Ireland’s One Million Dubliners, the U.S.A.’s 3 1/2 Minutes, 10 Bullets and Experimenter, Lithuania’s The Summer of Sengalié, Poland’s Body, Israel’s Tikkun (a multiple award winner), Brazil’s Absence (which Alan said knocked him out), and all three volumes of Portuguese director Miguel Gomes’ triptych, Arabian Nights (which Alan recommends not be watched back to back, but over a period of days … three screenings of each film in the series has been scheduled).
Commencing Thursday, September 24th, VanRamblings will provide daily coverage of the Festival, which will continue right on through until Festival’s end on Friday, October 9th, as has been the case in past years.
Now you know almost all there is to know about the 34th annual Vancouver International Film Festival, save actually sitting down to watch two dozen or more of the very best in world cinema, a process that offers always a necessary and invaluable window on our ever-changing world.
Happy VIFF-ing!
