Vancouver: The 22nd annual Vancouver International Film Festival wrapped Oct. 10 with more than 150,000 moviegoers attending and box office of more than $900,000, up almost 16% over last year.

Attendance was marginally improved over 2002 and increases to ticket prices and memberships account for the jump in revenue.

This year, ticket prices were increased slightly (up $0.50 to $9 for regular showings, up $0.50 to $7 for matinees).

The 2003 festival featured 508 public screenings of 313 films, including 11 world premieres, 40 international premieres [shown for the first time outside their own countries], 34 North American premieres, 37 Canadian premieres and 10 English-Canadian premieres.

The Argentina/Spain coproduction Kamchatka, by director Marcelo Pinyero, won the Air Canada People’s Choice Award for Most Popular International Film. The feature tells the story of the 1976 Argentinean military coup through the eyes of a 10-year-old boy. The runner-up was Swedish film Evil (Ondskan), director Mikael Hafstrom’s 1950s boarding-school drama.

Locally made documentary The Corporation, an exploration of the growing influence of corporations by filmmakers Mark Achbar and Jennifer Abbott, won the Federal Express Award for Most Popular Canadian Film. The runner-up was Vancouver director Trent Carlson’s The Delicate Art of Parking, an offbeat mockumentary that blows the whistle on the parking enforcement industry.

Other notable Canadian films, by popularity, include Gil Cardinal’s Totem: The Return of the G’Psgolox Pole (Alberta), Denys Arcand’s The Barbarian Invasions (Quebec) and Ann Marie Fleming’s The Magical Life of Long Tack Sam (B.C.).

Gritty On the Corner, by director Nathaniel Geary, won the $12,000 Citytv Western Canada Feature Film Award. The film is a family drama set against the drug-infested community of Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. Jurors praised Geary ‘for taking us into the nightmare heart of Vancouver’s old city and making a home there, for rubbing its emotions raw until they shine with a new rare light, for making small moments large.’

A special citation was given to See Grace Fly, director Pete McCormack’s study of mental illness that features a standout lead performance by Gina Chiarelli, who won the Women in Film and Video Artistic Merit Award.

The Big Charade, by writer/director Jesse McKeown, won the $5,000 International Keystone Entertainment Award for Best Young Western Canadian Director of a Short Film.

American director Thom Andersen’s Los Angeles Plays Itself won The National Film Board Award for Best Documentary Feature.

Special mentions went to S21, The Khmer Rouge Killing Machine, a Cambodia/France coproduction directed by Rithy Pahn, and The Decomposition of the Soul, a Belgian film by Nina Toussaint and Massimo Iannetta.

The documentary People Say I’m Crazy, by U.S. director John Cadigan, won the Chief Dan George Humanitarian Award.

The 23rd annual Vancouver International Film Festival takes place Sept. 23 to Oct. 8, 2004.

-www.viff.org