With the holiday season coming up, gift giving is on the minds of a great many people, gifts for family, friends and colleagues, and gifts for oneself.
Given the uncertain nature of the economy and the scarce dollars available to most folks, a bargain is always appreciated — and make no mistake, with Black Friday coming up on November 29th and Christmas sales at the ready across our land to entice you to spend, there’ll be plenty of bargains to rein in whatever disposable income you’ve set aside for gift acquisition.
Retail online sales, if projections are correct, will top $40 billion Canadian this holiday season, with total world sales expected to exceed $3.5 trillion for 2019 — most of which monies will be spent acquiring products made available on the Amazon website (or app, as the case may be). Latest figures published by Statistics Canada indicate that 3 out of 5 Canadians do most of their non-food shopping on the Amazon.ca website — cuz it’s less expensive than the retail stores as well as reliable, and if you’ve acquired an Amazon Prime membership, goods delivery is free within 12 – 36 hours.
If you’re not in the market for anything in particular — say you’re just looking for gift ideas or killing time during your lunch break — you can get to the Amazon Warehouse Deals landing page by heading to Amazon.ca and search for “Amazon Warehouse” or “Warehouse Deals.” From there you can browse the categorized listings just as you would at any online retailer.
Most people who shop on Amazon, though, know exactly what they’re looking for. If you already have something specific in mind but want to see if there’s a discounted Amazon Warehouse option available, this is where your sleuthing, money-saving skills come into play, saving you up to 50%.
The bottom line: why pay full retail when there’s a perfectly fine — and much cheaper — alternative?
In much the same way that VanRamblings does most of our clothes and shoe shopping at consignment stores (Turnabout is our current favourite, where we save up to 80% on new sweaters and jackets), the Amazon Warehouse has perfectly fine ‘used’ goods at 50% off or better savings.
For instance, we recently acquired a Dash 1.2 L Compact Electric Air Fryer (which we’ll write about later in the month) for $42, when the retail price on Amazon.ca and at Walmart was a much steeper $101.67, plus tax. The Dash Air Fryer arrived in the original box, in pristine condition, in 48 hours.
All we did when arriving on the Amazon web page for the Dash Air Fryer was scour the page, keeping our eyes peeled for words like “New & Used,” “Buy Used,” “New & Used Offers” or just plain “Used” — and with the click of a couple of buttons, our ‘new’ Dash 1.2 Litre Compact Air Fryer was on its way, at a cost saving of pretty darn close to 60 per cent.
Why’s Amazon Warehouse stuff so cheap? Just like other major retailers such as Walmart or Costco, Amazon takes in a lot of customer returns, which it can no longer sell as new-in-box, regardless of why the buyer sent the item back or whether it’s even been opened.
That’s why everything Amazon Warehouse sells is listed as used, even if the product itself has never been touched. Regardless of its condition, used stuff is just worth less — sometimes a lot less. And that, most often, is very good for you.
Amazon has five different grades it assigns to items it resells. Here they are with brief explanations of what Amazon means by them.
Renewed: This is the highest grade an Amazon Warehouse item can receive and is on par with what other companies might call “refurbished.” Renewed items have been closely inspected and tested and determined to look and function like new and come with a 90-day replacement or refund guarantee.
Used, Like New: No noticeable blemishes or marks on the item itself, although the packaging may be damaged, incomplete or missing all together. All accessories are included, and any damage to the package will be described in the listing.
Used, Very Good: Item has been lightly used, with minor visible indications of wear and tear, but otherwise in good working order. Packaging might be damaged, incomplete or the item repackaged. Any missing accessories will be detailed on the listing.
Used, Good: Item shows moderate signs of use, packaging may be damaged or the item repackaged and could be missing accessories, instructions or assembly tools.
Used, Acceptable: Very well worn, but still fully functional. Major cosmetic defects, packaging issues and/or missing parts, accessories, instructions or tools.
How to choose the right grade? If there are multiple listings with different grades available for the product you want to buy, think about what you’re going to use it for. If it were something purely functional and you couldn’t care less about its cosmetic condition, like hair clippers or a cordless drill, our suggestion: go with the cheapest option, period.
