With suitable disregard for the expected, organizers of the Vancouver International Film Festival are kicking off the event this year with a piece of work known to few patrons, even those among the film cognoscenti. Lonesome, a 1928 film by Hungarian director Paul Fejos, will open the 14th annual Vancouver fest, running Sept. 29 to Oct. 15.

This year’s viff, which will feature 400 screenings of 250 films from 45 countries, is going back to the roots of film for its Centenary of Cinema program. ‘I think people at the screening (of Lonesome) will enjoy it more than they’ll enjoy films that open most film festivals,’ says viff director Alan Franey.

‘The whole point,’ he says, ‘is not to let the centenary slip by.People who attend film festivals are supposed to be more educated than the general public. We found out over the years that people are interested in film history. We want to wear it proudly on our sleeve and really take some adventuresome routes back into film history.’

This year marks the 100-year anniversary of the birth of cinema, which, arguably, occurred in December 1895 when Frenchmen Louis and Auguste Lumiere showed short films in a Paris cafe using their camera-projector invention, the Cinematographe. Less than a year later, audiences in Montreal and Toronto were partaking of the thrills and chills of early cinema.

Lonesome, about two solitary souls coming together in the salad days of New York City, will be accompanied by the Alloy Orchestra of Cambridge, Massachusetts.

The Centenary of Cinema Celebration will feature a number of archival films, including a 1931 pic from China called Love and Duty, which tells the story of Chinese film legend Ruan Lingyu.

Another archival highlight is ‘Powell and Pressburger at War,’ a four-film tribute to the British filmmaking team of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, who made a series of wwii-era films financed by the British Ministry of Information. The series includes the 1946 film A Matter of Life and Death, also known as Stairway to Heaven, which was an attempt to reconcile diplomatic relations between the British and American governments after the war.

Also included in the section are R.W. Fassbinder’s Martha (1947), Mikhail Kalatozov’s I am Cuba (1964), Raymond Langford’s The Sentimental Bloke (1919), and a selection of National Film Board newsreels commemorating the 30th anniversary of the Pacific office of the nfb.

The Vancouver festival, having developed something of a cachet for attracting untouchable luminaries in film after last year’s Krzysztof Kieslowski coup, had arranged a tribute to Vera Herzog, but scheduling problems rerouted the filmmaker.

The festival has attracted a number of famous faces in the past, but Franey says it’s precisely the fact that it is not a movie star-driven event that forms part of its appeal. He says while the Toronto International Film Festival has a large American presence and numerous Hollywood junkets, viff emphasizes the independent film, ‘festival type films’ that are often only seen in a festival setting.

‘You can’t have three festivals doing the same thing. Our focus is different than Montreal or Toronto,’ Franey says. ‘We try to emphasize the more relaxed atmosphere. It’s a time when filmmakers enjoy coming and meeting each other – the social life of the festival is quite different. Cannes is the only festival you have to go to no matter how much you hate it; the others are just a matter of suiting your business purposes or your frame of mind.’

Among the 60 film guests this year are Michael Moore, documentary maker Les Blank, Tran Anh Hung (Scent of Green Papaya) and renowned cinematographer Sacha Vierney, who will conduct a cinematographers workshop.

The 50-film Canadian Images program features the world premiere of Bones of the Forest, a home-grown project by Velcrow Ripper and Heather Frise which examines the environmental repercussions of b.c.’s forestry policies, and the world premiere of Robert Lee’s feature Cyberjack. Kicking off the program is Robert Lepage’s Le Confessional, the opening gala at the Toronto festival.

Among the other western-made films are Margaret’s Museum, directed by b.c.’s Mort Ransen, and ‘hip, Gen-X films’ The Suburbanators from Gary Burns and Bruce Sweeney’s Live Bait, winner of best Canadian film at the Toronto International Film Festival.

Canadian Images also includes 28 shorts, most of which will screen in five themed programs; the rest appearing before selected features.

Opening the Best of Britain section is Eden Valley from Newcastle’s Amber Production Team, a film collective which focuses on the British working class. The film deals with a wayward youth who is sent to live with his father in the country after difficulties with the law.

viff concentrates heavily on screening documentaries and Asian films: ‘It’s here that we can present the lion’s share of our premieres and attract buyers, critics and business people as well as filmmakers,’ says Franey.

The Dragons and Tigers series, the largest program of East Asian films in the western hemisphere, programmed again this year by British critic Tony Rayns, gives recognition to the best film from a first- or second-time director. Among the jurors of the Dragons and Tigers Award for Young Cinema is Donald Richie, the ‘world’s foremost authority on Japanese cinema.’

Titles competing for the prize are Tropical Fish and Every Odd Numbered Day from Taiwan; Broken Branches from South Korea; Mee Pok Man, aka The Noodle Seller, from Singapore; and, from China, Goldfish and Sweetgrass. Most of these films are North American or world premieres.

The nfb will also be presenting an award for best documentary in the Nonfiction Features of 1995 Competition. The majority of these films are international or North American premieres. International premieres in this category include two films from the u.k., David Thompson’s Quentin Tarantino: Hollywood’s Boy Wonder and Pavel Pawlikowski’s Tripping With Zhirinovsky. The nfb also offers a cash award for Best Animated Film.

Logistically, Franey says the festival has come together well despite the ever-present spectre of funding cuts and that the corporate world has taken up some of the economic slack. Last year’s ticket sales total of $550,000 was considerably more than the sum of government assistance the festival receives.

Festival attendance has grown steadily from 87,000 in 1992 to 111,000 last year, and Franey anticipates 120,000 film enthusiasts will show up this year.

A plan that would make viff the first festival to offer online scheduling and purchasing of tickets is in the works and is expected to be operational for the opening weekend.