Please find below, the first of 21 daily columns on our 32nd annual Vancouver International Film Festival. See you back here every day.
The 32nd annual, and much-changed, Vancouver International Film Festival is a film festival in transition.
With the closure of its longtime Granville 7 Cinema home at the end of VIFF 2012, Festival staff was hard-pressed to replace the seven cinemas within the Granville 7 theatre complex in order that a thriving Vancouver film festival might prevail in 2013.
To that end, Vancouver International Film Festival administrators have found success, in 2013 transitioning the Festival from downtown to “cross-town”, a neighbourhood The Straight’s Sarah Rowland describes as …
Nestled in between the hustle and bustle of downtown, the new-money flash of Yaletown, the historical character of Gastown, and the colourful grit of Chinatown is where Crosstown is quietly making a name for itself as Vancouver’s hippest up-and-coming micro-hood and home-décor hub. Like Swiss cuisine, this hidden gem is a mix of influences from all its bigger neighbours, yet still has a distinct flavour of its own.
The Festival has found multiple new homes in Crosstown: at the 350-seat SFU Goldcorp Centre for the Arts (in the Woodwards building, at Abbott and Hastings); the nearby Cineplex International Village, in Cinemas 8, 9 and 10 (799 seats in total); the Vancouver Playhouse, on Hamilton (668 seats); The Centre for the Performing Arts, on Homer, between Georgia and Robson (1800 seats, 900 on the main floor); the Rio Theatre, at Commercial and Broadway (420 seats); all in addition to their traditional longtime venues, at the Vancity Theatre on Seymour (185 seats), and The Cinematheque on Howe Street, near Davie (194 seats).
Ticket prices remain the same as last year ($13, a bargain compared to the single seat $23.35 charged at the Toronto Film Festival), and passholders will find they may have to line up for each screening, rather than acquire tickets for the day’s screenings at days outset, as was the case in years past. As we say, a Festival in transition, a sort of back to the future, where the old is new again (at least that would appear to be how Festival Director Alan Franey would frame some of this year’s changes, as the Festival reverts to a logistical approach employed pre the Granville 7 era). All said, with all the jumping around from location to location, and the necessity of lining up for each film, chances are that die-hard passholder cinéastes will see fewer films in 2013 than has usually been the case.
Which is a pity, because there are a great many fine films that will screen at the 2013 version of the Vancouver International Film Festival. Read on to discover what Vancouver’s Crosstown festival has in store for you in 2013.
Continue reading 2013 Vancouver International Film Festival, Sept. 26th – Oct. 11th