Honestly, a low enough price on just about anything can woo most folks into dealing with some scratches or scuffs. Not to mention, Amazon tends to err on the side of caution, marking items as Good or Acceptable that the average person would consider Very Good or Like New. One of the benefits of purchases made through Amazon Warehouse is that
Amazon’s standard 30-day replacement or refund return policy applies, which comes in handy if you wind up with a lemon. Amazon does caution that because these products are considered used they don’t come with the manufacturer’s original warranty — but you can, in fact, register the product online with the manufacturer for the full two year, or better, warranty.
And remember: Amazon Prime members still get free shipping. Subscribing to Amazon Prime won’t get you a bigger discount on Amazon Warehouse Deals, but you’ll get free shipping just as you would for any other Prime-eligible item, which is why it remains a good deal, at $90 Canadian a year to sign up for Amazon Prime (which also gives you access to Amazon Prime TV, for most folks a pretty good deal when you get right down to it, and applicable to all Amazon Warehouse purchases, as well).
As above, most stuff you buy through Amazon Warehouse ships and arrives within the same one- to two-day window you get with new items, although some orders do take longer to fulfill. If that’s the case, the extra handling time is usually indicated on the listing, so you know what to expect.
Of course, Amazon will be participating in this year’s big Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales too, with some deals starting as early as Nov. 22nd, with all current Amazon.ca Black Friday deals available here.
The term “shit election” was coined by Liberal Party apparatchiks Scott Reid and David Herle, and Conservative Party eminence gris Jenny Byrne (no mean feat being an eminence gris at only 42 years of age), although, for the sake of propriety, the title of that particular episode of The Herle Burly podcast — where for the past month and more all three have weighed in on the current federal election — eventually was titled The Seinfeld Election, “where the various political parties offering candidates in the 43rd Canadian federal general election are throwing the kitchen sink at the public and at each other, effectively turning the race into an episode of Seinfeld: an election about nothing.” And so this election has proven to be.
If you look at CBC’s poll tracker above, the intentions of the electorate have barely shifted since the writ was dropped on Wednesday, September 11th. The two leading parties have been stuck at 33% for the past five weeks, while the NDP have inched up a couple of points, as have the fortunes of the Bloc Québécois. Elizabeth May’s Green Party has failed to move the needle at all, as is the case with Maxime Bernier’s People’s Party of Canada.
Chances are that for the first time in a decade, Canadians face the prospect of a hung Parliament, with no Canadian federal party emerging with enough seats to form anything other than a precarious minority government. If, as the poll above suggests, the Liberals garner 140 seats, the NDP 25 and the Greens 4, together the three parties would not have enough votes to pass a budget or any legislation in the Parliament of Canada. If the Bloc outdoes expectations and garners 40 seats, Bloc leader Yves-François Blanchet could effectively align himself with Andrew Scheer and the Conservatives, for a non-coalition / “working agreement” majority — a very real prospect.
Up until a week ago, it looked as if Justin Trudeau would be able to form a government of around 154 seats (170 seats constitutes a majority) with the support of Jagmeet Singh’s NDP and Elizabeth May’s Green Party — and all would be right with the world. Canada would continue to have progressive government, both domestically and on the world stage.
One week ago, the Liberals were leading in all provinces across Canada, except on the Prairies (the base of support for the Conservatives), with 40% of the vote wrapped up in the three largest, and most seat rich, provinces: British Columbia, Ontario and Québec, and the prospect of 154 to 164 seats in Parliament. But, alas, no more. Bloc leader Yves-François Blanchet — with his message of “Québec for Québecers, we’re not interested in federal politics, we’re interested only in representing the interests of Québec” — has decimated prospects in Québec for both the Liberals and, more particularly for, the Conservatives.
In Québec, Liberal support has dropped 6 points to 33.1%, the Conservatives dropping from 23% to 16%, the NDP on the rise at 12.8% (up 3 points), and the Greens a non-factor (again, as is the case with the People’s Party of Canada). Only a week ago, the Liberals were looking to win between 50 and 60 seats in Québec (out of 78 seats). But no more. The Liberals will hold on to only 30 – 33 of their current 40 seats, the Conservatives will be decimated, winning maybe 2 seats (down from 11 in the last Parliament), the NDP could hold on to a half dozen Québec seats, while the Bloc Québécois will pick up the rest, with 40 seats or more.
In 2019, no federal party policy platform, no issue, and no federal party leader has fired the imagination across a cross-section of the electorate.
