Category Archives: VIFF 2021

VIFF 2021 | Vancouver’s Beloved International Film Festival Wraps for 2021

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The 40th annual Vancouver International Film Festival wraps at 11:59pm this Thanksgiving Monday evening — and that will be it for another Festival year, although what is now termed the VanCentre Complex (3 theatres now available in the complex that used to house just the glorious Vancity Theatre — which remains, just in case you thought that wasn’t the case) — with VIFF Connect a year-around fixture for this next year, and probably long after that into the many years to come.

On Sunday, VIFF presented two screenings of Céline Sciamma’s exquisite Petite Maman, Sciamma’s beautiful fairytale reverie, at the welcoming Vancouver Playhouse — occasioned by the dual mysteries of memory and the future — the film emerging as a resonant, profoundly moving and elegantly made small scale, but wildly effective opus for the 39-year-old French filmmaker, the dappled forested backdrop a thing of pensive beauty, the coming-of-age story at the centre of the film an example of the way cinema can make memories real, without losing their bitter honesty, and dreams, without compromising on their glowing promise.

Without a doubt, Céline Sciamma is the finest director working today, anywhere across the globe, her body of work — Tomboy (2011), Girlhood (2014), Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019), and now Petite Maman — unrivaled in the pantheon of modern cinema, each film profoundly moving and filled with heart, must-sees for any cinephile worth their salt, simply the finest examples of what cinema, in the right hands, can achieve in moving all of us forward towards a better, fairer world.

Here’s what Barry Hertz, arts & entertainment editor at The Globe and Mail had to say about Petite Maman, when it screened at the Toronto International Film Festival last month …

Well, this is an unexpected and wonderful surprise. Two years ago, French director Céline Sciamma knocked TIFF audiences out with her powerful and grand romance Portrait of a Lady on Fire. Switching gears, the filmmaker goes small, in all the right ways, for her pandemic-shot follow-up, Petite Maman.

A lovely, delicate look at the bridge between parents and their children, the film follows one lonely little girl who, while visiting her grandmother’s old country home, encounters a version of her mother as a young girl at the same exact age, through some unexplained feat of magical realism.

Featuring wonderful performances from twin sisters Joséphine and Gabrielle Sanz, and also the cutest little murder-mystery game you’ve ever seen, Petite Maman hits all the right notes, creating an epic in miniature. One warning: It may leave you a blubbering mess.

There is one final VIFF screening of Petite Maman— as always, click on the preceding link to be taken to the VIFF web page to book your ticket — scheduled for this evening at 8:30pm on this Thanksgiving Monday, at the Kay Meek Arts Centre, located at 1700 Mathers Avenue in West Vancouver, easily accessible by both car or bus (there’s a bus stop just outside of the arts complex). Highly recommended.

VIFF 2021 | Worshipping at the Church of Cinema

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Imagine yourself on this autumn Sunday afternoon during the glorious 40th annual Vancouver International Film Festival. You’ve just walked into The Vancouver Playhouse, where after showing your vaccine card, a piece of picture I.D., and having your ticket scanned — as a PDF on your smartphone (photos of the PDF won’t do), or in hard copy — and having been welcomed by one of the hard working VIFF volunteers, are then ushered into a darkened room with seats all facing forward.

You feel reverent.

You are about to worship at the ‘church of cinema‘.

One hundred years on, cinema has arrived as a form of transcendence, for many replacing the once venerated position held by the 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, both the church and the independent or multiplex cinema create a sense of sacred space, with their high ceilings, long aisles running the length of the darkened rooms, 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 and beverage.

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 (albeit in 2021, with your mask on). Although you may not receive absolution at the cinema, there is the two-hour reprieve from the burden & peregrinations 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 rapturuous introduction of a film by a Vancouver International Film Festival theatre manager. And, you remain silent while in the theatre, focused on all that is unfolding 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 transporting and ever-so-moving work of film art that is screening before you.

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 VIFF 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, an image on the screen or a friend’s comment 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 a distant second — although increasingly important in the era of the pandemic — 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. If, as in the scene from American Beauty, a plastic bag sailing in the breeze is an intimation of immortality then 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 not just transcend the conditions of our troubles lives, but change our lives for the better.

For those who have attended the Vancouver International Film Festival over the past 40 years, moving, independent world cinema from all across the globe 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 daily, protean lives.

Cinema, whether it be at VIFF or in the cineplex, 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.

VIFF 2021 | Whither Now the Vancouver International Film Festival

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In the weeks leading up to the 40th annual Vancouver International Film Festival, VIFF’s Board of Directors met with Executive Director Kyle Fostner, and a handful of senior programming administrators at the Festival, to map out a business plan for the upcoming hybrid Festival, and the return to in person, in-cinema screenings.

