With the 34th annual Vancouver International Film Festival quickly wending its way to a close, the fine folks at VIFF have planned an additional week of screenings at the Vancity Theatre, on Davie Street and Seymour. As in past years, Festival passes, ticket packs and complimentary vouchers will not be accepted for the VIFF Repeats series. Attendees will need to purchase an individual ticket for each show. Tickets are available by clicking on the highlighted title links below, through viff.org, or at the Vancity Theatre box office during regular box office hours.

Saturday, October 10th
11:45am, Rams. In this enchanting Icelandic export, two estranged, unmarried brothers are reunited after 40 years when an infectious disease threatens to decimate their prized flocks of sheep. As they face financial ruin and emotional devastation (their love for these animals is endearingly evident), Grímur Hákonarson fashions a richly detailed tragicomedy concerning idiosyncratic vocations and immediately relatable sibling dynamics. “Wonderfully wry, charmingly understated …” — Variety
1:45pm, I am Nojoom, Age 10 and Divorced. One of VanRamblings’ Festival highlights, this must-see film is set in 2009, and tells the true story of Yemeni preteen Nojoom Ali’s bid to legally extricate herself from an abusive, arranged marriage to a much older man, a story which made international headlines. Khadija Al-Salami has beautifully adapted the non-fiction bestseller into an emphatic drama featuring a wondrous performance from Reham Mohammed as the young Ali, and a striking backdrop of Yemen’s astonishing mountain villages and ancient “skyscrapers.” “A powerful, moving and provocative debut drama …” — Screen
4pm, A Ballerina’s Tale. Some ascents to stardom are meteoric. Others are a gruelling marathon. Ballerina Misty Copeland learned early on that not everything comes easily for a teen prodigy. Especially when you’re African-American and racial homogeny is part of ballet’s exclusivity. Nelson George’s inside look at the art and industry of ballet invites us to marvel at Copeland’s courage and grace but question what goes on behind closed curtains. Most importantly, it gives us a real-life heroine to root for with all our hearts. “Inspirational doesn’t begin to describe it.” — Rolling Stone
6:15pm, Umrika. Rama (Life of Pi’s Suraj Sharma) is flushed out of rural life when he learns that his brother is missing in Mumbai. As a search for answers thrusts him into the metropolis’ chaos, he forges letters from his sibling to his mother in hopes of sparing her heartbreak. In turn, Prashant Nair crafts a moving story about devotion and discovery. “The film’s takes on immigration, country-city contrasts and youthful dreams of the future are lovingly detailed…” — Hollywood Reporter
8:30pm, 100 Yen Love.The fraught and very possibly doomed romance between a dumpy 32-year-old woman and a failing boxer gives 100 Yen Love its storyline, but the film’s focus is on its unlikely heroine, a chronic underachiever who finally discovers something worth getting out of bed for. Take’s command of image and mood couldn’t be better; Ando Sakura is stupendous in the lead — Tony Rayns. Japan’s nominee for Best Foreign Language Film.

Sunday, October 11th
4:30pm, Requiem for the American Dream. Noam Chomsky and his unassailable arguments about how economic inequality has become an entrenched part of western life are front and centre in Peter Hutchison, Kelly Nyks and Jared P. Scott’s superbly reasoned documentary, one part analysis and one part call to arms. The interviews with Chomsky were shot over four years and show that none of the 86-year-old’s fight has gone out of him. “This short, sharp, smart essay-film makes excellent use of Chomsky’s insights…” — Hollywood Reporter
6.15pm, Sabali. When her boyfriend stops making love with her, Jeannette (Marie Brassard) begins an affair with a young co-worker (Francis La Haye). Alas, it turns out that her heart problems are physical as well as metaphorical. When Jeannette inherits the heart of a deceased Malian woman, she’s stalked by the donor’s son (Youssef Camara) who’s convinced that she’s the reincarnation of his late mother… Ryan McKenna’s stylized and nuanced film is sure to delight.
8:15pm, The Lobster. The pressures of courtship are pushed to absurdist extremes in this outrageous comedy from Yorgos Lanthimos (Dogtooth). Confined to an isolated resort, singles (including Colin Farrell) must take a mate within 45 days or be transformed into animals. As Farrell falls in with a band of rebel loners (who count Rachel Weisz among their members), Lanthimos wrings much pathos from his outlandish premise. “A wickedly funny, unexpectedly moving satire… Perversely romantic…” — Variety

