On viff.org, you’ll find films organized by programme (e.g. Panorama, Gateway, Dragons & Tigers, B.C. Spotlight), by country of origin, by genre, or by director. See what intrigues you! Also, you’ll want to check to see which films have a guest attending (noted on each film’s individual online page), which might mean an interesting Q&A. Note should be made that the most accurate and up-to-date information about guests is online only.
You can also peruse the printed, glossy and absolutely stunningly beautiful VIFF Guide, available at Chapters & Indigo and other bookstores as well as at almost all libraries across our region, or at any one of the nine venues where films will be screened, as well as at coffee shops all across town.

As always, a number of VIFF films will be returning to theatres for regular runs post-festival, although it can be both fun and enlightening to see these films during VIFF, particularly if a guest director is presenting the film, and also because most of these snob appeal, certain future Oscar nominee “Special Presentations” will screen at the luxurious 1800-seat Centre for the Performing Arts, on Homer Street across from the Vancouver Public Library.
Here are a few of the films with post-VIFF distribution planned for VIFF 2018, with tentative release dates …

• Can You Ever Forgive Me? (October 19th), director Marielle Heller’s charming melancholic comedy about real-life writer-turned-criminal Lee Israel (Melissa McCarthy, a lock guarantee for a Best Actress Oscar nomination), who forged some 400 letters by dead celebrities and pawned them off until the FBI caught up with her scheme;

• Boy Erased (November 2nd). A richly humanistic, emotionally searing drama that sticks in the memory, Lucas Hedges (Manchester by the Sea) stars as Jared, the son of a Baptist pastor in a small American town, who is outed to his parents (Nicole Kidman, a lock for a Best Supporting Actress nomination, and Russell Crowe) at age 19, who send him to a a gay conversion therapy programme;
• A Private War (November 16th). The story of the late journalist Marie Colvin (Rosamund Pike), one of the most celebrated war correspondents of our time, an utterly fearless and rebellious spirit, driven to the frontlines of conflicts across the globe to give voice to the voiceless;
• The Front Runner (November 21st). The Closing Gala film, tracking the rise and fall of Senator Gary Hart (Hugh Jackman, a lock for a Best Actor Oscar nomination), and the role tabloid journalism played in his downfall;
• The Favourite (November 23rd). Entertainment Weekly’s Chris Nashawaty says about The Favourite, “a Satyricon-era Fellini-esque tragicomedy all hopped up with enough sex, deviance, hypocrisy, decadence, and spicy profanity to make your average Masterpiece Theatre patron reach into their PBS tote bag for some smelling salts.” And, oh yes, a lock guarantee for Best Picture, and a whack of actress nominations for Rachel Weisz, Olivia Colman, and Emma Stone.
• Vox Lux (December 7th). Arriving on our shores directly from the Toronto Festival Festival, powered by a riveting performance of fiercely mannered bravado by Natalie Portman (a certain Best Actress nominee), Vox Lux paints a sharp, powerfully haunting and shellacked portrait of a ghost in the celebrity machine.
• Destroyer (December 25th). A second VIFF 2018 film starring Nicole Kidman, director Karyn Kusama’s latest film follows the moral and existential odyssey of LAPD detective Erin Bell (Kidman, in one of the best ever performances). The film also features spectacular work from Canadian actress, Tatiana Maslany

Award-Winning Must-See Films

Defying expectations throughout, offering multiple, murky solutions to a set of mysteries wondrous in their complexity and inscrutability, Burning, with its jazzy score, gorgeously immaculate camerawork, shifting moods and carefully calibrated minimalism emerges as a genre-bending murder-mystery that torches genre clichés, in one of the most scorching and beautifully unforgettable films of the year. Yet another VIFF 2018 must-see.

The Panorama programme spans four series: Contemporary World Cinema, Spotlight on France, Vanguard, and new this year, Focus on Italy.
Panorama films arrive on our shores to much critical acclaim and near rabid VIFF patron interest, so if you see a film you like, you should book your tickets for those films now, including: Jafar Panahi’s latest, 3 Faces (which is currently taking TIFF by storm); and Alice Rohrwacher’s Happy as Lazzaro, the winner of Best Screenplay at Cannes.
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There are, of course, more than 100 films from across the globe in the Contemporary World Cinema series, including The Wild Pear Tree, the latest film from Master Nuri Bilge Ceylan (2014 Cannes Palme d’Or winner for Winter Sleep); the well-reviewed new film from German director Christian Petzold, Transit; Berlin Best Actor winner Anthony Bajon in The Prayer; and pushing the boundaries of cinema, Holiday, Swedish-born director Isabella Eklöf’s viciously auspicious low-temperature, high-impact début, a sun-splashed dark tableau about a frost-bitten summer vacation gone awry.

Each of the films named above are linked to the VIFF online page, allowing you to easily purchase tickets for one of the film’s upcoming screenings.

There are only nine films in the popular Spotlight on France series this year, each exceptional and each film exploring the rich cinematic culture that continues to flourish in France, a rare opportunity for habitués of the Lower Mainland to screen this year’s finest Gallic delights from l’Hexagone.

For instance, there’s Shéhérazade, proving that VIFF films are not only for the blue rinse and grey-haired crowd. Winner of the Prix Jean Vigo for France’s best first feature of the past year, Jean-Bernard Marlin’s slice-of-life drama about young love on the mean streets of Marseille harkens back to Italian neorealism in its use of non-professional actors and gritty locations. Kenza Fortas, as the tough teen prostitute Shéhérazade, is a real find. A native Marseillais, Marlin has crafted “an ultra-realist portrait of juvenile delinquency … and a surprising and engaging love story to boot.”

