An often overlooked aspect of the Vancouver International Film Festival is the must-see Short Films series, programmed by the estimable Sandy Gow.
In 2018, as per usual, there are five programmes within the ALT Short Film series, curated by Sandy Gow, with input and assistance from a volunteer screening team consisting of Andree Faucher, Josh Hamm, Ray Lai, and Lori Strong, who throughout the year screen up to 750 films, before Sandy makes the final cut, creating five programmes of six to nine films …
Close Quarters. Eight True North Short Films ranging in length from six to thirty-four minutes, featuring creative ‘young’ Canadian filmmakers, exploring subject matter, including: an adult with autism spectrum disorder, an increasingly isolated city woman who takes refuge in her apartment, to a surreal, romantic tragicomedy about a man who merges with his war plane and can no longer connect with his wife, each punch in the gut short film spanning the depth and breadth of human experience;
The Curtain Calls. Seven more astounding, must-see True North Short Films that will leave you breathless, from Québec-based directors Emilie Mannering and Carmine Pierre-Dufour’s, Mahalia Melts in the Rain (12 minutes), the story of a a timid nine-year-old black girl (middle right, in the graphic above), to Encore (13 minutes), the story of a young piano player (see picture below) who tries to help his mother cope with the death of her husband the only way he knows how — through music.
Escape Routes. Québec and B.C.-based new directors, exploring “getting away from it all”, in whatever form that takes, freight train or bus travel, or taking a much-needed break from the prosaic demands of one’s life;
Matters of Grave Importance. Sandy comes up with the names of each short films programme, so from the series name you can pretty much guess the subject matter of the eight films in this shorts programme: confronting the consequences of an irreversible decision, keeping quiet about a friend’s indiscretion, a young girl attempting to save a grievously wounded rabbit, and coming to terms with Mother Nature.
Various Positions. Reflections on life would appear to be the theme of this nine short films programme (we’d meant to talk with Sandy before writing today’s column, but just as he predicted, we didn’t get around to it), with subject matter ranging from three young women searching for ways to kill time as they await the arrival of a church organ player, a young woman’s summer cycle through Toronto, to a mesmerizing look at the tranquil countryside found on the Isle of Coll, Scotland.
Thirty-eight all Canadian films in total in the ALT series five short film programmes, each film life-changing, each film transporting and transcendently lovely and meaningful, and each film very much worthy of your time.
Note. Short Films series programmer Sandy Gow wishes to emphasize that all of the films curated in the Short Films series this year are Canadian! Below, we write about the Reel Youth Film Festival; Sandy Gow and his team are not involved in programming VIFF’S annual youth film festival.
There is one more series in the short film programme, to which school districts find the funds each year to transport students to Cineplex International Village Cinema, to take in the 22-film Reel Youth Film Festival.
The most compelling collection of short films from across the globe, all made by youth, and chosen by a youth selection panel from over 1500 submissions, this cogent, powerful, gripping, enthralling, captivating and irresistible collection of short films allows those in attendance at the upcoming screenings — on Tuesday, October 2nd at 11:15am, and Wednesday, October 10th at 6:30pm — to catch a spellbinding glimpse of the world through the eyes of an emerging group of gifted filmmakers.
Each year for most of the history of the Vancouver International Film Festival, the prestigious, heavily juried and much smaller New York Film Festival kicks off on the same date as VIFF, creating something of a logistical problem for the print traffic folks at Vancouver’s film festival (and New York’s, as well), arising from the fact that the respective film festivals generally share 15+ films (out of a total of 30) — as is the case again this year — and the logistics of transporting the one-and-only “print” of the film back and forth can be, and has often proved to be, something of a terrible, pull-your-hair-out nightmare for the print traffic folks at both film festivals.
Still and all, somehow both VIFF and the good folks at the NYFF each year manage to “exchange” films without a glitch.
As above, this year there are a record number of films screening at both VIFF 2018 and NYFF56, 21 in total, far more than in any previous year.