Monday, October 12th
Noon, Painted Land: In Search of the Group of Seven. Phyllis Ellis’ documentary is equal parts mystery, history and adventure. Algoma’s tangled wilderness and Lake Superior’s expansive North Shore inspired The Group of Seven in their formative years – young artists searching to articulate the Canadian landscape. Now, three modern-day adventurers canoe across lakes, bushwhack through untamed forests and scale cliffs to seek out the vistas that inspired these artists. Seeing the iconic paintings side by side with the astonishing locations that inspired them is a reminder of art’s power and this land’s majestic beauty.
1:45pm, Rainbow Island. One of the most astonishingly exotic films in this year’s festival has to be Khosrow Sinai’s drama. The title refers to the island of Hormuz, with its extraordinary multi-coloured soils, ancient Portuguese forts and folk-art traditions. How much are the custom-bound villagers willing to welcome the outside world? Enter Dr. Ahmad Nadalian, a highly educated interloper from Tehran who proposes a radical plan to transform the islands assets into a thriving cultural destination.
4pm, Peggy Guggenheim: Art Addict. Peggy Guggenheim not only amassed one of the world’s most impressive collections of contemporary art but also rightfully earned a reputation as the consummate bohemian. In her wildly entertaining follow up to Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel, Lisa Immordino Vreeland explores how Guggenheim forsook her bourgeois birthright in favour of a villa in Venice, crashing international art scenes, and discovering the likes of Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko in the process. “[With] so many love affairs and ego clashes Art Addict never feels a bit like a history lesson.” — Hollywood Reporter
6:15pm, Sleeping Giant. Andrew Cividino’s remarkable debut is a story of friendship, confusion, betrayal and peer pressure. Fourteen-year-old Adam is enduring a dull summer in a small Lake Superior beach community when he meets local boys Foster and Rizzo. “The cast and filmmakers illuminate not just the wit and charm of young men, but also the callow cruelty of youth, driven by a killer combination of naïve idealism, solipsism, poor self-esteem and raging hormones.” — Hollywood Reporter
8:15pm,
The Royal Tailor. The term “costume drama” takes on a whole new meaning in Lee Wonsuk’s sumptuous period melodrama, which centres on the rivalry between the official tailor to the king’s court and a handsome young upstart with new ideas and techniques. Their conflict plays out amid a welter of fabrics, passions and protocols, with several top stars adding dramatic weight. The attention to the details of tailoring is awesome — Tony Rayns.

Tuesday, October 13th
1:30pm, Landfill Harmonic. In Latin America’s largest landfill, a garbage picker uncovers the raw materials for makeshift musical instruments. As cellos and violins are fashioned from stray detritus, a group of local children are likewise transformed into the Recycled Orchestra of Cateura. Reminiscent of VIFF ’10 standout Waste Land, Brad Allgood and Graham Townsley’s documentary is an inspiring tale of resilience and transcendence. “A secret treasure… A story of the dull throb of existence gleefully recalibrated by the thundering heartbeat of music.” — Austin Chronicle
4pm, Hannah: Buddhism’s Untold Journey. In the late 60s, India experienced a Western invasion as outsiders flooded over the border in hopes of finding enlightenment. The Beatles may have been the highest profile pilgrims, but Hannah Nydahl, a young Danish woman, was ultimately the most influential. She and her husband were the first westerners to study under His Holiness the 16th Karmapa and then spread his teachings abroad. Part biography, part adventure film, Adam Penny and Marta György-Kessler’s documentary celebrates a true pioneer. “Visually, the film is a pleasure…” — Village Voice

6:15pm, The Devout. After his terminally ill daughter (Olivia Martin) claims to have had a past life as an astronaut, a Christian teacher (Charlie Carrick) experiences a profound crisis of faith. Obsessively seeking answers, he risks his marriage and his remaining days with his child to determine whether she’s lived before… and might live again. Reflective and provocative, Connor Gaston’s debut is one of the year’s most unique Canadian features.

