Category Archives: VIFF 2022

Arts Friday | Attend the New York Film Festival Right Here in Vancouver

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Every year towards the end of September, both our homegrown Vancouver International Film Festival and the heavily-juried New York Film Festival get underway, presenting the best in cinematic art to be found anywhere across the globe.

As occurs each year, both VIFF & NYFF share fifteen or more films, as is the case once again this year. Here are the 15 films on offer at the New York Film Festival that will also screen at the 41st annual Vancouver International Film Festival …

(film titles for each film link to VIFF’s website for the film, allowing you to purchase a ticket)

Aftersun

6:30pm, Friday, September 30th, International Village 9
9:15pm, Sunday, October 2nd, International Village 9

In one of the most assured and spellbinding feature débuts in years, Scottish director Charlotte Wells has fashioned a textured memory piece inspired by her relationship with her dad, starring Paul Mescal and Francesca Corio as a divorced father and his daughter whose close bond is quietly shaken during a brooding weekend at a coastal resort in Turkey.

Alcarràs

6:15pm, Friday, October 7th, SFU Woodwards
2:30pm, Sunday, October 9th, Vancouver Playhouse

Winner of the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival, Carla Simón’s follow-up to her acclaimed childhood drama Summer 1993 is a ruminative, lived-in portrait of a rural family in present-day Catalonia whose way of life is rapidly changing.

All That Breathes

12:30pm, Sunday, October 2nd, International Village 8
9pm, Wednesday, October 5th, SFU Woodwards

In this hypnotic, poignant, and beautifully crafted documentary, New Delhi-based filmmaker Shaunak Sen immerses himself with two brothers who for years have been taking it upon themselves to save the black kite, their city’s endangered birds of prey, which the general population largely sees as nuisances despite their essential role in the city’s ecosystem.

Corsage

6pm, Monday, October 3rd, Centre for the Performing Arts
6pm, Thursday, October 6th, Centre for the Performing Arts

In a perceptive, nuanced performance, Vicky Krieps (Phantom Thread) quietly dominates the screen as Empress Elizabeth of Austria, who begins to see her life of royal privilege as a prison as she reaches her fortieth birthday. Marie Kreutzer boldly imagines her cloistered world with both realism and fanciful imagination.

De Humani Corporis Fabrica

9pm, Thursday, October 6th, The Cinematheque
6pm, Saturday, October 8th, VIFF Centre – Vancity Theatre

In their thrilling new work of nonfiction exploration, Véréna Paravel and Lucien Castaing-Taylor (Leviathan) burrow deeper than ever, using microscopic cameras and specially designed recording devices to survey the wondrous landscape of the human body.

Decision to Leave

9:15pm, Friday, September 30th, Centre for the Performing Arts
9pm, Thursday, October 6th, Centre for the Performing Arts

A Busan detective is increasingly obsessed with a murder suspect in a puzzling new case: a middle-aged businessman has mysteriously fallen to his death and his wife might be to blame. Park Chan-wook won the Cannes Best Director award for this twisting Hitchcockian detective thriller, one of his most enveloping and accomplished films.

EO

4pm, Sunday, October 2nd, Vancouver Playhouse
9:30pm, Saturday, October 8th, Centre for the Performing Arts

At age 84, legendary director Jerzy Skolimowski has directed one of his spryest, most visually inventive films yet, following the travels of a peripatetic donkey named EO who begins as a circus performer before escaping on a pastoral trek across the Polish and Italian countryside.

The Novelist’s Film

9:15pm, Tuesday, October 4th, International Village 9

For his playful and gently thought-provoking 27th feature, Hong Sangsoo takes on the perspective of a prickly middle-aged novelist, Junhee (Lee Hye-young), whose dormant creativity is stoked following a chance encounter with a famous actress (Kim Min-hee).

One Fine Morning

9pm, Sunday, October 2nd, Centre for the Performing Arts
6pm, Tuesday, October 4th, Centre for the Performing Arts

The intensely poignant and deeply personal latest drama from Mia Hansen-Løve (Bergman Island) stars Léa Seydoux as Sandra, a translator and single mother at a crossroads, torn between the romantic desire she feels for a married man (Melvil Poupaud) and her obligation towards her sick father (Pascal Greggory).

