Most casual filmgoers attending a VIFF screening feel pretty darn good about the experience. What one sees up on screen is paramount, and the politics of the Festival remains of not even blithe concern.
Not so for the passholders.
Yes, those folks who hold a Festival pass ($400 for unlimited filmgoing, $325 if you’re a senior or a student), including the media, volunteers and Festival guests are a kvetchin’ and a moanin’ and a whinin’ this year. Who likes change? So, as part of today’s post we’ll address the early concerns that have plagued passholders, and see if we can’t put rumours to rest by getting the facts out for public consumption.
1. VIFF adopted a new, $64,000 ticketing system this year which, on the first day, proved to be slow, inept, frustrating, not particularly well thought out, and of great concern to diehard Festival passholders. Throughout Thursday all VanRamblings heard (and we spoke repeatedly with senior VIFF staff) was that VIFF was “wedded to” the new system, and it would remain in place Friday. Apparently, at some point during the VIFF opening gala, someone (one would have to think Alan Franey, Festival Director) made the decision to scrap the new VIFF ticketing system, and on Friday morning VIFF returned to distributing tickets by hand. VanRamblings sorta liked the new system, and thought it could work if the bugs were worked out. But, alas, the bugs weren’t gonna get worked out (for instance, when taking passholder film info, staff had to scroll through all films to find the specific passholder request(s) — a cumbersome at best process). At any rate, all that is old is new again.
2. When VISA pulled out as a VIFF sponsor this year, VIFF senior staff changed a passholder entry system that had long been in place. Passholders are the bread-and-butter of VIFF, the passionate movie catholics who give VIFF ‘meaning’ (not to mention a great deal of money, and much enthusiasm for the work VIFF staff perform throughout the year). VISA, as part of their sponsorship arrangement, demanded that their ‘VISA passholders’ receive “early entry”; VIFF staff extended that to all passholders. So, for years, passholders were pulled out of line to gain early entrance to screenings, followed by ticket holders, a de facto recognition of the value of the passholder contribution to the Festival. This year, with VISA gone, and no preferential demand by VISA on the table, VIFF adopted a new system, which VIFF accounts/business manager Mickey Brazeau refers to as “the new egalitarianism”, in which all those in the passholders / ticket buyers lineup gain entrance at the same time. My oh my, has this created a kerfuffle. VIFF Exhibitions Manager Teresa Weir relented on Friday night, and gave advance entrance to passholders for the 9:30 p.m. screening of Nameless Gangster. Apparently the passholder advance entry decision taken on Friday night represented a one-off; we’ll see.
Of course the kvetchin’ wasn’t limited to the two items above: concerns have been raised about what many consider to be the failure of the online ticketing system, the snail’s pace system for ordering 20/30 ticket packs, the website (e.g. one can’t search by actor any more, and when placing a title into the search engine, more often than not you’ll come up with two dozen responses), the VIFF app (film lengths are not listed), ad nauseum.
On the rumour front: A great deal of incorrect information has been floating around respecting the Empire Granville 7 and how long VIFF will have the downtown theatre as a home. VanRamblings spoke with Empire theatre management. The lease for the theatre is not up until late 2015; there are no plans to shutter the theatre before then. VanRamblings is aware that no development application (or enquiries which would lead to a development application) having been received at Vancouver City Hall respecting the site.
To conclude this portion of the inside the beltway post, apparently VIFF will have a new ticketing system in place next year. We’re not going to write about it now, but it’s a ground breaker, and one potentially frought with problems unless VIFF consults widely with its passholder members. But done right, the new system could work very well, indeed. Word to the wise: never, ever pioneer software; always buy tried-and-true software packages in use elsewhere that have all the kinks worked out. More next week.
Enough with the foofaraw, above, for today. For the Sunday post we’ll likely post at length, reviewing what we’ve seen to date. Monday we’re planning on offering a rousing defense of the Festival (you’ll see why then).
Today we’ll leave you with a glancing blow of impressions respecting a few of the narrative films we’ve seen to date …
We are absolutely over the moon about Any Day Now, our favourite narrative feature among the 20 we’ve seen (including in preview) thus far. We believe that Neighbouring Sounds is a masterwork (it’s one of our favourite films thus far). We’re surprised at the symmetry between Rust and Bone and When The Night (the former is the audacious work of an auteur, while the latter represents one of our favourite films thus far), that both films resolve in an identical manner, employing the same three words.
La Demora possesses wonderful film craft, Off-White Lies is a fetching kitchen sink drama, we weren’t swept away by either No or Helpless (but they’re still very good films), we really liked Teddy Bear (which we otherwise would have missed had we not completely re-worked out Friday filmgoing schedule after we ran into a friend), there’s been a great deal of positive buzz about In Another Country (so we’ve added it to our VIFF 2012 schedule, as is the case with Nuala), we were particularly unthrilled with The Unlikely Girl, but we very much liked Love in the Medina and Aquí y allá.