In 2018, the films VIFF 2018 and the NYFF56 will exchange (all of these films will screen at both the New York & the Vancouver film festivals) …
37th Annual Vancouver International Film Festival
Thursday, September 27th thru Friday, October 12th
The 37th annual Vancouver International Film Festival is about to fall into place, taking over cinemas across Vancouver with 300 films representing 55 countries. Running from Sept. 27th thru Oct. 12th, VIFF is best approached like a multi-country overseas vacation: with pre-planning, and lots of it.
Here are some tips for your VIFF vacation. What movies to choose?
On viff.org, you’ll find films organized by programme (e.g. Panorama, Gateway, Dragons & Tigers, B.C. Spotlight), by country of origin, by genre, or by director. See what intrigues you! Also, you’ll want to check to see which films have a guest attending (noted on each film’s individual online page), which might mean an interesting Q&A. Note should be made that the most accurate and up-to-date information about guests is online only.
You can also peruse the printed, glossy and absolutely stunningly beautiful VIFF Guide, available at Chapters & Indigo and other bookstores as well as at almost all libraries across our region, or at any one of the nine venues where films will be screened, as well as at coffee shops all across town.
As always, a number of VIFF films will be returning to theatres for regular runs post-festival, although it can be both fun and enlightening to see these films during VIFF, particularly if a guest director is presenting the film, and also because most of these snob appeal, certain future Oscar nominee “Special Presentations” will screen at the luxurious 1800-seat Centre for the Performing Arts, on Homer Street across from the Vancouver Public Library.
Here are a few of the films with post-VIFF distribution planned for VIFF 2018, with tentative release dates …
Can You Ever Forgive Me? (October 19th), director Marielle Heller’s charming melancholic comedy about real-life writer-turned-criminal Lee Israel (Melissa McCarthy, a lock guarantee for a Best Actress Oscar nomination), who forged some 400 letters by dead celebrities and pawned them off until the FBI caught up with her scheme;
Boy Erased (November 2nd). A richly humanistic, emotionally searing drama that sticks in the memory, Lucas Hedges (Manchester by the Sea) stars as Jared, the son of a Baptist pastor in a small American town, who is outed to his parents (Nicole Kidman, a lock for a Best Supporting Actress nomination, and Russell Crowe) at age 19, who send him to a a gay conversion therapy programme;
A Private War (November 16th). The story of the late journalist Marie Colvin (Rosamund Pike), one of the most celebrated war correspondents of our time, an utterly fearless and rebellious spirit, driven to the frontlines of conflicts across the globe to give voice to the voiceless;
The Front Runner (November 21st). The Closing Gala film, tracking the rise and fall of Senator Gary Hart (Hugh Jackman, a lock for a Best Actor Oscar nomination), and the role tabloid journalism played in his downfall;
The Favourite (November 23rd). Entertainment Weekly’s Chris Nashawaty says about The Favourite, “a Satyricon-era Fellini-esque tragicomedy all hopped up with enough sex, deviance, hypocrisy, decadence, and spicy profanity to make your average Masterpiece Theatre patron reach into their PBS tote bag for some smelling salts.” And, oh yes, a lock guarantee for Best Picture, and a whack of actress nominations for Rachel Weisz, Olivia Colman, and Emma Stone.
Vox Lux (December 7th). Arriving on our shores directly from the Toronto Festival Festival, powered by a riveting performance of fiercely mannered bravado by Natalie Portman (a certain Best Actress nominee), Vox Lux paints a sharp, powerfully haunting and shellacked portrait of a ghost in the celebrity machine.
Destroyer (December 25th). A second VIFF 2018 film starring Nicole Kidman, director Karyn Kusama’s latest film follows the moral and existential odyssey of LAPD detective Erin Bell (Kidman, in one of the best ever performances). The film also features spectacular work from Canadian actress, Tatiana Maslany
Award-Winning Must-See Films
Over the past month, VanRamblings has written about each of the following films in our extensive coverage of VIFF 2018; for insight & information on what films to see, we recommend you peruse our previous posts on this year’s celebrated, must-see films for the VIFF 2018 films we list below.
