28th Annual Vancouver International Film Festival

Cinema, VIFF 2009

28TH ANNUAL VANCOUVER INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL

The Vancouver International Film Festival remains one of the largest film festivals in North America, and a première Canadian cultural event. Founded in 1982, in its 28th year VIFF continues as a fall fixture on the international film festival circuit, and the largest Asian film festival in North America.
The 2009 edition of the Festival takes place a bit later than usual this year, from October 1st thru 16th, when more than 150,000 locals, and those traveling to our city from afar, will choose from a selection of more than 640 screenings of 377 films, from 80+ countries from across the globe.
The 24th edition of the Film and TV Forum, established to foster the art of cinema, facilitate the meeting of cinema professionals from around the world, and to stimulate the motion picture industry in BC and Canada, began Tuesday and will conclude Saturday, with New Filmmakers’ Day. The Forum offers 5 days of classes, seminars, and roundtable discussions for budding local cinéastes, and those interested in the filmmaking process.
As to the Festival proper, the 28th edition features 217 feature length fiction films, 92 feature length documentaries, and 140 shorts. There are 89 Canadian films in the programme, consisting of 20 dramatic features, and 13 non-fiction features.
OPENER/CLOSER: The opening night gala attraction will be A Shine of Rainbows, a Canada-Ireland co-production from Indian-born Canadian filmmaker Vic Sarin (Partition), which tells the story of an extraordinary woman who helps an orphan boy find self-acceptance and love through her unique gifts of colour and magic. The film stars Connie Nielsen.
The Festival ends 16 days later with a screening of Queen To Play, Caroline Bottaro’s directorial début which employs chess as metaphor for life while exploring class and gender empowerment. The French-German co-production stars the always radiant Sandrine Bonnaire, and Kevin Kline.
GALAS: Between these two glitzy bookends, three other high-profile films will be given special premières and gala celebrations: on Oct. 2nd, Excited, the Canadian Images gala film, from Vancouver-based director Bruce Sweeney, offers a romantic comedy about sexual dysfunction; on Oct. 8th, Japanese director Yakusho Koji’s Toad’s Oil, a sprawling, magical fantasia about fathers, sons and truth and lies in relationships, as this year’s Dragons and Tigers Award Gala; and, on Oct. 10th, the Anniversary Gala film, An Education, given that it’s 2009’s buzz Sundance film, stars certain Best Actress Oscar nominee, Carey Mulligan, in an absorbing, evocative, superbly constructed coming-of-age character study; most assuredly a sell out at its gala screening, and the two other scheduled screenings.
WORLD CINEMA: The spotlighted country this year is Japan but, as usual, the French presence pummels the competition with more than 28 features, including new work from Jacques Audiard, the Grand Jury Prize winner at Cannes this year, A Prophet; Catherine Breillat (Bluebeard); Alix de Maistre (For A Son); and Alain Cavalier (Irène).
Other international marquee names include Spain’s Pedro Almodóvar (Broken Embraces), Sweden’s Lukas Moodysson (Mammoth), the Czech Republic’s Jan Hrebejk (Shameless), Germany’s Maren Ade (Everyone Else), Grand Jury Prize winner in Berlin this year; Taiwan’s Cheng Wen-tang (Tears), and Hong Kong’s Wai Ka-fai (Written By).
AWARD WINNERS: From Sundance, in addition to Audience Award Winner, An Education, this year’s VIFF has programmed four other Sundance winners, including Chile’s The Maid, World Cinema Prize, Drama; Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire, Grand Jury Prize; Tibet in Song, World Cinema Special Jury Prize; We Live In Public, Grand Jury Prize, Documentary; and, from this year’s Berlin Film Festival, in addition to Maren Ade’s Grand Jury Prize winner, Everyone Else, VIFF has programmed Gigante, winner of the Silver Bear, and Best First Film awards; from New York’s Tribeca Film Festival, Ireland’s The Eclipse was awarded a Best Actor Prize for Ciarin Hinds; and, from Cannes 2009, Canada’s I Killed My Mother, winner of three prizes, including Best Director, Director’s Fortnight; Police, Adjective (Romania), Jury Prize winner (Un Certain Regard); and Michael Haneke’s eagerly anticipated The White Ribbon, Palme D’Or winner.
NEW YORK FILM FESTIVAL: This year, as in past years, the heavily juried New York Film Festival (Sept. 25 – Oct. 11) overlaps with Vancouver’s International Film Festival. At the opening press conference in early September, Festival Director Alan Franey proudly pointed to the following films, which will play both prestigious film festivals: in addition to those films already mentioned (Precious, Broken Embraces, Bluebeard, Everyone Else, Police, Adjective, and The White Ribbon), the VIFF will present Lars von Trier’s latest provocation, Antichrist (winner, Cannes’ Best Actress award, Charlotte Gainsbourg); 100 year-old filmmaker, Manoel de Oliveira’s, Eccentricities of a Blond Hair Girl; Dragons and Tigers candidate, Independencia; recent Venice Film Festival award winner, Lebanon; Bong Joon-Ho’s, Mother; Pedro Costa’s Ne change rien; Andrey Khrzhanovsky’s, A Room and a Half France’s breathtaking documentary, Sweetgrass; and, Portuguese director João Pedro Rodrigues’ touching To Die Like A Man.
NON-FICTION FEATURES: In the non-fiction / documentary feature film category, the following films have garnered awards, including Gerald Peary’s magnificent For The Love of Movies: The Story of American Film Criticism; Salt, Fredricks and Michael Angus’ breathtaking 2009 Best Australian short winner; Dana Perry’s Boy Interrupted; Mexico’s The Inheritors; Judith Ehrlich and Rick Goldsmith’s The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers; and, Libby Spear’s controversial Playground, chronicling the child sex trade in North America.
For a full rundown on the 377 films, a schedule and ticket and series pass information, go online to www.viff.org/home, or order tickets at the VISA advance box office at the VanCity Theatre, 1181 Seymour Street, noon til 7 daily. All Festival attendees must purchase a $2 membership. You can also charge by phone, at 604-685-8297, noon til 7 through October 15th.