In 2015, cannabis legalization brought out hundreds of thousands of new voters, Canadians who would otherwise have stayed home, a commitment by the Liberals to raise minimum pension payments for seniors to $2000 a month by 2024 (more on that tomorrow), a return to sanity in Ottawa — with Justin Trudeau committed to holding regular press conferences, as well as regular town halls across the country, in contrast to a secretive and elitist Stephen Harper government, which hadn’t had a press conference since 2006 — a commitment to a child tax credit for families that would make life easier and more affordable for young families, a commitment to proportional representation, to building transit infrastructure and affordable housing across Canada, allowing scientists to speak freely and openly on issues respecting the environment, and the introduction of assisted dying legislation saw a record number of Canadians going to the polls.
In 2019: nada, nothing, zilch — aside from a commitment from Andrew Scheer to gut infrastructure spending, gut foreign aid, and a commitment to do nothing on the climate change file. And the electorate yawns.
As we write above: a “shit election” — when there is so much on the line.
For the 2020 Oscars, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences earlier this year voted to change the name of the Oscar award traditionally known as Best Foreign Film to Best International Feature Film, because as Larry Karaszewski and Diane Weyermann, co-chairs of the International Feature Film Committee told the press: “We have noted that the reference to ‘foreign’ is outdated within the global filmmaking community.”
In 2019, countries across the globe had until October 1st to submit a film for Best International Feature Film Oscar consideration. In 2018, 87 films were brought forward for adjudication. In 2019, a record of 93 films from countries across the globe were submitted to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, a list that will be winnowed down throughout November and December — until 5 am Monday, January 13th, 2020, when the Academy will make its annual Oscar announcement, leaving five nominated films remaining in the Best International Feature Film category.
Below, a list of all the international films submitted to the Academy for consideration, and on the screening schedule of VIFF 2019.
This year’s Cannes’ prestigious Un Certain Regard winner, here’s what VIFF 2019’s programme has to say about The Invisible Life of Eurídice Gusmão:
Karim Aïnouz’s (Madame Satã) stylish, colour-saturated “tropical melodrama” tells the story of two sisters, proper EurÍdice (Carol Duarte) and freedom-loving Guida (Julia Stockler), in 1950s Rio de Janeiro who are divided by their father’s duplicitous misogyny. Pure pleasure for the eyes and told from a decidedly feminist slant, this is a tale of “high emotion articulated with utmost sincerity and heady stylistic excess, all in the perspiring environs of midcentury Rio de Janeiro.”
This is Brazil’s 49th submission with four previous nominations; Keeper of Promises in 1962, 1995’s O Quatrilho, 1997’s Four Days In September and Central Station in 1998.
Screens at 9pm, on Monday, October 7th, at The Centre, and again the next day, Tuesday, October 8th, 2:45pm, at the Vancouver Playhouse. Spider | Chile | Andrés Wood
From the VIFF online description of Chile’s official Oscar entry …
Andrés Wood, director of Machuca, one of VIFF’s biggest ever hits, returns to the defining event in modern Chile’s political history — Pinochet’s 1973 coup d’état — but this time in a dark thriller mode. In 1973, Inés (María Valverde), her husband Justo (Gabriel Urzúa), and her lover Gerardo (Pedro Fontaine), all members of a violent right-wing group, pull off a political crime that changes the course of history. Forty-odd years later, Inés (now played by Argentinean legend Mercedes Morán) is a successful businesswoman, but Gerardo (now Marcelo Alonso), motivated by revenge and obsession, wants to restart the nationalist movement of their collective past, a past that Inés and Justo (now Felipe Armas) are desperate to keep hidden …
One might think Chile is long past Pinochet, but Woods puts paid to that romantic notion. Through his depiction of a love triangle gone bad, the entitlement of the privileged, the perverse idealism of the right, and the cruelty and greed fuelling so much of Chile today, he fashions a painfully twisted tale that suggests that although Pinochet is gone, his shadow lingers on …”
Screens at 9pm, on Monday, October 7th, at The Centre, and again the next day, Tuesday, October 8th, 2:45pm at the Vancouver Playhouse. The Painted Bird | Czech Republic | Václav Marhoul
Václav Marhoul’s “stunning adaptation of Jerzy Kosiński’s controversial 1965 novel/memoir” caused mass walkouts when it screened at the Venice Film Festival, and more than a few walkouts at TIFF, for this blistering, bracingly defiant and emotionally plangent film that is rife with uncompromising, unvarnished brutality (murder, rape, torture, bestiality) that, as Deborah Young writes in her THR review of the film, “doesn’t begin to convey the emotional scope of this tender, bruising, exuberant film.”
