‘It just crossed my desk, it came to me out of nowhere, I knew nothing about it even being made out here,’ says Canadian Images programmer John Dippong of Drawing Flies, one of ‘the gems’ he found while wading through a record number of submissions for this year’s Vancouver International Film Festival.

Drawing Flies, from Matt Gissing and Malcolm Ingram, is the story of a group of ‘lost generation’ Ontario youths who head to b.c. in search of unfathomable truths, good times and welfare cheques and end up searching for Big Foot.

The film’s stylish look, achieved on a mere $30,000 budget, captivated Dippong on the spot. ‘It’s cool, it’s fun, and it looks great,’ he says ‘There are some incredible performances in it. It’s got a real slacker genre sensibility ­ characters watching tv all day and partying ­ but it takes on darker themes and becomes a journey of self-discovery.’

Films like Drawing Flies ­ small-budget, riskier flicks, without any big-name backers, and from unknown directors ­ are the focus of Dippong’s Canadian Images lineup, which is showcasing a total of 62 new features and shorts at the 15th annual viff, running Oct. 4-20. His philosophy is that the festival’s most important role is to expose and garner publicity for the high-quality little fish that usually get swallowed alive among the big-name sharks in the film industry pool.

‘The program this year takes chances on small films that I think will go places,’ says Dippong. ‘And this is what a festival is supposed to do ­ take chances, find films that have a spark, find the real gem, act as a launching pad for new films and directors.’

Dippong is impressed with the number and quality of lower-budget new Canadian films submitted to this year’s Canadian Images program.

‘These features seemed to just come from out of the blue, with no agency funding and no distributors,’ he explains. ‘They were made independently on small budgets and are really strong. I’m premiering many of them in hopes they will get noticed by distributors.’

Another one of Dippong’s ‘gems’ receiving its world premiere is Airport In from Erik Whittaker of b.c. Produced on the ultra-low budget of $10,000, the indie tells the off-beat story of an rcmp investigation into an exploded body at the Manitoba airport, and is set against the unlikely backdrop of a podiatry convention and the 1972 Canada-Russia hockey series. Dippong bills it enthusiastically as ‘a strange piece of work with moments of brilliance.’

American Beer, marks Calgarian Grant Harvey’s feature film debut. This first-time effort amazed Dippong. ‘You’d never guess it’s a first feature,’ he enthuses. ‘Harvey is really confident behind the camera, he has a lot of control. It is really strong and firm-footed.’

Shot in the Southern Alberta badlands, the film combines stunning visuals with the comic misadventures of four young Canucks whose car breaks down while on a road trip to the u.s., mecca of watery malt beverages.

‘It d’esn’t try to be funny, it just is funny,’ says Dippong. ‘But it also moves off the page and has a resonance I really like ­ it’s poignant and speaks to the Canadian psyche, how we see ourselves vis-a-vis the Americans, without being heavy-handed.’

VIFF 96 is hosting a record number of world and North American premieres of Canadian films, with the majority ­ 20 shorts and six features ­ hailing from Western Canada.

Although Canadian Images generally emphasizes Western films, Dippong says he didn’t consciously choose films because they were from the West but because they were top-notch productions.

The amount of service work in the West for American productions, he says, has built up a pool of talented technical film crews who are willing to work on smaller independent productions as well as the big u.s. films. ‘The technical aspects of the films from the West are great and we are getting a lot better at our storytelling.’

Other Western Canadian films making their debut in the Canadian Images program include Richard Kerr’s The Willing Voyeur, a post-modern mystery defying the traditional narrative format and challenging viewers to sift through fragmented clues to arrive at their own reading of what happened, and Oliver Hockenhull’s Aldous Huxley: The Gravity of Light, which mixes archival footage and computer-generated 3D animation, to examine Huxley’s cultural criticism and social prophecies.

Bruce McDonald’s Vancouver-made Hard Core Logo will be given its North American premiere. Based on Michael Turner’s novel, this last film in McDonald’s rock trilogy is a darkly humorous portrait of a legendary Vancouver punk band on a reunion tour.

Other highlights of the 1996 program include Deepa Mehta’s Fire, a portrait of change and contradiction in contemporary India; Roger Spottiswoode’s Hiroshima, a detailed chronicle of the moral decisions and political machinations leading up to the dropping of the atomic bomb; and the English-language premier of Bernar Hebert’s modern dance tour-de-force, The Night of the Flood.

Now in its 10th year, Canadian Images attracts a huge audience following at viff.

‘It used to be that Canadian indies were more of a curiosity,’ observes Dippong. ‘But now they are being recognized for their quality and are gaining in popularity out here. As well, people know this festival may be their only chance to see some of these films.’ Festivals like viff serve as an important vehicle to highlight awareness of Canadian filmmaking, he adds.

The 1996 Canadian Images program is also screening a greater number of shorts than in past years. Dippong chose to expand the shorts lineup because he says they are often overlooked at big festivals.

‘I’m hoping to broaden audience interest by highlighting a number of shorts that are really strong, both narratively and technically,’ he says. ‘Shorts are important, they are the training ground for future feature directors, they’ve got to get their feet wet.’

The shorts program includes an eclectic mix of films, from the more experimental and edgy like Michael Hoolbloom’s Shooting Blanks, which Dippong calls ‘an assault on the senses,’ to the more dramatic, narrative style of Trenton Carlson’s Groomed. Dippong says this tale of a highway cafe that’s the stopping ground for men on their way to the altar ‘pushes the envelope, walking the line between reality and fantasy.’

Between Canadian Images and a host of other programs, including Dragons and Tigers: The Cinemas of East Asia, the largest program of East Asian films in the western hemisphere; Walk on the Wild Side, a midnight series devoted to lovers of extreme cinema; Cinema of our Time, screening the best new films from over 25 countries; and The Best of Britain, Mexico, and India, this year’s viff is showcasing a total of 325 films from 50 countries.

Six juried prizes will be presented at the festival, including new awards from Telefilm Canada and Toronto’s Citytv. The Telefilm Canada Award for best new Western Canadian feature film director carries a $15,000 prize and is being juried by former b.c. film commissioner Dianne Neufeld, Seattle International Film Festival director Darryl Macdonald (a native Vancouverite) and Vancouver author Douglas Coupland, known for Generation X and Life After God.

The City award for best Canadian dramatic feature film, juried by Diane B’ehme, independent production manager at City/ Bravo!; Jim Sinclair, executive director of Pacific Cinematheque; and Quebec actress/director Andree Pelletier, is accompanied by $10,000.

Other prizes include the Alcan Dragons and Tigers Award for young cinema ($5,000), the nfb award for best documentary feature ($1,500), the nfb award for animation ($1,000), and the Rogers Award for Best Canadian screenplay.

At last year’s festival, 119,714 tickets were sold and, with a record number of premieres, a diverse variety of film programs and some big industry names, organizers are anticipating breaking 1995 attendance levels and garnering audience numbers in the 125,000 range.