The VIFF 2018 films we write about below constitute the 14 Cinema of the World films VanRamblings is recommending that those attending the 37th annual Vancouver International Film Festival give serious attention to when considering the purchase of tickets for this year’s film festivals, the films we believe are rock solid films that will both move you and change your world.
You may also want to check out Shane Scott Travis’ 25 Movies You Won’t Want to Miss at VIFF 2018 column on Taste of Cinema, as well as all of the coverage of VIFF 2018 in The Georgia Straight.
This year, the award-winning, must-see films arriving on our shores from places other than Hollywood, and set to unspool at VIFF include …
Screening at the 37th annual Vancouver International Film Festival this year: acclaimed Japanese director Hirokazu Kore-eda’s latest, Shoplifters, which won the Palme d’Or at Cannes in May, a quietly devastating portrait of family and theft in contemporary Japan, resonant, compassionate, socially conscious filmmaking with a piercing intelligence that is pure Kore-eda, and a film that stole the hearts of the Cannes jury and even the most cynical of film journalists attending Cannes this year, a film made up of delicate brushstrokes: details, moments, looks and smiles, a heartbreaker that draws our empathy, and yet another charming, funny and affecting example of Kore-eda’s very special brand of tough-but-tender humanism.
Another Cannes favourite headed to VIFF 2018, Capernaum, Lebanese filmmaker Nadine Labaki’s politically-charged fable about a child who launches a lawsuit against his parents, a staggering heart-in-mouth social-realist blockbuster teeming with sorrow, yet strewn with diamond-shards of beauty, wit and hope, at once quietly absorbing and fitfully shocking as we experience the sights, sounds and smells of the streets where a one-year-old child can wander around alone without anyone stopping to wonder why, and a film that while choosing dramatic power over narrative finesse makes a powerful statement on human misery and grotesque inequality while tackling its subject with intelligence, heart and furious compassion.
Another acclaimed film set to arrive at VIFF 2018, the much-looked-forward-to Cannes FIPRESCI Prize winner, South Korean director LEE Changdong’s Burning, starring Hollywood actor Steven Yuen (Okja, The Walking Dead). Here’s what Los Angeles Times film critic Justin Chang had to say about Burning …
At 2½ hours, Burning is a character study that morphs, with masterly patience, subtlety and nary a single wasted minute, into a teasing mystery and eventually a full-blown thriller. To reveal more would ruin the story’s slow-building pleasures, which are less about the haunting final destination than the subtle, razor-sharp microcurrents of class rage, family-inherited pain, everyday ennui and youthful despair that build in scene after scene, even when nothing more seems to be happening than a simple or not-so-simple conversation.
Defying expectations throughout, offering multiple, murky solutions to a set of mysteries wondrous in their complexity and inscrutability, Burning, with its jazzy score, gorgeously immaculate camerawork, shifting moods and carefully calibrated minimalism emerges as a genre-bending murder-mystery that torches genre clichés, in one of the most scorching and beautifully unforgettable films of the year. Yet another VIFF 2018 must-see.
The Panorama programme spans four series: Contemporary World Cinema, Spotlight on France, Vanguard, and new this year, Focus on Italy. Panorama films arrive on our shores to much critical acclaim and near rabid VIFF patron interest, so if you see a film you like, you should book your tickets for those films now, including: Jafar Panahi’s latest, 3 Faces (which is currently taking TIFF by storm); and Alice Rohrwacher’s Happy as Lazzaro, the winner of Best Screenplay at Cannes.
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There are, of course, more than 100 films from across the globe in the Contemporary World Cinema series, including The Wild Pear Tree, the latest film from Master Nuri Bilge Ceylan (2014 Cannes Palme d’Or winner for Winter Sleep); the well-reviewed new film from German director Christian Petzold, Transit; Berlin Best Actor winner Anthony Bajon in The Prayer; and pushing the boundaries of cinema, Holiday, Swedish-born director Isabella Eklöf’s viciously auspicious low-temperature, high-impact début, a sun-splashed dark tableau about a frost-bitten summer vacation gone awry.