Stayed tuned. According to VIFF, there are no further events scheduled at this time. Perhaps Tom Charity will bring it back to the Vancity Theatre. Queen of Hearts | Denmark | May el-Toukhy
Director and co-writer May el-Toukhy offers a master class in how to shoot a blossoming physical attraction. From shy touching while trying to find the perfect spot for the “world’s smallest tattoo”, to the frankly explicit sex that actually seems sexy … to confuse matters, though, Queen of Hearts explores the inappropriate relationship involving a middle-aged lawyer’s twisting, highly-charged sexual tryst with her troubled teenage stepson, the film on the one hand an impossibly glamorous, sexually charged and immoral melodrama and on the other a subtle Sirkian, almost Hitchcockian tragedy that explores the wages of familial sin and deceit, all while peeling back the veneer of ultra-civilized Scandinavian society. Not to be missed.
Screens at 9:15pm on Monday, October 7th, at the Vancouver Playhouse. Les Misérables | France | Ladj Ly
Winner of the Jury Prize at Cannes this year, Ladj Ly’s Les Misérables — débuting at VIFF 2019 as part of the Spotlight on France series — emerged as one of Jeff Wells’ (Hollywood Elsewhere) favourite films at Cannes this year, a film he describes as “explosive, urgent, furious, riveting, breathless and impactful,” and about which VIFF’s festival guide says …
Set in the same suburban Paris neighbourhood, Montfermeil, used by Victor Hugo as the location for the Thénardiers’ Inn in his Les Misérables, débuting director Ladj Ly’s gripping, incendiary police-thriller gives us a young cop, Stéphane (Damien Bonnard), who joins an Anti-Crime Squad team led by loose cannon Chris (co-writer Alexis Manenti, superb) and is soon immersed in a world of poverty and internecine power struggles. When images of police brutality start circulating, the shit hits the fan…
Quite simply, Ladj Ly’s Les Misérables is not to be missed.
Screens at 6:30pm (today), Wednesday, October 2nd, at the Vancouver Playhouse, and for a final time at VIFF 2019, next week, on Thursday, October 10th, 4pm, at International Village 9. Those Who Remained | Hungary | Barnabás Tóth
A smash hit at Telluride, director Barnabás Tóth’s lyrical story of the healing power of love in the midst of national conflict, lost and trauma, Those Who Remained reveals the healing process of Holocaust survivors through the eyes of a young girl in post-World War II Hungary.
After an extensive shorts career, Tóth’s feature début focuses on 42-year-old doctor and concentration camp survivor Aldo, his new friendship with 16-year-old Klara, and the suspicion it brings in Soviet Hungary. The country recently won the foreign-language award for Lázló Nemes’ Son Of Saul in 2016, with one other win for Istaván Szabó’s Mephisto in 1982. Those Who Remained will screen two more times at VIFF 2019: on Saturday, October 5th at 7pm, at SFU Goldcorp; and for a final time, on Thursday, October 10th at 11:15am, at the home of the festival, the Vancity Theatre. A White White Day | Iceland | Hlynur Pálmason
Rigorously charting the fracturing of a grieving former police detective’s world as he comes to suspect that his late wife, who died in a strange car accident, was having an affair with a younger colleague, this deeply unsettling and grimly hypnotic second feature by Icelandic writer-director Hlynur Palmason, A White White Day won both the Louis Roederer Foundation Rising Star Award and Critics’ Week prize at Cannes 2019.
As Lisa Nesselson writes in her review of the film in Screen Daily …
A White White Day is an exquisite, complex, visually arresting and emotionally rewarding film, the tug of the splendidly varied landscape in this film both internal and external in a manner that would be hard to pull off in a dense urban setting, the pleasingly off-kilter string score a plus, and the trajectory of the film percolating from tender — the protagonist’s relationship with his granddaughter — to robustly no-nonsense, offering the viewer throughout with a flesh and blood catalogue of ways to be masculine, to be human, and how to grieve.
