Vancouver: This month’s 23rd annual Vancouver International Film Festival may be the last of its kind – or at least the last of its size – with the Vancouver International Film Centre opening for year-round programming business by next spring.

‘We can look at new ways to fulfill the same mandate,’ says festival director Alan Franey, looking forward one year from now. ‘We can reinvent the Vancouver International Film Festival.’

The VIFC will be the hub for Vancouver’s independent film scene, with production offices and a 183-seat screening room. VIFF management will move into new third-floor offices in December or January, with hopes of working in conjunction with, rather than in competition with, the nearby Pacific Cinematheque art house.

VIFF 2004, running Sept. 23 to Oct. 8, boasts more titles in its program than ever before. More than 150,000 festival-goers are expected to attend 500 VIFF screenings of more than 300 films from 50 countries on 10 screens. Venues include Cineplex Odeon Granville Cinemas, the VISA Screening Room at the Vogue Theatre, The Ridge and the Pacific Cinematheque.

However, Franey says 2005 may see some consolidation at the fest, principally because the nonprofit festival society will be spreading its energies over the year instead of just two weeks.

‘It’s not easy putting on a festival of this size,’ says Franey. ‘What’s painfully evident [in the SECOR report on Canadian film festivals, commissioned by Telefilm Canada and SODEC] is how marginalized we are [funding-wise] relative to the central Canada festivals.’

The annual operating budget for VIFF is $2.5 million, with only $329,500 coming from government. The result, says Franey, is that VIFF relies heavily on self-generated income and volunteers to pull off an ambitious event.

For the upcoming festival, however, VIFF didn’t ‘mess with the formula,’ says Franey.

At VIFF 2004, Canada/U.K./ Hungary copro Being Julia, starring Annette Bening, is slated as the Opening Gala, as it is at the Toronto festival, while Electric Shadows from China is the Anniversary Gala film and Comme une image (Look at Me), from French director/star Agnes Jaoui, will close.

‘There is a lot of pressure on festivals to be precise in their focus,’ says Franey, noting that some festivals are about promoting films in distribution and others solidify the business development side. ‘More and more films are being made, but a smaller percentage of films gets to commercial distribution. We are trying to be a place of discovery for films.’

In terms of content, he explains, VIFF has no choice but to move with the times. ‘Globalization is not only what people want to see, but also how the business operates,’ says Franey.

In the 2004 festival spotlight is the breakout program German Indies, which will document the digital video new wave in the German cinema that, as Franey puts it, has a fresh, twentysomething sensibility. In the feature Forest for the Trees, for instance, German director Maren Ade delves into the psychological breakdown of a teacher who moves from a small town to a larger city.

Franey says Nonfiction Features of 2004, the fest’s documentary program, reflects the current popularity of political-activism filmmaking (see story, p. 39). ‘A lot of documentaries are being done out of real necessity,’ says Franey.

With a section titled Changing the World, focused on films about the post-9/11 world, the doc series includes international and world premieres such as William Karel’s The World According to Bush, from France.

Other international debuts include Iraq’s Baghdad Blogger (directed by Salam Pax), Ireland’s Imagining Ulysses (David Blake Knox), Japan’s L’Amant (Hiroki Ryuichi), the Netherlands/Belgium copro The South (Martin Koolhoven) and the U.S.’s The Other Side of AIDS (Robin Scovill).

VIFF’s annual high-profile Dragons & Tigers: The Cinemas of East Asia program features 43 features, five mid-length films, and 47 shorts – among them 16 international premieres.

‘Our aim with the Dragon & Tigers series is to celebrate the continuing excellence and innovation of East Asian cinema, and in particular to introduce new talent to the West,’ says Franey.

Of special note, say VIFF programmers, is the abundance of Dragons & Tigers shorts, including new short films from regulars Bong Joon-Ho, Yu Lik Wai and Sogo Ishii from South Korea, alternative anime from Japan, and a return of the Cop Festival program, curated by Shinozaki Makoto. Other short filmmakers include Hirabayashi Isamu (Textism, winner of the Grand Prix at Japan’s Image Forum Festival) and Thailand’s Aditya Assarat.

Dragons & Tigers will also include a tribute to Korean animator Lee Sung-Gang. VIFF will host two special screenings: Sung-Gang’s 2001 feature, My Beautiful Girl, Mari, winner of the Grand Prix at the Annecy Animation Festival, and the short film compilation Onuri and Other Shorts.

Films in competition for the $5,000 Dragons & Tigers Award for Young Cinema include: The Big Durian (Amir Muhammad, Malaysia), Fade Into You (Chegy, South Korea), The Foliage (Lu Yue, China), Good Morning, Beijing (Pan Jianlin, China), The Soup, One Morning (Takahashi Izumi, Japan), The Overture (Ittisoontorn Vichailak, Thailand), South of the Clouds (Zhu Wen, China), Splendid Float (Zero Chou, Taiwan) and Sund@y Seoul (Oh Myung-Hoon, South Korea).

-www.viff.org