Each of the films named above are linked to the VIFF online page, allowing you to easily purchase tickets for one of the film’s upcoming screenings.
There are only nine films in the popular Spotlight on France series this year, each exceptional and each film exploring the rich cinematic culture that continues to flourish in France, a rare opportunity for habitués of the Lower Mainland to screen this year’s finest Gallic delights from l’Hexagone.
For instance, there’s Shéhérazade, proving that VIFF films are not only for the blue rinse and grey-haired crowd. Winner of the Prix Jean Vigo for France’s best first feature of the past year, Jean-Bernard Marlin’s slice-of-life drama about young love on the mean streets of Marseille harkens back to Italian neorealism in its use of non-professional actors and gritty locations. Kenza Fortas, as the tough teen prostitute Shéhérazade, is a real find. A native Marseillais, Marlin has crafted “an ultra-realist portrait of juvenile delinquency … and a surprising and engaging love story to boot.”
Eight films from Italy, long renowned for the world’s most groundbreaking cinema, comprises the first ever VIFF Focus on Italy series, including Daughter of Mine (pictured above), about which the VIFF 2018 programme guide records …
On sun-drenched Sardinia, ten-year-old Vittoria (Sara Casu), born of alcoholic party girl Angelica (Alba Rohrwacher) but raised as her own by sensible Tina (Valeria Golino), is drawn into her birth mother’s chaotic sphere, despite having no knowledge of the truth of her situation. Says Jessica Kiang in Variety “Laura Bispuri’s sunswept, emotive, and elemental sophomore narrative film… a noble rarity… unfolds with such a barefoot sense of place that you can almost feel the Sardinian sand between your unwashed toes.”
Oscar award-winning Iranian director Asghar Farhadi’s latest drama, Everybody Knows, opened Cannes this year to much acclaim, uniting lovers and longtime married couple Javier Bardem and Penélope Cruz in a suspenseful kidnapping thriller set in Spain that will have you on the edge of your seat throughout, in the most gripping and propulsive popcorn-chomping genre film of the year, sociological cinema that explores the meaning of love, bitter resentment, societal divisions, class and the secrets that bind us together and pull us apart. Gosh, sounds just like our current Vancouver civic election — and probably just as compelling, too. Let’s face it, here’s a film not to be missed at VIFF 2018 — hey, it’s Asghar Farhadi … who misses an Asghar Farhadi film? Everybody Knows screens only once at VIFF, Friday, September 28th, 9pm at The Centre for the Performing Arts.
Cold War. A passionate love story between two people of different backgrounds and temperaments, who are fatally mismatched, set against the background of the Cold War in the 1950s in Poland, Berlin, Yugoslavia and Paris, Pawel Pawlikowski not only won Best Director at Cannes this year, Cold War has emerged as the odds-on favourite to pick up the Best Foreign Language Oscar this year (Pawlikowski’s film Ida won that very same award back in 2013). Says Time Out film critic Phil de Semlyen …
The Polish filmmaker has conjured a dazzling, painful, universal odyssey through the human heart and all its strange compulsions. It could be the most achingly romantic film you’ll see this year, or just a really painful reminder of the one that got away.
Accessible, humane, compassionate, epic, dreamlike, bittersweet and unbearably lovely, tell me, are you really planning on missing Cold War? No, I didn’t think so. Lucky us, Cold War screens twice at The Centre for the Performing Arts, on Tuesday, October 2nd at 6:30pm, and Wednesday, October 10th at 6:15pm. See ya there.
Here are two more VIFF 2018 films VanRamblings heartily recommends …
Director Jia Jia Zhang-ke’s Ash is the Purest White took Cannes by storm this year, a fierce, gripping, heartbreaking film that VanRamblings wholheartedly recommends.
And let us not forget the master of Asian cinema, Zhang Yimou (Ju Dou), who this year brings Shadow, as rousing and beautifully rendered a film as you’ll see at VIFF this year, and a stunning epic re-imagining of the Wuxia third century Three Kingdoms period in Chinese history.