UBC’s Great Farm Trek ’09, 3:30 p.m. Today. Save the UBC Farm.

BC Politics, Food & Health, Vancouver

The UBC Farm has been an integral part of UBC since the Point Grey campus was founded in 1922. The UBC Farm is 24 hectares and is located on UBC Vancouver’s south campus. It is the last working farm in Vancouver and an irreplaceable resource for our future that once gone, is gone forever. The farm provides a unique centre for innovative teaching and research about sustainable food systems, food security and health.
The UBC farm serves as an important educational resource to members of the academic and non academic community, including a wide variety of aboriginal groups, school children and others. In addition, the UBC Farm is a complex ecosystem and home to many species such as coyotes, frogs, eagles, owls, snakes and over 70 species of birds.
Why is the UBC Farm in crisis?
UBC may use the farm land for other purposes. Students and community members have worked very hard in the past year to preserve the farm. UBC has acknowledged that the farm needs to be considered in their planning process; however, we still need the University to commit to: keeping the farm at its current size and location, providing stable funding, and including key users in determining the farm’s future
HOW YOU CAN HELP save UBC Farm
Come to the Great Farm Trek ’09 today, Tuesday, April 7th. The Trek will gather at the Student Union Building at 3:30 p.m. and trekkers will walk to the UBC Farm for a celebration with food and music, and a ceremonial planting. Free parking is available at UBC Farm anytime. A free bus shuttle, originating at the SUB, will take participants to and from the Trek, which will be in progress between 3 p.m & 6 p.m. We’ll see you at the rally today!
Sponsored by UBC Alma Mater Society, and the Friends of the UBC Farm.