Eight films from Italy, long renowned for the world’s most groundbreaking cinema, comprises the first ever VIFF Focus on Italy series, including Daughter of Mine (pictured above), about which the VIFF 2018 programme guide records …

The easiest way to purchase tickets is to go online to viff.org. Just put the name of the film you’re interested in into the search engine (top right), and click on Buy when you reach the film’s online webpage — from there it’s easy, allowing you to print your tickets at home.
Or, you can call the Festival Infoline at 604-683-3456 from noon til 6 p.m. daily through October 12th. (Online is quicker.) Note that there is a service charge for online and phone orders: $1 per single ticket, up to $4 per order.
Note. Required by the provincial government (because VIFF films screen unrated) you’ll need to purchase a one-time $2 VIFF membership.
Tickets can be purchased at the venues during operating hours. As of September 28th, all festival venues — The Vancity Theatre on Seymour just north of Davie Street; The Centre for Performing Arts, on Homer Street directly across from the Vancouver Public Library; The Cinematheque on Howe Street just north of Davie; SFU Goldcorp Theatre, at Abbott and Hastings; Cineplex International Village, at Pender and Abbott; and The Playhouse Theatre, across from the old Post Office — will have a box office open daily, one hour before the day’s first screening.
What about ticket packages or passes?
A Student or Senior 5-ticket pack goes for $60.
If you’re planning to go to a few films, for regular filmgoers the Festival Six-Pack is a good deal: six tickets for $85, compared to individual ticket prices of $13 – $17.
The best deal? A $160 Weekday Matineé pass, which will allow you to see all of the films you can get to between 10am and 5:55pm Monday to Friday, which if you play your cards right oughta allow you to see up to 75 films, and near double that if you choose to attend VIFF programmer Sandy Gow’s always spectacular & moving International Shorts film programmes.
The regular Senior and Student Pass goes for $330, while the full Festival Patron Pass is available for $420.
What about all those lines outside the theatres?

Each VIFF screening will have three separate queues: a pass-holder line (for those with passes hanging around their necks; you know who you are), a ticket-holders line (for those with tickets in hand) and a rush line. Standby tickets, for screenings that are sold out, go on sale 10 minutes before showtime, at full price (cash preferred).
No matter which line you’re in, arriving at least 30 minutes early (arriving an hour early is better) is a good idea, particularly if you’re picky about where you sit. (Seating is not guaranteed, even if you have a ticket or a pass, if you arrive less than 20 minutes before showtime.)
What about food and drink?
Though most VIFF venues serve the usual popcorn / candy / soft-drink fare, some have a few extras (there’s beer and wine at The Rio, and wine at the Vancity, for example). Not to worry, there are a wealth of restaurants just steps from the door from most venues. Outside food and drink is officially not allowed in the theatres, but VIFF-goers have been known to get away with it; be discreet, considerate and tidy.
What about bus routes and parking?

Translink / Coast Mountain buses are the best way to get downtown, where most of the venues are located. Once downtown, most of the venues are within walking distance of one another. Or, if you’re planning on seeing a film at The Rio, Skytrain will whisk you there in no time flat. There’s parking at Cineplex International Village, but you’re going to want to check in with Festival staff (they’ll be wearing bright yellow VIFF t-shirts) to register your vehicle.
What about crowds?
There will be crowds, particularly at the better-known films; not a lot you can do about that. Chances are that you’ll meet some thoughtful person or people in line; it happens often. Weekday screenings generally have shorter lines, particularly for the less well-known films.

All and all, quite simply, there is just no better time that can be had at any time of the year than through attending Vancouver’s international film festival, the most humanizing, eye-opening film event of the year, providing both a sympathetic & empathetic window on our too often troubled world.
As VanRamblings has written previously, while VIFF explores the Cinema of Despair, it also presents the festival-goer with the Cinema of Hope.
Over the course of the Vancouver International Film Festival’s 16 days, your world will be rocked — and, by festival’s end, you’ll emerge a changed, and a better person for the experience. Where else could that happen, at what other première arts event during the course of the year could that occur than at the Vancouver International Film Festival, where you’ll meet new friends, engage in a collective and humanizing endeavour that will provide insight into how lives are lived in every country and every region across our globe, and help you to realize and remember, as well, that we’re all in this together, we all seek love and connection, we all cherish family, and in the best of all possible worlds, we all seek understanding, and if we are very, very lucky, by film festival’s end, together we will have successfully fought the pervasive sense of anomie that has had us in its grip arising from the rise of the politics of fear and division currently extant in our world and even in our own country.
Through attendance at our 37th annual Vancouver International Film Festival’s, the possibility exists that we may achieve the realization of the spirit of collective transcendence, and hope for a better future for all of us through activism — which by film festival’s end means you should get out to vote for the candidates who mean to bring about change for the better.
Happy VIFF’ing, and happy voting in our current municipal election. See you at the movies, and at the election polls! Change for the better is near!

Raymond Tomlin

Raymond Tomlin is a veteran journalist and educator who has written frequently on the political realm — municipal, provincial and federal — as well as on cinema, mainstream popular culture, the arts, and technology.

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