Vancouver: The Vancouver International Film Festival wound up its 17th year with a total audience of more than 130,000.

While this year’s tally matches the audience volumes generated in 1996 and 1997, organizers had a greater challenge this year.

During the event, festival organizers issued an apology to festival goers who suffered problems with four screenings at the Vancouver Centre Cinemas venue, which is currently subject to a labor dispute. viff ‘has been beset with an unprecedented number of projection problems, the result of projectionist error,’ said organizers in a written statement about the Vancouver Centre cinemas.

Canadian eugenics feature Heart of the Sun had a reel stall and burn up, while other disruptions spoiled screenings of The Power of Kangwon Province, Requiem and Vancouver-made Zachariah Farted.

Damon Faulkner, president of the B.C. Projectionist Union (IATSE Local 348), blames the disruptions on the equipment at the Famous Players venue rather than any kind of unofficial job action protesting the attempts by Famous Players and Cineplex Odeon to cut projectionists’ wages in half. (The union has decided not to take the last offer to a vote and so far has been unsuccessful in getting the exhibition companies to return to the negotiating table. The companies are in a legal lockout position.)

Festival director Alan Franey says the robust audience tallies were ‘attained despite an unhealthy climate of labor disputes, technical problems and a local economy in recession. Box office revenues were the highest ever, topping the $725,000 mark for the first time.’

Award winners were Sturla Gunnarsson’s Such a Long Journey (most popular Canadian film), and Roberto Benigni’s Life is Beautiful (most popular film), Streetheart (Le Coeur au Poing) by Charles Biname and Monique Proulx (best screenplay), emerging directors Bruce Sweeney (Dirty) and Nathaniel Geary (the short Keys to Kingdom), and feature Xiao Wu in the Asian film category Dragons and Tigers.

Best documentary went to The Brandon Teena Story by Susan Muska and Greta Olafsdotttir, and best animation was When Ponds Freeze Over by Mary Lewis.

The newly created Chief Dan George Humanitarian Award went to Heddy Honigmann’s The Underground Orchestra and actor Sandra Oh (Last Night) won the Women in Film and Video Vancouver’s artistic merit award.

The 13th annual Trade Forum, meanwhile, saw attendance revenue jump 10% over the previous year, says event producer Melanie Friesen.

She says highlights were sessions with writer/director Robert Towne (Chinatown, Without Limits), dop Conrad Hall (Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid) and production designer Jan Roelfs (The Cook, The Thief, His Wife & Her Lover).

Most gratifying was how the superstar guests were ready to mingle with the Trade Forum participants, says Friesen. ‘There was no diva behavior here,’ she observes.

Finance-oriented sessions – Tax Credits in Action and Bridging the Gap – along with the panel called The Changing Face of Canadian Distribution were the best attended sessions.