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.

#VanElxn2022 | Mayoral All-Candidates Forum | False Creek at Creekside

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False Creek Residents Association Vancouver Mayoral All-Candidates forum, held on Wednesday, September 21st, 2022 at the Creekside Community Centre, located in the heart of the Olympic Village

On Wednesday evening, the False Creek Residents Association — you know, one of those residents associations Vancouver City Councillor Christine Boyle insistently derides as an “extra legal” form of government, that by their very existence challenges the elected officials who sit within Vancouver City Hall’s Council chambers — held a Mayoral all-candidates forum, where the turnout was tremendous and, as you will see, those present, and now you, can learn about: Non-Partisan Association (NPA) Mayoral candidate Fred Harding, TEAM … for a Livable Vancouver’s Colleen Hardwick, Progress Vancouver‘s Mark Marissen, and ABC’s (A Better City) Ken Sim.

Judge for yourself while watching the 21-minute video above, but from VanRamblings’ perspective, we thought all of the Mayoral candidates presented well, as passionate and informed advocates for the citizens of Vancouver.

For us, ABC Mayoral candidate Ken Sim proved somewhat of a surprise — thus far, Mr. Sim has missed all but one Mayoral forum — as he appeared self-assured and self-confident, familiar with and convincing on the issues of most concern to Vancouver voters in 2022.

NPA Mayoral candidate Fred Harding was his usual articulate self, a superior public speaker and commanding presence, who focused on the core issue of his campaign for the Mayor’s suite — public safety, so as to alleviate the concerns of all Vancouver residents. Progress Vancouver’s Mark Marissen was his usual avuncular and impassioned self, looking ever inch the Mayoral candidate for whom Vancouver voters will cast their ballot next month, on Election Day.

Without wishing to sound too partisan, VanRamblings believes that TEAM … for a Livable Vancouver’s Mayoral candidate, current Vancouver City Councillor Colleen Hardwick, won the night, so utterly informed was she about the minutiae of government, what it takes to be a successful Mayor, so compelling was she in her presentation of what Vancouver could be — what it must be — if Vancouver is to thrive, and continue as home to the cultural, ethnic and demographic dynamic that we know Vancouver to be, what we risk losing should voters cast their ballot for anyone other than Colleen Hardwick and her TEAM … for a Livable Vancouver.

Take a gander at the video above. See if you don’t agree with our assessment.

There is an upcoming Mayoral all-candidates forum where the near invisible, hiding out (or, so it would seem) current Mayor in absentia, Edward Charles Kennedy Stewart is bound to attend … which is this Saturday morning’s Chinatown Mayoral all-candidates town hall — a failure to show would exhibit such an egregious lack of respect for Vancouver’s Chinese community that his absence could very well be interpreted as a declaration that he is throwing in the towel, that he doesn’t want to continue to be Vancouver’s Mayor.

Not to mention, failure to show at a Mayoral debate moderated by the doyenne of Vancouver civic affairs reporting could very well have the uncompromising Ms. Bula writing the Mayor’s political obituary, as early as this Saturday afternoon.

#VanElxn2022 | In 2022, Donate To The Vancouver Civic Party of Your Choice

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Here we are, just a tad more than three weeks away from Vancouver’s most consequential election in 50 years.

As a friend was saying to us at lunch yesterday, “No one wants towers built across our city. We want livable neighbourhoods, parks and recreation centres, schools and plazas, restaurants like this one where you can sit on the patio in the middle of the day and enjoy an afternoon repast with a friend. Towers? No thank you!”

Political campaigns rely on volunteers to go door knocking, work in the party’s telephone room, participate in burmashaves — that’s when you see a bunch of folks holding and waving campaign signs at you, when you’re heading off to work, or coming home — staff the campaign office, and work to secure the donations that campaigns for office require to create campaign literature, lawn signs, pay for the office, and fund the myriad aspects of a civic political campaign for candidates working towards being elected to one of Vancouver’s three civic bodies: Vancouver City Council, Vancouver Park Board, and Vancouver School Board.

As we have seen in recent days, there are those Vancouver civic parties who are well-funded by the billionaire developers in our city, who would presume to build 3,000 towers across the city if their civic parties gain office at Vancouver City Hall: ABC (A Better City), Forward Together (the Mayor’s party) OneCity Vancouver, Progress Vancouver and Vision Vancouver — which held power at Vancouver City Hall, from 2008 to 2018 — and the troubled Vancouver Non-Partisan Association.


Incumbent COPE Vancouver Park Board Commissioner, Gwen Giesbrecht, hosted a fundraiser / birthday party for herself and her friends — and COPE —  on Saturday, September 17, at Riddim & Spice.

Then there are those Vancouver civic parties who mean good for our city, do not take real estate developer donations, and are seeking to represent you, not the billionaire real estate developers who would seek to destroy the city we love.

Those Vancouver civic parties who mean well, who need donations from you …

The 2022 Vancouver municipal election is critical to our collective future, and the choices to be made are stark: give the city away to the greed of developers and those developer-funded civic parties who are more than eager to sell us out.

Or support — and donate to — the Vancouver civic parties who mean well for our city (you can see those party’s names listed above), and their working class candidates of integrity who are seeking office in this year’s civic election.

 

 

Or, run the very real risk of destroying the future of the city you love, the treed neighbourhood where you live, the neighbourhood park just down the street, or the nearby community recreation centre, and the lush, green home that our city has been for decades — and may be no more should you not cast your ballot wisely — the city where your children and your grandchildren play, where your neighbours, friends and colleagues gather for picnics, or to play tennis or pickleball, rugby, or soccer, or who enjoy a friendly pick up game of hacky-sack, or baseball.