The film’s title refers to an Icelandic proverb suggesting that on days so “white” that the earth meets the sky, the dead can communicate with those still living.
Screens at 4pm on Monday, October 7th, at International Village 9. Adam | Morocco | Maryam Touzani
Adam is a deceptively small story about elemental themes, most specifically the beauty and mystery of motherhood. First-time feature filmmaker Maryam Touzani has dedicated the movie to her own mother, and indeed this is a kind, resonant portrait of two women — one who is a mother and one who is reluctantly about to become one. Deft performances from Lubna Azabal and Nisrin Erradi add heart and soul to this slender chronicle of a de facto family learning to rely on one another.
Screening in Un Certain Regard at Cannes this year to much deserved acclaim, One of Adam’s central pleasures is its calm arrival at fundamental truths about how women nurture and provide — even when they themselves receive little of the same.
Screens today, Wednesday, October 2nd, at 8:30pm, at the Vancouver Playhouse (remember: Les Misérables screens at The Playhouse at 6:30pm — kinda makes for a perfect Wednesday night double bill, don’tcha think?). It Must Be Heaven | Palestine | Elia Suleiman
This is Suleiman’s second submission for this award; he also directed Palestine’s first-ever entry, 2003’s Divine Intervention. Starring the director himself alongside Ali Suliman, François Girard, and Gael Garcia Bernal, It Must Be Heaven tells the story of a man who escapes his native Palestine for a new life only to face the same challenges. It played in Competition at Cannes this year. This is Palestine’s twelfth submission for the award, having been nominated twice in 2006 for Paradise Now and 2014 for Omar. It Must Be Heaven screens twice at VIFF 2019, both times at Cinema 10, International Village, on Saturday, October 5th 9:30pm, and Monday, October 7th at 1:45pm. The Whistlers | Romania | Corneliu Porumboiu
Cannes 2019 Competition title The Whistlers follows Cristi, a corrupt police officer and whistle blower for mafia, who flies to the Canary Islands to free Zsolt, a crooked businessman. Under police surveillance, Cristi sets about to encourage Zsolt to reveal where he’s hidden 30 million euros.
Ready to give festival audiences a taste of his brand of bone-dry black comedy satirizing bureaucracy and corruption in post-Ceauçescu Romania, Corneliu previously won the Palme d’Or for 12:08 East Of Bucharest in 2006. This is Romania’s 25th submission, with no previous Oscar nods. The Whistlers will screen three times at VIFF 2019: at 2pm on Friday, October 4th at Cinema 10, International Village; on Monday, October 7th at 6:45pm at the Rio Theatre; and for a final time on Wednesday, October 9th at 4pm, again at Cinema 10, International Village. Beanpole | Russia | Kantemir Balagov
In this richly burnished, occasionally harrowing rendering of the persistent scars of war, two women, Iya and Masha (astonishing newcomers Viktoria Miroshnichenko and Vasilisa Perelygina), attempt to readjust to a haunted post-WWII Leningrad.
And, according to the VIFF 2019 programme guide …
An unforgettable take on war’s human costs, Russian wunderkind and former student of Alexander Sokurov Kantemir Balagov’s visually poetic and beautifully photographed drama is set in a Leningrad of near-intolerable privation in the aftermath of Russia’s WWII “victory.” Lanky nurse Iya (Miroshnichenko), nicknamed “Beanpole” for her tall, thin body, works in a hospital and suffers PTSD-related seizures that leave her unconscious. When fiery Masha (Perelygina), the woman soldier Iya worships, returns from the frontlines, their intense relationship — tinged by a tragedy that occurs during one of Iya’s episodes and subject to the many horrors both of them have lived through – takes centre stage. As the desperate citizenry scrambles to survive, can the women return to a life even resembling normalcy?
Balagov elicits amazing performances from Miroshnichenko and Perelygina, both newcomers to the screen, and elevates Nobel laureate Svetlana Alexeievich’s stories of Russian women’s experiences during WWII – his inspiration for the film – to understandably harsh and yet ethereally beautiful heights. Beanpole is a remarkable work for anyone to have made, let alone for someone only 28 years old.