Wednesday, October 14th
2:30pm, Jumbo Wild. Nick Waggoner’s gorgeous, gripping documentary captures a decades-long struggle over the future of Jumbo Valley, deep within the raw, rugged Purcell range of B.C.’s Columbia Mountains. Exploring a tug-of-war between a proposed (and long-delayed) $450-million ski resort near Invermere versus community members, conservationists and the Ktunaxa Nation and Shuswap Indian Band who are determined to see Jumbo kept wild, Waggoner’s film documents the fierce ideological battle surrounding how we value land.
4pm, Palio. Siena is one of the world’s most picturesque cities and the Palio is its crowning glory. Held twice a summer, this often ruthless bareback horse race brings pageantry and unparalleled intensity to the tight turns of the medieval town’s Piazza del Campo. Cosima Spender’s breathtaking documentary centres on a young upstart intent on making his mark in this cutthroat competition. “A remarkably concise and clear explanation of a complex, ancient tradition… How can something like this still exist? And how can one film capture it in such elegant detail?” — Vanity Fair
6:15pm, Racing Extinction. Louie Psihoyos (The Cove) returns with another enviro-doc that doubles as a top-flight thriller. Racing against the clock to stave off a mass extinction, Psihoyos’ undercover activists infiltrate underground marketplaces trafficking in endangered marine life and immerse us in oceans turning toxic from our energy consumption. The stakes couldn’t be higher, resulting in a film that unfolds with uncommon urgency. “A mesmeric entertainment and enlightenment… A chilling call to action to stop ocean poisoning before it results in destruction of the planet.” — Hollywood Reporter
8:30pm, No Men Beyond This Point. In a world where women procreate asexually, male babies have become passé and an entire gender faces extinction… What’s a guy to do? Well, the youngest man alive (Patrick Gilmore), who toils as a housekeeper for a West Vancouver all-female family, is unaware that he’s about to become a key player in a battle for survival. Camera Shy’s Mark Sawers is at the height of his satirical powers with this wry speculative mockumentary.
Thursday, October 15th
6:30pm, Marshland. One of the big hits at VIFF 2015, and winner of multiple Goya Awards, for VanRamblings Marshland was a note for note ripoff of Cary Fukunaga’s Season 1 HBO series, True Detective — same music, same marshland, same two detectives. Not to mention that: if we never see another movie where socially and economically disadvantaged girls and young women are tortured, raped and sexually mutilated as a narrative device, ever again, it’ll be too soon. Attend at your peril.
8:45pm, Magallanes. Another one of VanRamblings’ favourites, we’ll quote VIFF passholder Ken Tomilson on this watchable and important film: “a Peruvian film where the lead (Magallanes) and his friends were once military personnel fronting the war against the Shining Path with too much power in their hands. Now, 15 years later, their lives are insignificant but their past comes back to haunt them in the form of scandals that could destroy them. Well written and acted and very entertaining.”

Well, here we are in the final days of the 34th annual Vancouver International Film Festival as VIFF regulars (also known as VIFF cinephiles) prepare for the end of this year’s glorious cinematic wonderment, awaiting the announcement as to what films are available for holdover at the Vancity Theatre following Friday’s fest end. All in due time, dear & constant reader.
In this final week there are two more must-see films to be screened over the course of the next four days — one from Lithuania, one from Iceland — both unlikely to return to our shores, tremendous films that are more than worthy of your limited time, and given your wearied state, your attention.
The Summer of Sangailé | Dir. Alanté Kavaïté | Julija Steponaitytė, Aistė Diržiūtė | Lithuania
The Summer of Sangailé (Grade: A): Achingly beautiful and intoxicating, director Alanté Kavaïté won Best Director at Sundance earlier this year for her erotic and lyrical depiction of a young girl’s sexual awakening, an at times roiling coming of age tale that explores the wounded psychology of the main lead (a voluptuously enchanting Julija Steponaitytė, her character a provocative mix of naivete and ripe, unbridled sexuality), in one of the most dreamily tender yet near terrifying depictions of first love ever captured on screen. Gorgeously lensed, sun-kissed, alluring, intimate, affecting, memorable, beautifully universal, hypnotic and at times blazingly intense, the film’s dreamlike mood is set through music, and the rapturous soundtrack written by Jean-Benoît Dunckel, one of the lead members of Air. Skilfully melding gesture, poetry and innocence into the slow-burning emotional and physical realms of romantic love, The Summer of Sangailé emerges as one of the year’s best films, and another VIFF 2015 must-see. Final screening: Wednesday, October 7th, 6:30pm, in Cineplex’s Cinema 9.