The easiest way to purchase tickets is to go online to viff.org. Just put the name of the film you’re interested in into the search engine (top right), and click on Buy when you reach the film’s online webpage — from there it’s easy, allowing you to print your tickets at home.
Or, you can call the Festival Infoline at 604-683-3456 from noon til 6 p.m. daily through October 12th. (Online is quicker.) Note that there is a service charge for online and phone orders: $1 per single ticket, up to $4 per order. Note. Required by the provincial government (because VIFF films screen unrated) you’ll need to purchase a one-time $2 VIFF membership.
Tickets can be purchased at the venues during operating hours. As of September 28th, all festival venues — The Vancity Theatre on Seymour just north of Davie Street; The Centre for Performing Arts, on Homer Street directly across from the Vancouver Public Library; The Cinematheque on Howe Street just north of Davie; SFU Goldcorp Theatre, at Abbott and Hastings; Cineplex International Village, at Pender and Abbott; and The Playhouse Theatre, across from the old Post Office — will have a box office open daily, one hour before the day’s first screening. What about ticket packages or passes?
A Student or Senior 5-ticket pack goes for $60.
If you’re planning to go to a few films, for regular filmgoers the Festival Six-Pack is a good deal: six tickets for $85, compared to individual ticket prices of $13 – $17.
The best deal? A $160 Weekday Matineé pass, which will allow you to see all of the films you can get to between 10am and 5:55pm Monday to Friday, which if you play your cards right oughta allow you to see up to 75 films, and near double that if you choose to attend VIFF programmer Sandy Gow’s always spectacular & moving International Shorts film programmes.
The regular Senior and Student Pass goes for $330, while the full Festival Patron Pass is available for $420. What about all those lines outside the theatres?
Each VIFF screening will have three separate queues: 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 (arriving an hour early is better) is a good idea, particularly if you’re picky about where you sit. (Seating is not guaranteed, even if you have a ticket or a pass, if you arrive less than 20 minutes before showtime.) What about food and drink?
Though most VIFF venues serve the usual popcorn / candy / soft-drink fare, some have a few extras (there’s beer and wine at The Rio, and wine at the Vancity, for example). Not to worry, there are a wealth of restaurants just steps from the door from most venues. Outside food and drink is officially not allowed in the theatres, but VIFF-goers have been known to get away with it; be discreet, considerate and tidy. What about bus routes and parking?
Translink / Coast Mountain buses are the best way to get downtown, where most of the venues are located. Once downtown, most of the venues are within walking distance of one another. Or, if you’re planning on seeing a film at The Rio, Skytrain will whisk you there in no time flat. There’s parking at Cineplex International Village, but you’re going to want to check in with Festival staff (they’ll be wearing bright yellow VIFF t-shirts) to register your vehicle. What about crowds?
There will be crowds, particularly at the better-known films; not a lot you can do about that. Chances are that you’ll meet some thoughtful person or people in line; it happens often. Weekday screenings generally have shorter lines, particularly for the less well-known films.
All and all, quite simply, there is just no better time that can be had at any time of the year than through attending Vancouver’s international film festival, the most humanizing, eye-opening film event of the year, providing both a sympathetic & empathetic window on our too often troubled world.
As VanRamblings has written previously, while VIFF explores the Cinema of Despair, it also presents the festival-goer with the Cinema of Hope.
Over the course of the Vancouver International Film Festival’s 16 days, your world will be rocked — and, by festival’s end, you’ll emerge a changed, and a better person for the experience. Where else could that happen, at what other première arts event during the course of the year could that occur than at the Vancouver International Film Festival, where you’ll meet new friends, engage in a collective and humanizing endeavour that will provide insight into how lives are lived in every country and every region across our globe, and help you to realize and remember, as well, that we’re all in this together, we all seek love and connection, we all cherish family, and in the best of all possible worlds, we all seek understanding, and if we are very, very lucky, by film festival’s end, together we will have successfully fought the pervasive sense of anomie that has had us in its grip arising from the rise of the politics of fear and division currently extant in our world and even in our own country.