“Exceptionally crafted, devastating… ferocious, and extraordinary… [It] marks the undeniable arrival of Kantemir Balagov as a major talent…” — Jessica Kiang, Variety
FIPRESCI Prize, Un Certain Regard, Cannes 19
Screens twice next week, on Wednesday, October 9th at 6:15pm, International Village 10, and on the final day of VIFF 2019, on Friday, October 11th, 12:45pm, at the Vancity Theatre. Atlantics | Senegal | Mati Diop
Most films that chronicle the plight of Africans undertaking the treacherous traversing of the Atlantic in search of better lives tend to be male-centric and grounded in stark realism. Mati Diop’s “Atlantics” upends that archetype, and harnesses fantasy and social relevance to tell a haunting story that focuses on the women who are often left behind. It’s one of the most original films of the year, and should continue to generate intrigue at both NYFF and VIFF en route to its Netflix launch.
Along the Atlantic coast, a soon-to-be-inaugurated futuristic tower looms over a suburb of Dakar, Senegal, but the construction workers haven’t been paid for months. Seventeen-year-old Ada (Mama Sané) is in love with Souleiman (Ibrahima Traoré), one of the construction workers, but has been promised to another man by her family. One night, the workers (including Souleiman) decide to leave the country by sea, in search of brighter futures. Whether they make it is a mystery.
Several days later, a fire ruins Ada’s wedding. Meanwhile, a mysterious fever starts to spread with incalculable ramifications. The strange, poetic circumstances keep piling up. “Atlantics” is a fantastical blend of romance and socio-political commentary at once, laced together by a surreal dreamscape.
But above all, this is a story about an impossible love, destroyed by injustice. Not since Diop’s own uncle, director Djibril Diop Mambety, made the seminal “Touki Bouki” has cinema seen an African couple worthy of the tragedy that is “Romeo and Juliet.” Diop made history when the film premiered at Cannes earlier this year — becoming the first black woman to direct a film featured in the festival’s Competition section. It won the Grand Prix, kicking off a festival run that will come to a head when it arrives at NYFF and VIFF with much-deserved hype.
Screens at 9:15pm, Wednesday, October 7th, Rio Theatre. Parasite | South Korea | Bong Joon-ho
The 2019 Palme d’Or-winning Parasite chronicles the relationship between the wealthy Park family and the impoverished Kim family and the influence of greed and discrimination on it. The film stars Song Kang-ho, Lee Sun-kyun, and Cho Yeo-jeong. This marks the 31st submission from South Korea with no nominations yet; Bong was the first Korean director to receive the top Cannes prize earlier this year. Parasite will screen once more at VIFF 2019, on Sunday, October 6th, 9pm at The Centre. Pain and Glory | Spain | Pedro Almodóvar
With his seventh time representing Spain in the international feature category, Almodóvar sets a new record for the country, ahead of José Luis Garci’s six occasions. Cannes 2019 Competition title Pain and Glory reunites him with regular collaborators Antonio Banderas (who won Best Actor on the Croisette) and Penélope Cruz for the autobiographical story of a director looking back at his life and career. Spain has four wins and 15 nominations for the international award, including Almodóvar’s All About My Mother win in 2000, and Alejandro Amenábar’s nomination for The Sea Inside in 2005. Pain and Glory will screen at 6pm, Wednesday, October 9th at The Centre. And Then We Danced | Sweden | Levan Akin
In this Cannes Directors’ Fortnight 2019 title, a dancer’s training at the National Georgian Ensemble with his partner Mary is disturbed by the arrival of Irakli. Lead actor Levan Gelbakhiani won the Best Actor prize at the Sarajevo Film Festival. Ana Javakishvili and Anano Makharadze co-star. Sweden has been nominated for this award 16 times, with Ingmar Bergman winning their three awards for The Virgin Spring in 1961, Through a Glass Darkly in 1962 and Fanny and Alexander in 1984. This is Akin’s second feature film after the 2015 film The Circle.
No further VIFF 2019 screenings are scheduled at this time.
Well, that’s it for now for our full weekend coverage of the probable Oscar contenders that are set to screen this year at the 38th annual Vancouver International Film Festival. All VanRamblings’ VIFF 2019 columns may be accessed by clicking on the graphic above.
