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Twenty-three years ago, two young movie enthusiasts named Leonard Schein and Alan Franey briefly interrupted the art-house programming they’d recently started at The Ridge Theatre to launch what they boldly proclaimed to be “The First Vancouver International Film Festival.”
As it survived, thrived and became an institution over the years, the event grew in size and evolved in character. Schein jumped ship in 1985 to take over the Toronto Festival of Festivals (eventually to return to Vancouver to create Festival Cinemas, which morphed into Alliance Atlantis Cinemas in 1998). Franey, working with a select group of programmers, sought to reinforce the ‘window on the world’ mandate of the Festival, and the VIFF became Canada’s pre-eminent independent, international film festival.
On Thursday, September 23rd, as the festival begins the first week of its 23rd anniversary edition, organizers are emphasizing the international focus of the two-week festival, which will showcase films from across the globe, including Malaysia, Peru, Latvia and Finland.
A series dubbed Dragons and Tigers will feature films from across East Asia. On the night of its anniversary gala on October 2nd, the festival will present the Dragons and Tigers award for Young Asian Cinema. To mark the occasion, the festival will show Electric Shadows, the d�but feature by China’s Xiao Jiang. The tangled family story, set in Ningxia and Beijing, glances back lovingly at five decades of Chinese filmmaking. Programmer Tony Rayns describes the film as a “Chinese Cinema Paradiso.”
The Canadian Images series will showcase more than 100 films — comprised of 33 features, 9 mid-length films and 64 shorts — one of the world’s largest showcases of new Canadian works. Velcrow Ripper’s ScaredSacred kicks off the Canadian Images series, the film taking us on a visually stunning tour of some of the world’s ‘Ground Zeroes’. Programmer Diane Burgess avers, “There’s an international flavour to this year’s programme that reflects a broader understanding of our definition of Canadian film.”
As seen through one eye, the Festival’s prospects for the next 23 years look bright. Its audience is fiercely devoted, and the increasingly bloated Hollywood alternative seems intent on driving discerning moviegoers to the intellectual relief of film festivals.
Through the other eye, though, it’s easy to see many challenges on the festival horizon — not the least of which is an ongoing dearth of genuinely exciting product. The sad fact is that the great foreign-film renaissance on which all the world’s film festivals built themselves is over.
Fellini, Truffaut and Fassbinder have long passed into history and no one half as substantial or charismatic seems to have taken their place. Every film in every film festival seems to be by a first-time director, or at least by someone you’ve never heard of. Where are the dazzling auteurs?
The growing DVD revolution may negatively impact the festival business, as well. This year, almost a dozen of the films in the lineup are already on DVD and available for rental in Vancouver at half the festival ticket price. Next year, there’ll be even more.
How does a film festival stay viable — and special — in the face of all these trends? Obviously, by ferreting out and fighting for the best films, by insisting on the best presentation and by sparking the schedule with creative showmanship and imaginative film education.
And the good news for VIFF’s future is that the current group of programmers have decades of experience, they like each other and work well together, and they seem quite cognizant of the challenges ahead.
Above all, their calling is clearly a labour of love.
Says programming consultant Jack Vermee, “Somehow, we’re able to communicate that, and also that we’re a group of people who aren’t in it for the money, that we’re the antithesis of the kind of corporate thinking that runs the business. And, amazingly, Alan’s been able to maintain this aura over the years.”
“So the Vancouver International Film Festival has always seemed like a big party, and the audience has been bonded with this love. It’s what makes (VIFF) special, and different from any other festival — and, if we have any kind of legacy worth maintaining, that’s it.”
The Vancouver International Film Festival runs September 23rd to October 8th. Online booking available at www.viff.org with Visa only. Cash sales at Pacific Centre Kiosk and Vancouver’s City Square Mall.

Continue reading 23rd Annual Vancouver International Film Festival Guide →

Late tomorrow evening, VanRamblings will publish a comprehensive review guide to the upcoming 23rd annual Vancouver International Film Festival.
Over the course of the next 18 days, VanRamblings will — as we did when covering the recent Canadian federal election — turn the site over, exclusively, to coverage of the Film Festival, one of the première events on British Columbia’s arts calendar each year.
Stay tuned. One hundred early reviews of VIFF films are on their way.