Arising from those series of meetings, the VIFF Board and senior staff drafted and agreed on a business plan which calculated full in-person, in-cinema attendance at all VIFF 2021 screenings. The only possible way that VIFF could be successful as an organization in 2021 — and maintain its integrity, sense of purpose and the Festival’s ability to survive into the future — was if the Festival was to sell every available ticket for each venue screening during the 11-day run of the Festival.

Those senior VIFF administrators not included, those lower down the ladder, in the decision-making process only rolled their eyes when the VIFF’s business plan was published. Never in the entire history of the Festival has every VIFF screening sold out, nor come close to achieving that goal. In fact, this fiction of full attendance has been borne out at VIFF 2021 as in-cinema attendance, although good, has proved below projection, with attendance at screenings at this year’s truncated film festival anywhere from half to two-thirds, and on rare occasion, fully sold out.

Which begs the question, “Whither now the Vancouver International Film Festival?”

The pandemic has changed a lot of things around the world. In times of stress, sadness, and world upturning events, nothing beats going to the movies. Unfortunately, pandemics and crowded movie theatres don’t mix, either at Cineplex or Landmark Cinemas, or the Vancouver International Film Festival.

Film festivals have long been an exploration of art through storytelling, best experienced in a darkened movie theatre surrounded by fellow cinephiles. But for a great while now that has not been possible. A recent survey of film festival directors and creators across the globe told those who organized the research study that they see the future of film festivals as more of a place to express art and storytelling, and less about the medium itself — although nothing quite beats the in-person experience, and the anticipation of sitting in a Festival movie theatre.

Truth to tell, most film festivals were already facing an identity crisis, even before the pandemic. An impenetrably dense media landscape, the proliferation of on-demand content, and market instability created a mounting sense of uncertainty: What should festivals be doing — and how can they possibly persevere?

Last year, Nicole Guillaumet — who worked as Sundance’s co-director from its early days in 1985 all the way through 2002 — told IndieWire’s Eric Kohn …

“Film festivals are accessible only to those who can afford them. Attending in person has become an exclusive experience. It is very expensive and excludes many young people who cannot afford to pay often exorbitant rates for access, or passes,” says Guillaumet.

Over the past 19 months, as we have continued to live through history in the making, it was only a matter of time — and survival — that moved film festival administrators to adapt to unprecedented circumstances by going online for the very first time. Guillaumet sees the move toward hybrid film festivals as a needed shift toward democratized access. “The impact on future audiences and future filmmakers will be enormous,” she said. “We need both virtual and in-person festivals.”

Existential questions about the future of cinema-going are nothing new for Festival administrators. Over the past number of years, the rise of streaming services and the accompanying decline in ticket sales have prompted much hand-wringing over the relevance of the in-cinema experience, with the coronavirus pandemic amplifying those anxieties as Festivals faced an apocalyptic reality: with theatres darkened across across the globe, and with previous film festival fare bypassing theatres almost entirely — in favour of streaming services such as MUBI, Festival Scope, Docsville, IndiePix and BFI Player, among other festival streaming services, what does the future hold for film festivals like our beloved homegrown VIFF?

Director Christopher Nolan, long a champion of the theatre experience, wrote an op-ed for The Washington Post underlining the human toll of closed theatres and diminished film festivals, urging distributors to re-consider their release plans.

“The theatrical and the festival exhibition community needs strategic and forward-thinking partnership from the studios and distributors,” Nolan wrote. “Much of the current short-term loss is recoverable. When this crisis passes, the need for collective human engagement, the need to live and love and laugh and cry together, will be more powerful than ever. The combination of that pent-up demand and the promise of great new movies will boost local and national economies, and allow film festivals to thrive into the future.”

Perhaps Nolan is right to sound the alarm. The future of the blockbuster Hollywood movie and independent film festivals alike may not be lost, but theatres, festival administrators and independent film studios must prepare for the possibility — and perhaps even, probability — of a grim post-pandemic reality.

VIFF 2021 | Sandy Gow’s Knock-Out, Must-See International Shorts

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Year-in, year out, at the very heart of the Vancouver International Film Festival lies the always spectacular, phenomenally moving — and sometimes, downright funny — International Shorts programmes, as curated by VIFF’s International Shorts programmer, Sandy Gow.

In the past VanRamblings has written this about Sandy …

“Every now and then, we get to be our true selves, our best selves. Sandy, who like many of us is ‘of an age’, has come into his own in recent years — honest and forthright, humane and caring, employing wit and warmth and intelligence and an unparalleled love of cinema, in the job he has undertaken. As mentioned above, Sandy curates the International Shorts programme. How very, very fortunate we VIFF cinéastes are to have in place for us, a VIFF staff person of such unparalleled integrity, as well as an abiding warmth of spirit, an individual who prioritizes films not just as ‘craft’, but of immense heart and cinematic intelligence.”