Each year for a long time now, VanRamblings has most looked forward to the Vancouver International Film Festival’sShorts Programme, as curated by VIFF programmer Sandy Gow, a person of immense humanity and goodness, a man of heart, wit and intelligence, and a man who loves film.
Whether a Short be five minutes in length, like British filmmaker Chris Ullens’ Leanne Womack’s “Hollywood”, or 14 minutes in length, as is the case with Taiwanese director Clifford Liu’s moving, muted yet powerful Grandpa, the 35 films Sandy Gow has curated into the four International Shorts programmes in 2019 are punch-in-the-gut films of the first order, or as Sandy was telling VanRamblings last week, “Each of the 35 filmmakers included in this year’s Shorts programme have more to say in six minutes than most feature filmmakers do in two hours.” And so it is, and so it is.
According to Sandy, in 2019 shorts submissions hit record numbers …
“We were up close to 90% in submissions this year, with over 1320 shorts made available to VIFF in 2019. Although there’s a team of six people who assist in the screening of the shorts, at the end of the day, the final choice is mine. Before handing films off to the screening team, I watched all or part of 950 films, watching 250 all the way through — after having done this for as long as I have, you come to know what works and what doesn’t. Out of the 1320 submissions only 35 films were chosen for the VIFF 2019 International Shorts programme, and as per usual the selected shorts were placed into four themed shorts programmes.”
Those four themed 2019 International Shorts programmes are as follows … A Matter of Identity | | 8 shorts | 112 minutes
Thursday, October 3rd, 6pm, International Village 8 Saturday, October 5th, 12:30pm, International Village 8
“In A Matter of Identity we have the world première of flush from Sheridan O’Donnell, a filmmaker who was here last year,” says Sandy Gow, “when I introduced him to Squamish-based cinematographer Todd Duym. The two of them got together, and the result is the world première of flush. Todd also shot Tolerance, which is part of another one of our shorts programmes, Modern Tales from a Conflicted World.”
“We also have the world première of O Holy Ghost, a delightfully surreal comedy along the lines of The Lobster, from a few years back.”
Friday, October 4th, 3pm, International Village 8
Monday, October 7th, 6pm, International Village 8
In a world defined by unrelenting, unforgiving change, in spite of and perhaps because of social media and the daily announcements of technical innovations that are supposed to make our lives easier and create a sense of connection, loneliness and isolation in societies across the globe remains rife. From the experimental documentaries to animation and almost everything in between, the shorts in Modern Tales from a Conflicted World mean to help us break down our pervasive sense of anomie, while delivering thought-provoking insight into the questions which besiege us, spanning the spectrum of our existence, and perhaps a few answers, too. Troubled Voices, Teen Lives | | 8 shorts | 106 minutes
Tuesday, October 1st, 11am, International Village 9
With apologies to Sandy for not publishing our International Shorts Programme column earlier, the teen shorts programme is always the most popular of each year’s four shorts programmes Sandy curates, with a packed house for the initial screening yesterday, and only standby tickets available for tomorrow’s 11am screening of Troubled Voices, Teen Lives.
Each year, the international teen shorts programme presented by VIFF explores the breadth and complexity of teen lives, and the challenges teens face at school, in their homes, and in the larger world. While teens often struggle to both express their feelings and be heard, especially when their perspective challenges the conventional norm, each year this international shorts programme has always managed to capture the full range of teen lives, comedic, dramatic, revealing, that should you attend tomorrow’s screening will surely more fully inform your perspective on teen lives. Somebody Dies | | 8 shorts | 107 minutes
Friday, October 4th, 6pm, International Village 8
Sunday, October 6th, 12:15pm, International Village 8
Says Sandy Gow, “Most of the films submitted to VIFF this year had featured, in some measure, a perspective on death. That’s true, surprisingly, of each of our four international shorts programmes this year, the tenuousness of our existence. As I wrote in the programme …
Death is the common denominator, often forcing difficult choices, emotional upheaval and a more philosophical understanding of life on those who are left behind.
Somebody Dies is my favourite of the four programmes this year, each of the eight films included in the programme stunningly beautiful and heartbreaking in their realization, a coterie of films that while spanning the filmic form gives a sense of meaning to each life lived.”
Sandy is wont to point out that there are many more Shorts Programmes than the four programmes he creates, totaling some 100+ films overall, that are included in VIFF 2019’s schedule this year, all worth checking out.