Pacifiction

9pm, Saturday, October 1st, International Village 9
5:30pm, Sunday, October 9th, Vancouver Playhouse

Catalan filmmaker Albert Serra reconfirms his centrality in the contemporary cinematic landscape with this mesmerizing, slow-building fever dream about a French bureaucrat (a monumental Benoît Magimel) drifting through a fateful trip to a French Polynesian island with increasing anxiety.

R.M.N.

9:30pm, Saturday, October 1st, Vancouver Playhouse
9pm, Thursday, October 6th, Vancouver Playhouse

Cristian Mungiu (4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days), who dramatizes the tensions of a modern Romania still beholden to dangerous traditions, returns with a gripping, mosaic-like portrait of a rural Transylvanian town riven by ethnic conflicts, economic resentment, and personal turmoil.

Scarlet

3:30pm, Thursday, October 6th, International Village 10
9pm, Saturday, October 8th, International Village 9

One of contemporary cinema’s most versatile talents, Pietro Marcello (Martin Eden) proves again he is as comfortable in the realm of folklore as he is in creative nonfiction with this enchanting period fable that delicately interweaves realist drama, ethereal romance, and musical flights of fancy.

Stars at Noon

9pm, Monday, October 3rd, Vancouver Playhouse
1pm, Saturday, October 8th, Centre for the Performing Arts

In Claire Denis’s surprising contemporary thriller, a dissolute young American journalist (Margaret Qualley) and an English businessman (Joe Alwyn) with ties to the oil industry meet by chance while on different, mysterious assignments in modern-day Nicaragua and tumble into a whirlwind romance.

Stonewalling

9pm, Saturday, October 1st, The Cinematheque
2:45pm, Tuesday, October 4th, The Cinematheque

A young flight-attendant-in-training’s plans to finish college are thrown into doubt when she discovers she’s pregnant. Not wanting an abortion, she hopes to give the child away after carrying it to term, while staying afloat amidst a series of dead-end jobs. Beijing-based wife-and-husband team Huang Ji and Ryuji Otsuka’s film is an urgent critique of a modern-day social structure that has few options for women in need of care.

Triangle of Sadness

9pm, Monday, October 3rd, Centre for the Performing Arts
9pm, Sunday, October 9th, Centre for the Performing Arts

Ruben Östlund’s wildly ambitious Palme d’Or–winning Buñuelian satire follows two hot young models (Harris Dickinson and Charlbi Dean) who rub elbows with the super-rich on a luxury cruise gone haywire.

Arts Friday | VanRamblings’ Annual VIFF Introductory Column

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The 41st Annual Vancouver International Film Festival

The Vancouver International Film Festival returns to theatres after two years of a predominantly virtual, COVID-influenced online film festival.

Opening on Thursday, September 29th, the Festival’s Gala Presentation features a celebrated Indigenous film, Bones of Crows — a hit at the Toronto International Film Festival this year — by Métis filmmaker Marie Clements, who tells an epic story of survival during a shameful period in Canadian history, a powerful indictment of the abuse of Indigenous peoples and a stirring story of extraordinary resilience and resistance.

Fearless in its denunciation of centuries of oppressive policies by Canadian governments and institutions, Bones of Crows is also a memorable paean to the resilience and determination of those who survived the residential schools — and those who sought to bring their oppressors’ crimes to light.

The Festival will close 11 days later, on October 9th, with a Gala Presentation of VIFF favourite, South Korea’s Hirokazu Kore-eda, Broker, a sprawling crime story about a baby kidnapping scheme starring Song Kang-ho (Parasite), winner of Best Actor at Cannes earlier this year.

Winner of the Palme d’Or in 2018 for Shoplifters and winner of the Jury Prize five years before that for Like Father Like Son, the writer-director once again displays great empathy for characters who are trying to put their lives in order, examining their predicaments from every possible angle and ultimately guiding them into a position where they can do the right thing.