Sparrows (Grade: A): Breathtakingly intense, Rúnar Rúnarsson’s sad, delicate Icelandic coming-of-age tale quietly observes a lanky teenage boy, Avi (Atli Oskar Fjalarsson) who we first meet singing counter-tenor in a boy’s choir in Rekjavik. When Avi’s mother is hired to supervise a research project in Africa, the boy is sent to live with his estranged father in the distant western fjords of the country, where the locals medicate the ills of a declining economy with alcohol; small town life proves anything but charming. Avi’s potential love interest, young Lara, carries the fatalism of a girl who settles for the local bully, while Kjeld, Avi’s kindly grandmother, is the exceptional figure who lives with a simple dignity. As Guy Lodge writes in his Variety review, ” this outwardly conventional coming-of-ager rewards viewers’ patience, delivering a late narrative jolt that is bound to stir heated post-screening conversation in its chilly wake.” Fortunately, the film saves a tiny dose of sentiment & redemptive humanity for the film’s final moments. Final screening: Thursday, October 8th at 2:30pm, in the Vancity Theatre.
Additional VIFF Must-Sees Before The Festival Wends To Its End
The double bill of VIFF 2015: Wednesday afternoon you’ll want to take in a screening of VIFF 2015’s best feature film, Sylvia’s Chang’s Taiwanese stunner Murmur of the Hearts, 4:15pm in Cineplex’s Cinema 10, followed by VIFF’s best documentary, Albert Maysles’ In Transit, also in Cinema 10.

Upcoming must-sees: Son of Saul, One Million Dubliners, there’s good buzz on Zinia Flower and The Measure of a Man, I am Nojoom, Age 10 and Divorced is a must-see, while there’s good buzz on The Competition, folks have been raving about Accused, and James White. Schneider vs Bax also has quite a following, as does Peruvian director Salvador del Solar’s Magallanes, which screens for a final time Tuesday at 3:30pm in Cinema 9 at Cineplex’s International Village. Lots to see as VIFF 2015 wends to a close.

VanRamblings feels that it is necessary for all concerned that we “revive” our annual column on why it is that the cinephiles who each year attend 50+ VIFF films (and there are a whole bunch of us) feel so passionate about wanting to hear every sound, burrow into every picture, experience the every emotion of the characters on screen before us, at Vancouver’s annual splendid, glorious and enchanting little film festival by the sea.
Worshipping at the Church of Cinema
Imagine yourself on a Sunday morning at the 34th annual Vancouver International Film Festival. You’ve just walked into The Centre, where you’ve been greeted by one of the church members, and are then ushered into a dark room with seats all facing forward. You feel reverent.
You are about to worship at the ‘church of cinema‘.
One hundred years on, global cinema has arrived as a form of transcendence, for many replacing the once venerated position held by the institutional church. Think about the similarities: churches and the cinema are both large buildings built in the public space. Both have signage out front indicating what is about to occur inside.
As physical structures, the church and the cinema create a sense of sacred space with their high ceilings, long aisles running the length of the darkened rooms inside, the use of dim lighting, the sweeping curvature of the walls, and the use of curtains to enhance the sacredness of the experience.
In the church of cinema we take communion not with bread and wine, but with the ritualistic consumption of our favourite snack.
Consider if you will, the memorable moment when you enter the auditorium to find your perfect viewing angle, allowing you to sit back, relax and enjoy. Although you may not receive absolution at the cinema, there is the two-hour reprieve from the burden of your daily life.
As the lights are dimmed, the service begins: The seating, and the opening introduction constitute a liturgy for one and all, not dissimilar to the welcoming ritual that occurs in a church service prior to the sermon. If you are like most people, you obey an unwritten rule that requires you to be in place in time for either the singing (if you’re in church) or the introduction of a film by a Vancouver Film Festival theatre manager. And, you remain silent while in the theatre, focused on all that unfolds before you.
There is, too, the notion that as the film limns your unconscious mind you are being transported, elevated in some meaningful way, left in awe in the presence of a work of film art.
What we want from church is often, these days, more of what we receive from the cinema on offer at the Vancouver International Film Festival: the vague, unshakable notion that the eternal and invisible world is all around us, transporting us as we sit in rapt attention. We experience the progress and acceleration of time, as we see life begin, progress, and find redemption. All within two hours. The films at the Vancouver International Film Festival constitute much more than entertainment; each film is a thoughtful meditation on our place in society and our purpose in life.
As a film draws to a close, just as is the case following a sermon we might hear in church, our desire is to set about to discuss with friends that which we have just experienced. Phrases and moments, transcending current frustrations with a new resolve, all in response to a line of dialogue or an image on the screen that we have now incorporated into how we will lead our life going forward.
In the holy trinity of meaning, cinema reigns supreme, the personal altar of our home theatres placing a distant second place, the city providing the physical proof of the reality the other two point to, oriented towards the satisfaction of the devout cinemagoer’s theology.
Throughout the centuries we have sought to find meaning through manifest ritual and symbolism. As in the scene from American Beauty - a plastic bag sailing in the breeze as an intimation of immortality - there is, perhaps, something for us to consider respecting the difference between art as diversion and art in our lives as a symbolic representation of an awakened mindfulness, allowing us to transcend the troubles of our lives.
For those who attend the Vancouver International Film Festival, cinema has emerged as that place where we might experience life in the form of parable, within a safe and welcoming environment, that place where we are able to become vulnerable and open, hungry to make sense of our lives. Cinema delivers for many of us access to the new spiritualism, the place where we experience not merely film, but language, memory, art, love, death and, perhaps even, spiritual transcendence.