Through attendance at our 37th annual Vancouver International Film Festival’s, the possibility exists that we may achieve the realization of the spirit of collective transcendence, and hope for a better future for all of us through activism — which by film festival’s end means you should get out to vote for the candidates who mean to bring about change for the better.
Happy VIFF’ing, and happy voting in our current municipal election. See you at the movies, and at the election polls! Change for the better is near!
Today, VanRamblings will take you on a journey into the cinematic worlds envisioned by East Asia’s boldest filmmakers, while introducing the most adventurous & exciting cinema to emerge this past year from the Far East.
Long the heart of the Vancouver International Film Festival, each year for 37 years VIFF’s Dragons & Tigers and Gateway series have represented the largest and richest annual exhibition of Pacific Asian films outside of Asia.
Every year, VIFF’s annual Dragons & Tigers and Gateway programmes attract a strong retinue of internationally recognized filmmakers, film critics, distributors, and scholars, these well-attended programmes highlighting cutting-edge cinema and bodies of work from Asia’s boldest creators, encompassing the exceptional work of established masters as well as those who may soon be recognized alongside them, with films arriving on our shores from South Korea, Singapore, Japan, China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Myanmar, Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia & Thailand.
Over the course of the past 37 years, VIFF has steadfastly sought to convey the richness and diversity of East Asian cinema to appreciative audiences.
Director Jia Jia Zhang-ke’s Ash is the Purest White took Cannes by storm this year, a fierce, gripping, heartbreaking and at times loopy tale of Qiao (Zhao Tao) who in defending her mobster boyfriend Bin fires a gun to protect him, resulting in a five year sentence in prison for her act of loyalty.
Out of prison and up for adventure, in the film’s most stunning visual sequence, Qiao takes a ferry ride down the Yangtze River and, after a little misfortune, finds Bin shacked up in a shabby motel. Bin has seemingly lost his pride. “Was I ever that important?” he asks. “Well, if not you, then what is?!” Qiao responds with all the quiet force of a knee to the stomach.
A gripping parable about the vanity of human wishes, and an impassioned portrait of national malaise, in the end Jia Zhang-ke’s latest emerges as a glorious drama about how one woman’s journey from self-sacrificial moll to avenging criminal echoes her country’s wanton embrace of capitalism.
And let us not forget the master of Asian cinema, Zhang Yimou (Ju Dou), who this year brings Shadow, as rousing and beautifully rendered a film as you’ll see at VIFF this year, and a stunning epic re-imagining of the Wuxia third century Three Kingdoms period in Chinese history.
With its gorgeously choreographed sword duels, sabres slicing through paddles of blood and rain, watercolour bi-chromatic palettes and sumptuous costumes, Shadow offers a visual feast from the maestro of Chinese cinema. Here’s how Jessica Kiang opened her review in Variety …
Black ink drips from the tip of a brush and daggers into clear water, spiraling out like smoke; a Chinese zither sounds a ferocious, twanging note that warps and buckles in its sustain; rain mottles the sky to a heavy watercolour grey, forming pools on paving stones into which warriors bleed; whispery drafts from hidden palace chambers stir tendrils of hair and set the hems of luxuriant, patterned robes fluttering. Every supremely controlled stylistic element of Zhang Yimou’s breathtakingly beautiful Shadow is an echo of another, a motif repeated, a pattern recurring in a fractionally different way each time.
And just think: there are 25 more equally spectacular, moving & sumptuous films in the Gateway and Dragons & Tigers programmes this year!
VanRamblings wrote about Cannes FIPRESCI Critics Prize winner Burning and Cannes Palme d’Or winner Shoplifters last week, two of the lauded must-see films in the Gateway programme that will screen at VIFF 2018.
Now there are just 23 more films from East Asia for you to discover at the 37th annual Vancouver International Film Festival, which kicks off in only 11 days, running from Thursday, September 27 thru Friday, October 12.