Unfolding over a truncated 11 days (rather than its pre-pandemic customary length of 16 days), the Festival will again feature a virtual online presence, though not every one of the 135+ feature films and 102+ shorts will be available virtually.

In total, twenty-four films will screen online through VIFF Connect.

In person, meanwhile, as was the practice in the pre-pandemic times, VIFF’s theatres where all 135+ feature films and 102+ shorts will screen, include …

The VIFF digital Festival Guide is now available; click on the preceding link.

The free, glossy printed Festival guide is available across Metro Vancouver, at libraries, coffee shops, and bookstores, and all your favourite local haunts.

Although the Festival is smaller than in past years, the film programme categories will look familiar: Panorama, the main Festival film feature programme curated by Alan Franey and PoChu AuYeung, showcasing 90 carefully curated narrative films arriving from across the globe.

Northern Lights features the next wave of Canadian and Indigenous storytellers; while Insights, the always illuminating documentary programme, this year will incorporate the Spectrum programme, a collection of innovative nonfiction filmmaking; and then there’s Portraits, a kaleidoscope of ground-breaking artists, great performances, and cultural icons; and, Altered States, 8 challenging and  bizarre films the constitute VIFF’s 2022 late night series.

In last week’s, award winning VIFF films in 2022 featuring the work of Oscar-winning director Sam Mendes, who brings his latest film, Empire of Light to VIFF; Martin McDonagh’s masterful, surprisingly poignant, and dazzlingly designed and performed, The Banshees of Inisherin; Corsage, Austrian filmmaker Marie Kreutzer’s biopic about late 19th century Empress Elisabeth.

More Special Presentations? How about Korean filmmaker Park Chan-wook’s Best Director Prize winner at Cannes this year, Decision to Leave, which offers a teasing, tantalizing neo-noir genre piece about a homicide detective who falls in love with the widow of an apparent suicide. There’s Mia Hansen-Løve’s quietly miraculous One Fine Morning, a balm of a film and another glorious showcase for the director’s light touch when dealing with complicated emotions.

VIFF’s Director of Programming Curtis Woloschuk told VanRamblings VIFF programmers curated a record number of films that emerged after the pandemic — half of VIFF’s films in  2022 feature first time filmmakers!

“There were over 4,000 films that our programming team watched and considered this year that leave us more educated and illuminated about the world we live in.”

In addition to the many screenings, VIFF Talks boasts visiting artists like Deborah Lynn Scott — responsible for clothing actors in films ranging from Titanic to the new, upcoming Avatar: The Way of Water  — who will present a masterclass on costume design. Kate Byron, who just led production design on Olivia Wilde’s Don’t Worry Darling, will give a masterclass on production design. And, Michael Abels, the composer for director Jordan Peele’s Get Out, Us, and Nope will make a special performance and speaking engagement with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra on October 6th.

The VIFF Amp Symposium on Music in Film is set to run October 6th to 9th.

In other new and expanded initiatives, VIFF Executive Director Kyle Fostner told VanRamblings that, for the first time, the Vancouver International Film Festival will offer free memberships for persons 19 to 25 years of age, free access to Indigenous peoples, and more free offerings to community groups.

Individual tickets prices remain what they’ve been for years: $15 for any screening, except Special Presentations, which costs $17 for the award-winning future Oscar contenders, with reduced prices for seniors & youth.

VIFF passes and packages are also available again this year. A full Festival pass costs $350, with a senior rate at $300, and a youth rate of $120. There’s a 6-ticket pack at $84, and a 10-ticket pack available at $135. As was the case in 2020 and 2021, the VIFF Connect virtual online Festival pass will cost $70.

The VIFF Infoline, staffed by volunteers, is available 7 days a week, from noon til 7pm. Simply call (604) 683-3456 to have any question you have answered.

Arts Friday | Vancouver International Film Festival Special Presentations

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Here we are, less than two weeks away from the singular cinematic arts event of the autumn season, the much anticipated 41st annual Vancouver International Film Festival.