Just kiss the city of Vancouver you love and have loved for so long, good-bye … because that’s what’s at stake in the 2022 Vancouver municipal election should you not donate, and go to work for, and put up campaign signs for the Vancouver civic parties and their candidates of integrity, who mean well for the future of our city.

#VanElxn2022 | Anomie, Alienation, Chaos Carry The Day in #VanElxn22

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Truth to tell, VanRamblings despairs over the 2022 Vancouver civic election.

Not that Vancouver’s 2022 municipal election differs all that much from the Vancouver civic elections of 2011, 2014 and 2018: same partisan sniping, same crass behaviour from supporters — whether paid, or otherwise — emerging from the various parties, as well as the candidates themselves.

Among the electorate, anomie would seem to be the order of the day, with polls showing upwards of 40% of Vancouver’s electorate either undecided as to which party and which candidates they’ll be supporting as voting gets underway in as little as three weeks from now —  if those citizens intend to vote at all, so alienated and cynical are they about the prospects of any of the parties, or their candidates, acting to build affordable housing for the average wage earner in Vancouver, or remedying an increasingly disturbing public safety issue in our city, where —  as was broadcast on Global BC, recently —  upwards of 1500 random, unprovoked attacks on innocent victims have occurred in Vancouver since the outset of the year.

Forward Together & ABC Vancouver Prepare to Knock Each Other Out

VanRamblings is being inundated with assurances that Stanley Q. Woodvine “finding” Forward Together’s donors list last week was not serendipity, but a planned attack by those behind the ABC Vancouver campaign to wipe out their main competition. VanRamblings has been told “it’s all too coincidental“, that it was planned, and we’re naïve if we believe any differently.

Bad blood, and greed. Meanwhile, VanRamblings has also been told the development industry supporters of the Mayor’s Forward Together party hired a team of investigators awhile ago to dig up dirt on ABC Vancouver and the party’s Mayoral candidate, Ken Sim —  and the party’s Council candidates seeking election, or re-election —  which material when released will devastate the ABC Vancouver campaign for office, while severely prejudicing this second newly-formed municipal party’s chances for success at the polls next month.

VanRamblings was advised the developer backers of ABC —  Rocky Mountaineer railroader, Peter Armstrong, and Lululemon founder, Chip Wilson —  don’t want to share the wealth with the likes of Vancouver Canucks’ owner Francesco Aquilini, Concord Pacific’s Terry Hui, and all of the other developer supporters of our city’s beleaguered incumbent Mayor, Kennedy Stewart.

Vancouver civic politics: a tangled web has been woven in the 2022 civic election that could knock out both leading developer-backed municipal parties.

Internal Party Polling: ABC Vancouver Leading, Forward Together Flailing

When VanRamblings arises from our slumber, we like to take a shower to wake us up. We have a shower radio to accompany us while showering, so we can listen to music. Of late that’s proven more and more difficult. Here’s why …

We have the radio tuned to 104.3 The Breeze. Turn on the radio: Ken Sim ad. Switch the station to Move 103.5. Ken Sim ad. Next up: 94.5 Virgin Radio. Ken Sim ad. Z95.3 FM. Yep, another Ken Sim / ABC Vancouver radio ad. Little wonder that Ken Sim and his ABC Vancouver team are leading in the polls, given that they’re the only civic party running saturation radio ads across every demographic, while placing their increasingly sophisticated television ads on local evening news programmes.

Here’s what the latest internal party rolling polls are showing …

If the above polling is correct, that leaves Vision / One City, the Greens, COPE, and Vote Socialist sharing anywhere between 7% and 23% of the vote.

VanRamblings has been informed incumbents, the NPA’s Melissa De Genova is languishing at 13th, while OneCity’s Christine Boyle is mired at 16th.

The only Council candidates whose names we have been given that are in the top 10, and a shoe-in for election, or re-election: ABC’s Sarah Kirby-Yung and Mike Klassen; COPE’s Jean Swanson; TEAM’s Bill Tieleman (currently lodged at 6th); and, the Greens’ Adriane Carr and Pete Fry.

Otherwise, ABC’s Rebecca Bligh and Lisa Dominato have been bouncing in and out of the top 10, as has TEAM’s Sean Nardi, whose name appears first on the Council ballot voters will receive next month, and COPE’s Breen Ouelette, whose name appears second on the voters’ Council ballot.

Note should be made, as well, that standout Non-Partisan Association Council candidates Arezo Zarribian — one of VanRamblings’ very favourite candidates for office in 2022, whose name will feature prominently on our Women Council Candidates Endorsement List, in early October — and her very able, accomplished running mate, Cinnamon Bhayani (who we’re also pretty darn high on, for her integrity and élan), and our friend and longtime associate, Ken Charko, have also been featured in Council’s Top 10 candidates for election list sporadically, but quite often.

As is almost always the case when covering an election, there is far too much gamesmanship in the coverage and practice of politics throughout the election cycle, and too much reporting on the horse race aspect of media coverage.


Mayoral candidates, l-r: Kennedy Stewart, Colleen Hardwick, Ken Sim, Mark Marissen, Fred Harding

In an election, though, where voters don’t know where to place their vote, reporting on the placement of candidates for office, derived from both the leaked internal party polls, and the public polling you see reported online, on the radio, or during the evening news has a function — which is, the reporting of numbers and the foofaraw of the various shenanigans that help to define the election, generates voter interest, even if its prurient interest and not directed towards policy, or serious consideration of the issues that will determine the future of our beloved city.