Three notes should be made about the International Shorts programme …

  • The International Shorts programme is too often overlooked by VIFF patrons who while striving to see the best in world cinema neglect to consider that the birth of the features that emerge as life-changing events at VIFF often occur within the realm of ‘the short’, a film in the truest sense (despite its abbreviated length) that garners the necessary attention to allow the novice filmmaker a film career;
  • For years, Sandy Gow has curated International Shorts programmes, that offer VIFF patrons one surety: most, if not all, of the films in any given International Shorts programme will come to represent the best experience to be had inside a darkened theatre, or at home through VIFF Connect. Sandy’s heart, intellect and wisdom are poured into the decisions he makes in choosing from among the 1600 entries that culminate in the 29 shorts included in the four curated programmes at VIFF2021, a winsome combination of intimate, humane, thoughtful, provocative, revelatory, and heartbreaking chronicles of the human condition;
  • Competition. Take a gander at your Facebook feed, or listen to the conversations in the lineups as passholders “discuss” how many films they’ve seen that day, and what their “count” of films screened is as of any given day — in some sense VIFF is, at times, a “competition” to see the most films (and why not? what a treat to see 100+ films!). Imagine the following: take in a screening of every one of the 29 shorts in the four IS programmes, and your number of films screened will burgeon! Although a gentle humility defines the approach of the VIFF veteran to her fellow Festival patrons, a bit of boastfulness from time to time surely cannot be out of place. Twenty-nine films added to your list of feature films seen at VIFF2021, and a glorious and transformative 465 minutes in the cinema! At VIFF, we call that bliss .

In a recent conversation with the slightly rumpled professorial-looking Sandy Gow, he told VanRamblings that over the past year he and his team have screened a record 1600 short films — 200 more entries than last year — while on the way to creating the curated and juried four International Shorts programmes that have found their way onto VIFF’s 2021 film schedule.

In these waning days of the 40th annual Vancouver International Film Festival, if you’re looking to be delighted, moved, informed and to be introduced to a ‘new’ filmmaker, who very well may become the next David Fincher, Kathryn Bigelow, Ava DuVernay or Pete Docter, Sandy’s International Shorts programme is the place to be, and the very best part of VIFF 2021 yet to be explored.

Mr. Gow discusses each of the 4 International Shorts programmes this year …
(click on each programme link to go to the VIFF page for the programme)

International Shorts: Animation
Available on VIFF Connect through October 11th

“The animation programme in 2021, we had so much good animation, so many great submissions. The programme last year was hugely successful, probably the most successful shorts programme in VIFF’s entire history. The animation programme this year is a little more mature, with more serious themes, in a wonderfully diverse programme, where every short is different: in style, in approach, in theme, ranging from the various serious to the humorous. I love animation, and never more so than this year. In 2021, this great animation programme is simply not to be missed.”

International Shorts: Life Labs
Available on VIFF Connect through October 11th

“This series is about choices people make in their lives, and how that affects other people. In each of the shorts in the Life Labs series, someone is making a choice that is going to have serious implications. Some of my favourites are included in this programme. I really loved MeTube: August Sings ‘Una Furtiva Lagrima’, which is so hilarious, a loud and crazy mash up of sci-fi and opera.”

International Shorts: Have We Ever Learned?
Available on VIFF Connect through October 11th

“We as human beings like to think of ourselves as intelligent and rational, as having accomplished so much during our time as a species on this Earth — and yet there are aspects of our behaviour as individuals and in society that causes us to continue to make the same mistakes over and over again. You’d think we’d  have learned by now, but clearly we haven’t. Those are the issues that are addressed this year in the Have We Ever Learned? Shorts programme. Topical, political, adventurous, serious, humourous — like A Roll in the Hay which, by the way, is also a great little thriller that will have you on the edge of your seat the whole time.”

International Shorts: Seniors Day
Available on VIFF Connect through October 11th

“The common theme in the Seniors Day programme is that the protagonists in every film are, essentially, older people. They’re not the lay down and die people, they’re a pretty feisty bunch. The Seniors Day programme, again, is a great collection of some really humourous films, as well as those tending to the more serious. My favourite film in all of the International Shorts programmes is Don vs Lightning — which is the best comedy I’ve screened in a long time, starring Peter Mullan (pictured above), a really established actor. In fact, that’s one of the common themes in the Seniors Day programme, three of the shorts — including Roy and Charon — have really established actors, who have lent their talent to young, up and coming filmmakers. It really pays off is all I can say.”

VIFF cinephiles: You’ve got your work cut out for you as this year’s glorious —  yet somewhat truncated —  40th edition of the Vancouver International Film Festival draws to a close this upcoming Thanksgiving Monday, October 11th.