The 31st annual Vancouver International Film Festival kicks off Thursday, September 27th and runs through October 12th. This year, the Opening Night Gala features Midnight’s Children, Canadian director Deepa Mehta’s adaptation of the Booker Prize winning Salman Rushdie novel (with script and narration supplied by Rushdie himself), an epic, panoramic look at the history of India and Pakistan over a 50-year period. The Festival concludes with Leos Carax’s hypnotically cinematic Cannes’ award-winner, Holy Motors, closing out the Festival on the aforementioned Friday, October 12.
In between the opening and closing night films, over its 16-day running time, VIFF will unspool 380 features, documentaries and short films from 75 countries across the globe, with 107 Canadian films — making Vancouver the planet’s largest film festival screening Canadian fare.
As always, VIFF will showcase the efforts of a number of local filmmakers, including features by director Mark Sawers, Camera Shy, a black comedy about a corrupt Vancouver city councilor; an independent feature written by Kristine Cofsky, and co-directed by Terry Miles & Cofsky, In No Particular Order, a 20-something portrait of “a quarter-life crisis”; the world première of director Katrin Bowen’s relationship comedy, Random Acts of Romance, featuring local actress Amanda Tapping; and Bruce Sweeney’s new murder mystery / neo-noir police procedural, Crimes of Mike Recket.
On the documentary side of VIFF’s Canadian Images series, you’ll want to catch Julia Ivanova’s High Five: An Adoption Saga, a moving tale of a childless B.C. couple who end up on a rollercoaster ride to adopt five Ukrainian siblings, as well as acclaimed director Velcrow Ripper’s Occupy Love, a journey deep inside the Occupy movement, the global revolution of the heart that continues to erupt around the planet.
In addition to the Canadian Images programme series, many of the Festival’s trademark series will return: Dragons and Tigers: The Cinemas of East Asia , which remains a core component, and highlight, of the 31st annual VIFF; the annual Spotlight on France series; the Nonfiction Features of 2012 series (95 documentary films, 80 of which are feature-length this year), an important component of which is the Arts and Letters series focusing on music from across the globe; and the largest and most looked forward to component of the Festival, Cinema of Our Time — a key can’t miss aspect of which is the International Shorts programme — featuring tremendously moving cinema from every corner of our planet, offering a window on our world and an insight into the lives of others who reside on every continent, and whose concerns, perhaps not so surprisingly, differ not so much from our own. And finally this year, World Wildlife Fund Canada returns to sponsor Garden in the Sea, VIFF’s thought-provoking environmental series, always well-attended and a highlight of the Festival.
Award-winning films screening at this year’s 31st annual Festival include: Michael Haneke’s tender, haunting and brilliant new movie, the Cannes’ Palme D’or winner, Amour; Sundance winner, The Sessions, a frank, funny and immensely touching indie drama that seems headed for Oscar recognition; Berlin Best Film winner La Demora, a powerful and closely observed psychological portrait of an arthritic, forgetful elder and the daughter who cares for him; and director Huang Ji’s remarkable début feature, the Rotterdam Tiger award winning autobiographical drama, Egg and Stone, centering around a fragile-looking 14-year-old girl who becomes the victim of terrible sexual abuse.
Films arriving on our shores which have garnered recognition elsewhere and should be considered worthy of inclusion on your Festival schedule include: Aquí y Allá, writer-director Antonio Mendez Esparza’s beautifully observant exploration of the stresses immigration places on family and self; Barbara, Berlin Best Director winner Christian Petzold’s crisply shot, mesmerizing story of love and subterfuge in 1980 East Germany; Beyond the Hills, Cristian Mungiu’s (4 Months, 3 Weeks & 2 Days) tragic tale of religious and romantic conflict; Helpless, a superior Korean mystery suspense thriller from female Korean director Byun Young Joo that has set domestic box office records in Korea; Hemel, sort of a Dutch female version of Shame, Sacha Polak’s psychologically illuminating début turns Polak into a director to watch; and The Hunt, Thomas Vinterberg’s film stars Cannes Best Actor winner Mads Mikkelsen as a kindergarten teacher accused of child abuse.