Next Friday, September 23rd, VanRamblings will publish our annual introductory VIFF column, with all the information you’re going to need — ticket and pass prices, and where to secure these valuable items and how much time you should set aside for lining up, the best cafés, bistro, restaurants and bars nearby Festival venues — including the VIFF 41 films that are, quite simply, must-attends.

Talking about must-attends, have we got a treat for you today: the twelve finely curated, award-winning, future Oscar-contending Special Presentations, the celebrated and critically-acclaimed films that will début in Vancouver over the course of the 11-day running time of the 41st annual Vancouver International Film Festival.


Empire of Light
6pm, Friday, September 30th
The Centre for the Performing Arts


Decision To Leave
9:15pm, Friday, September 30th
9pm, Thursday, October 6th
The Centre for the Performing Arts


The Grizzlie Truth
2pm, Saturday, October 1st
6pm, Wednesday, October 5th


The Son
6pm, Saturday, October 1st
The Centre for the Performing Arts


The Banshees of Inisherin
9:15pm, Saturday, October 1st
The Centre for the Performing Arts


EO
4pm, Sunday, October 2nd
The Vancouver Playhouse

9:30pm, Saturday, October 8th
The Centre for the Performing Arts


One Fine Morning
9pm, Sunday, October 2nd
6pm, Tuesday, October 4th
The Centre for the Performing Arts


Corsage
6pm, Monday, October 3rd
6pm, Thursday, October 6th
The Centre for the Performing Arts


Triangle of Sadness
9pm, Monday, October 3rd
The Centre for the Performing Arts


Stars at Noon
9pm, Monday, October 3rd
The Playhouse

1pm, Saturday, October 8th
The Centre for the Performing Arts


The Whale
5:45pm, Sunday, October 2nd
The Centre for the Performing Arts


Women Talking
9:15pm, Wednesday, October 5th
The Centre for the Performing Arts

Each of the films titles, italicized and in red, link to the VIFF webpage for the film, which will allow you to read about the film, discover the various awards the films have garnered at Festivals prior to arriving at VIFF, and to purchase tickets, if you’re of a mind to do so — and we hope such is the case.

The VIFF digital Festival Guide is now available; click on the preceding link.

While picking up our Media Pass to VIFF41 on Friday afternoon — at the VIFF Centre on Seymour Street, just north of Davie Street — VanRamblings also secured a hard copy of the 41st annual Vancouver International Film Festival film guide.

Arts Friday | Vancouver International Film Festival | Sept. 29 – Oct. 9th 2022

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In Vancouver, and across the province of British Columbia, we may find ourselves in the midst of civic elections in villages, towns and cities in every far flung corner of our province, but as you’re no doubt aware, life goes on.

At the end of September each year for the past 41 years (in the early years, VIFF happened in the spring), come rain or come shine, the good folks long associated with the Vancouver International Film Festival — who have spent the past 12 months curating film submissions from thousands of filmmakers, and visiting almost every film festival screening films in almost every country on our, it seems, ever smaller globe — present the best in world cinema to appreciative British Columbia audiences, cinephiles and cinéastes who love film, and those persons in our city who look forward each year to opening a window on this vast world of ours, to gain insight into how folks who live in every country across the planet live their lives, and how their struggles mirror our struggles.


VIFF’s Director of Programming, Curtis Woloschuk, introduces the depth and breadth of the 41st annual Vancouver International Film Festival. A must watch.

Vancouver International Film Festival: a humanizing experience like no other.

Each Friday in September, VanRamblings will present  you with insight into the 41st annual Vancouver International Film Festival — which films are can’t miss in 2022, and demand to be seen on the big screen (screening at the 1800-seat Centre for the Performing Arts is a Festival must), the tiny gems that are always at the heart of VIFF each year, which films Vancouver is sharing with other film festivals screening simultaneously to Vancouver’s homegrown festival by the ocean, the celebrated award winners, and so very much more.

135+ feature films
102+ shorts
25+ events
11 days

The VIFF 2022 digital guide will be available for download after September 15.

The VIFF printed guide will be available across Metro Vancouver on Sept. 20.

So many films to look forward to, and so many films to move and change you.