‘In Canada, we are in the most imperiled situation when it comes to our cultural imagination,’ says Alan Franey, director of the Vancouver International Film Festival.

For 20 years, the festival has been waging the battle to preserve and nurture a uniquely Canadian vision, just as the province’s filmmakers have been developing their own projects alongside the burgeoning Hollywood Northwest. This 20th anniversary year signals some of VIFF’s success in its role as one of the largest exhibitors of Canadian films in the world.

Fifteen directors will present their fiction debuts in the Canadian Images program, with several of these being English-Canadian premieres. Among the highlights are the eagerly awaited Mile Zero from Andrew Currie, Jeff Macpherson’s Come Together, Robin Schlaht’s Solitude, Dwayne Beaver’s The Rhino Brothers, Jill Sharpe’s Culturejam: Hijacking Commercial Culture, Francis Leclerc’s Une Jeune Fille a la Fenetre and Linda Ohama’s Obaachan’s Garden. In total, 35 features and 59 Canadian shorts will reach audiences in Vancouver from Sept. 27 to Oct. 12.

History and family themes

‘History and family are strong themes this year,’ says Canadian programmer Diane Burgess, who has been screening films since July. Obaachan’s Garden, for example, is the story of Ohama’s grandmother who came to Canada in the early twenties as a picture bride and was subsequently interned along with other Japanese-Canadians during the Second World War.

The festival itself will open with the French production Amelie from Jean-Pierre Jeunet. Currie’s Mile Zero, which follows a man desperate to reunite his family, will kick off the Canadian Images program. Bruce Sweeney’s Last Wedding will close the event, and Zacharias Kunuk’s Atanarjuat (The Fast Runner) will be among the films in the special presentation program.

Other special presentations include David Weaver’s Century Hotel and Macpherson’s Come Together. ‘They are two films ideal to celebrating our anniversary,’ Burgess says. ‘They are both about coming to terms with the past and facing the future.’ Also in recognition of its young adulthood, VIFF will screen Philip Keatley’s 1964 film The Education of Phyllistine, Allan King’s 1956 cinema verite classic Skid Row and Laurence Kent’s 1963 film The Bitter Ash, a documentary of the Canadian Beat generation that was originally banned for its sexual content.

Directors’ picks

VIFF has also asked five directors who have been associated with the fest for their film picks for a program called A Look Back. Guy Maddin, Bruce Sweeney, Peter Lynch, John Pozer and Jim Jarmusch will all be on hand to introduce their selections.

The last film in A Look Back will be A Woman Under the Influence from John Cassavetes, the director often cited by West Coast filmmakers from Sweeney to Carl Bessai and Laurie-Marie Baranyay as a major influence on their work. Gena Rowlands, the director’s wife and lead in the film, will present the special screening.

This bringing of the cinematic world, both new and old, to Vancouver, is why the event is so important to the province’s film industry, Franey says. ‘It is the best educator of filmmakers in showing them what else is playing in the world, and how to make films that can compete with the U.S. on a limited budget.’

The festival’s Dragons & Tigers: the Cinemas of East Asia is leading the fest’s international programming. Featuring the largest number of East Asian features in a festival outside of Asia, the 41-strong lineup includes Berlin winner Wang Xiaoshuai with Beijing Bicycle, Ann Hui with Visible Secret and Imamura Shohei with Warm Water under a Red Bridge.

A special series on Japanese cinema will present four films that deal in some way with sexual issues, a selection from a project originally commissioned by Japanese producer Arakawa Reiko. Entitled Sex and the City: Tokyo, the program has provocative titles, including Tokyo Trash Baby and Zippers and Tits.

Spotlight on France will present films from masters such as Jacques Rivette (with Va Savoir), alongside Fat Girl from controversial director Catherine Breillat and Francois Ozon’s Under the Sand.

Among documentary features, several films from around the world will look at globalization. Among them are The Land of Wandering Souls, which examines the lives of Third World laborers hired to dig trenches for a multinational’s fiber-optic cable; Working Women of the World, on the challenges faced by textile workers; and Images of the Orient, about the effect of tourism on Asia and the West’s iconographic images of Orientalism. The Documentary Channel is the new sponsor of the NonFiction Features program.

Franey suggests that the strong international orientation of the festival will encourage the B.C. industry to look outside North America for funding partners.

‘With threats made about runaway productions and retaliation, people start thinking that the bubble will burst. We all know how easy it is to make a living in production, but the more we can say that there is more to Canadian production than the U.S. the better off we are.’

Paradoxically, VIFF may have encouraged so many filmmakers that, like other events of its kind, it is now flooded by applications. This year, in particular, the perception that digital cameras have put filmmaking in everyone’s reach meant there were 200 more submissions than last year.

‘Very few young actors have meaningful stories to tell,’ Franey cautions. ‘It takes more than picking up a camera. Not much of digital is good yet. People are able to borrow money more easily and to make smaller films. But all the safeguards that go into a production with an executive producer aren’t there. With more money, there may be compromises, but the logic of money is that there is also quality control.’

Nevertheless, for the films that did make the cut, this year’s anniversary could prove particularly memorable. ‘With 15 of 23 features from first-timers,’ Burgess says, ‘there is an atmosphere of celebration.’

-www.viff.org