The sensuously hypnotic Isabella Leong & Joseph Chang in a scene from Murmur of the Hearts

Murmur of the Hearts (Grade: A+): A fable given over to exposition tempered by forays into the realm of magical realism, elegiac, a film that adopts time not just as an elastic concept but with a spiritual sense previously unexplored in the cinematic realm, gifted with gorgeously lustrous and moodily hypnotic cinematography, utterly sublime and original, epic and tour-de-force filmmaking of the first order, quietly introspective, subtle, moving, whimsical, enchanting, resonant, ethereal, wildly and sensuously ambitious, poignant, mesmerizing, rapturous, poetic and surprisingly affecting, the memories of the film’s four protagonists woven into the most lyrically beautiful film you’ll see this or any other year. The 34th Vancouver International Film Festival’s one must, must, must-see. Two upcoming must-see VIFF screenings: on Sunday, October 4th, at 8:30pm at Cineplex International Village, in Cinema 9; and on Wednesday, October 7th at 4:15pm, at Cineplex International Village, in Cinema 10.

Brooklyn | Dir. John Crowley | Saoirse Ronan | 105 min. | Mon., Oct. 5, 12:30pm, The Centre

Brooklyn (Grade: A): Everything you’ve heard about Brooklyn is true: Saoirse Ronan will emerge as Best Actress at the 88th Academy Awards ceremony on February 28th, 2016, Brooklyn will win the Best Picture Oscar (and a well-deserved win it will be, too), and when you take in the final VIFF screening of Brooklyn this coming week, you’ll be glad you did, you’ll cry your eyes out from beginning to end (not to worry, there are humorous bits, as well), and you’ll leave Cineplex’s Tinseltown Cinema 10 knowing that you’ve just seen the most powerful film to reach our shores in 2015. Final VIFF 2015 screening: Monday, October 5th, at 12:30pm, in The Centre.

Sparrows | Dir. Rúnar Rúnarsson | Iceland | Oct 3, 8:45pm, Cin 8; Oct 8, 2:30pm, Vancity

Note should be made that there is immense positive buzz from VIFF passholders and patrons about the following must-see films …

• Sparrows. Tonight, at 9:15pm, Cineplex International Village, Cinema 10; and Thursday, October 8th, at 2:30pm in the Vancity Theatre;
• Accused. On Friday, October 9th at 6pm, at The Cinematheque;
• Magallanes. On Tuesday, October 6th, at 3:30pm, Cineplex Cinema 9;
• Marshland. On Monday, October 5th at 6pm, in the Rio Theatre; and
• James White. On Friday, October 9th, 1:30pm, at SFU Woodwards

Not to mention, this upcoming week there are three must-see screenings of VanRamblings’ favourite documentary, Albert Maysles’ final film, In Transit, and the incredibly wonderful Quebeçois film, Ville-Marie, and the deeply affecting and entirely wondrous Iranian documentary, No Land’s Song, all of which we wrote about last Sunday; and then there’s VIFF Director of Programming Alan Franey’s favourites, which we wrote about earlier (scroll down the page — it’s a pretty skookum list of can’t miss VIFF films).