Despite problems that have plagued the country and the production community this year – from Interior fires to SARS – organizers of the 22nd Vancouver International Film Festival (Sept. 25 to Oct. 10) are calling for a record year.

And, in anticipation, the theme of VIFF 2003 is more, more, more. This includes:

More films. VIFF will be screening a record 248 feature and mid-length films and 76 shorts. These numbers break down further to reveal 11 world premieres, 40 international premieres, 34 North American premieres, 37 Canadian premieres and 10 English-Canadian premieres.

Among the most anticipated films screening are three that made a mark at the recent Cannes Film Festival. The Columbine-inspired Elephant nabbed the Palme D’Or and best director prize for the ever-controversial Gus Van Sant, while director Samira Makhmalbaf’s At Five in the Afternoon, a feminist drama set in post-Taliban Afghanistan, took home the jury prize. Meanwhile, acclaimed doc maker Errol Morris’ The Fog of War tackles the subject of Robert McNamara, the U.S. secretary of defense during the Vietnam War.

More Cancon. VIFF continues to expand on its reputation as perhaps the most wide-ranging showcase of Canuck cinema. All three gala films this year are Canadian, including Denys Arcand’s The Barbarian Invasions, the fest opener, the Oct. 4 anniversary gala The Saddest Music in the World from director Guy Maddin, and closer The Snow Walker, a Farley Mowat adaptation helmed by Charles Martin Smith (see story, below).

‘Our sense is that these three proudly and inimitably Canadian films beg to be put center stage for the way they collectively celebrate not only the rich geographical and cultural breadth of this country, but the happy, stylistic versatility of Canadian cinema today,’ says festival director Alan Franey.

Arcand’s Invasions, a follow-up to his 1986 film The Decline of the American Empire, has already raked in $5.65 million at the Quebec box office and left not a dry eye in the house in its English Canada premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival. Saddest Music had its North American premiere at TIFF, while The Snow Walker took its world bow there.

But there are plenty of Canadian films at VIFF that didn’t play at Toronto, including Cowards Bend the Knee, another new film from the prolific Maddin (see story, p. 23).

More of Canadian Images. The Canuck sidebar includes a record 32 features, four mid-lengths and 54 shorts. Scott Smith’s Falling Angels opens the series. The long-in-the-works film, to which Lynne Stopkewich was once attached, is based on the Barbara Gowdy novel about three sisters in a dysfunctional 1960s family. It stars Callum Keith Rennie, Miranda Richardson and Katherine Isabelle, and is Smith’s follow-up to the well-received rollercoaster (1999).

As with Falling Angels, My Life without Me, a Canada/Spain copro directed by Isabel Coixet, rolls into VIFF on good notices from TIFF. The film stars Sarah Polley as a woman living in a trailer park whose outlook is rocked upon learning she is terminally ill.

More documentaries. Some of the docs looking to make an introductory splash in VIFF’s Canadian Images program are Eve Lamont’s Squat!, about housing woes in Montreal, Allison Beda’s How to Be a Model and acclaimed doc maker Alanis Obomsawin’s Our Nationhood, about Aboriginal self-government. Also on the slate are Words of My Perfect Teacher by Lesley Ann Patten, The Moon and the Violin by Carole Laganiere and Ling Chiu’s From Harling Point.

Overall, VIFF 2003 boasts a record 90 feature and mid-length docs, appearing primarily in the Nonfiction Features program. There is a strong emphasis on Middle Eastern themes, as illustrated in Baghdad On/Off, Al-Jazeera Exclusive, Fort Baghdad: Jews and Arabs – The Iraqi Connection, The Return of the Khan, Rana’s Wedding and Ford Transit.

The National Film Board will again be presenting the award for best documentary feature. Two Canuck productions are among the baker’s dozen of nominees: The Corporation by Mark Achbar and Jennifer Abbott and Dying at Grace by Allan King.

Back is the Dragons and Tigers: The Cinemas of East Asia showcase, purported to be the largest exhibition of East Asian films outside of that continent. The screening of the 57 films was moved up to VIFF’s opening week to not overlap with South Korea’s Pusan International Film Festival.

Cinema of Our Time offers up more than 60 films from around the world, while Spotlight on France hones in on works from that country.

Festival organizers have noted a major surge in the past year in movies with Latin music as a major focus, likely spurred on by the success of The Buena Vista Social Club, and so have assembled them in a program entitled Latin (and other) Music and Dance.

Vancouver is of course highly dependent on work from Hollywood to support its local production industry, and so VIFF has put together a valentine of sorts to L.A. in the program Los Angeles Plays Itself. The sidebar is an expansion of the programmed doc of the same by Thom Andersen that explores how L.A. has been portrayed in the movies. The program will feature movies dating back to the gritty 1955 detective thriller Kiss Me Deadly.

Meanwhile, industry matters will be addressed Sept. 24-26 at the 18th annual Film and Television Trade Forum, subtitled ‘New challenges, new solutions, new success stories’ (see story, p. 25). Taking place at UBC Robson Square, this year’s forum will look at opportunities in Canadian copros in Case Studies of International Coproductions.

Episodic Television – The Success Stories examines writing quality scripts for the small screen, while 28 Drafts Later discusses adapting novels into screenplays. The panel at Smaller Screens: Bigger Reach will address alternatives to theatrical distribution.

The annual New Filmmakers’ Day is penciled in for Sept. 27. Panel topics include the merits of digital filmmaking, marketing for producers, financing low-budget features and indie creative freedom.

The 2003 installment of VIFF marks the last year before the completion of the Vancouver International Film Centre, destined to be a new hub for the event. It will include a movie theater, multimedia art gallery, meeting and screening rooms, editing facilities and a lobby concession. Screening venues this year are at the Granville 7, the Vogue, The Ridge and the Pacific Cinematheque.

More information on VIFF 2003 and scheduling are available on the website.

-www.viff.org