Grand March for Housing – 12 noon, Saturday, April 4, 2009

BC Politics, Politics, Vancouver

GRAND MARCH FOR HOUSING

The Citywide Housing Coalition’s march to end homelessness, build social housing, and raise the minimum wage takes place this weekend.
Muster stations are located at Thornton Park (due west of the bus depot / train station), Hastings and Main streets, and Peace Flame Park (at the south end of the Burrard Street bridge). Marchers will walk peacefully (but noisily, we hope) from the march starting points to the Vancouver Art Gallery, meeting in front of the Art Gallery, on Georgia Street, at 1:30 p.m.
Given the failure of the federal government to step up to the plate and build affordable housing for Canadians – when many across Canada are experiencing a housing crisis – is unconscionable. We need a renewed, affordable, well-funded and effective co-operative housing programme, as well as the construction of special needs housing (for women, and for single parent families, for the homeless). Housing is an issue which affects us all.
Let’s make this a march for change, for a renewed commitment to social agency, and to programmes benefitting the most vulnerable in our society. Let’s march to encourage government to bring in programmes to protect renters, and construct social housing for the homeless and for families in Vancouver, throughout British Columbia, and across our great country!

Vancouver Radio Ratings, Spring 2009. A Sea Change.

Radio, Vancouver

Vancouver Spring 2009 radio ratings

The Vancouver 2009 Winter radio ratings were published this morning, and the news is huge! For the first time ever, Canada’s public broadcaster, the CBC, has emerged as the top-rated radio station in the market, besting long-time market leader CKNW by almost a full percentage point. Only four short years ago, in 2005, CBC Radio One scored a paltry 5 percentage points, behind eight other stations. Now, CBC Vancouver is number one!
Tom Monaghan, VP media director of Vancouver-based advertising agency Cossette Media told the Globe and Mail’s Fiona Morrow that recent developments in the city’s radio scene had made an impact on the figures, noting the arrival of The Peak and some re-branding among other stations.

“It’s a balancing out of the marketplace,” he told Morrow. “And, to be honest with you, it’s CKNW’s audience that has declined – it’s not that we’re seeing a dramatic increase with the CBC, and it’s a relatively small increase anyway.”


Taking a look at the ratings above (click on the graphic at the top for the fullscreen graph), apart from the local CBC radio outlet, AM650 (formerly CISL) emerges as the other big winner, tripling their ratings in the past year with a move to the low-key “All Time Favourites” format, a format they assumed when Jimmy Pattison’s AM600 went dark in the autumn of 2008.
In the morning slot, 6 – 9 a.m., CBC Radio One pulled in an unprecedented 16.9, with JACK a distant second at 9.4, and the other morning shows emerging as also-rans, averaging 5.1 (the Team) to 7.7 (QM-FM). News1130 registered 9.0 in the morning, with Rock 101 and Virgin tied at 6.4, CKNW dipped to 6.1, JR-FM held steady at 5.7, with Virgin and CFOX tied at 5.3. CFUN, AM730, CISL and The Peak are the bottom dwellers (1 point each). CKCL, 104.9 (oldies), remains stuck at 3 percentage points.
Otherwise, for the most part, the 2009 Winter radio ratings book is stand pat. One supposes that the Team 1040 (CKST) has reason to celebrate (as the Canucks do well, so does the Team), reaching 4.0 for the first time. And Jimmy Pattison can’t exactly be thrilled with a rating of 1.0 for The Peak, his new triple-A radio station (can’t sell many ads with a 1.0 rating).
PugetSoundRadio has published a further demographic breakdown of the numbers, which shows perennial favourite 103.5 QM-FM and 96.9 JACK-FM in the lead 25 – 54, and CHQM out in way out in front with women 25 – 54.
The folks at RadioWest (from whom we appropriated the graphic) have also begun to weigh in on the Winter 2009 radio ratings book, the commentary in the early going focusing on the “erosion of the once Giant 98.”
With the portable people meter coming to Vancouver as early as this fall, to record local radio ratings, we’ll see what effect, if any, the new technology has on recording radio listening preferences on the Lower Mainland.