A celluloid helping of Canadiana isn’t any less palatable because it’s been dished up elsewhere, says VIFF’s Terry McEvoy.

In his first year as programmer of the fete’s Canadian Images program, McEvoy is feeling no pressure to out-premiere the much-hyped Toronto International Film Festival.

‘We’re happy to have premieres, but it would be foolish to have that as our priority, given the dates of our festival,’ he says. ‘If it was a concern, we’d just move to August.’

VIFF, running Sept. 28 to Oct. 13, follows hot on the heels of TIFF (Sept. 7-16). Only three of the 22 Canadian feature films selected for VIFF this year are making their world debuts: Shel Piercy’s Almost Heaven, Daniel O’Connor’s Run Robot Run! and Ross Weber’s Mount Pleasant. More than a dozen of the 72 medium-length or short films in Canadian Images will screen for the first time, while most of the 11 docs in the showcase have already done the festival circuit. One exception is Vancouver-based Force Four Entertainment’s Rock and Roll Kid, which is making its world premiere at VIFF.

‘All the Canadian films that we show are premieres for our B.C. audiences,’ McEvoy notes. ‘Picture a person looking at a list of films – are they going to say ‘I’m going to go to this one because it’s a premiere,’ or ‘I am going to go to this one because I want to see it?”

And, whatever the case, showing B.C.-produced movies not only draws crowds but generates publicity for homegrown talent.

‘Everything done in B.C. is on our radar. Historically, our B.C. shorts have tended to sell out,’ McEvoy says.

Canadian Images opens with Paul Fox’s comedy Everything’s Gone Green, which, according to the programmer, was chosen because ‘it’s a great film where Vancouver should be getting residuals, because [the city] is really a character in the film.’ Written by Vancouver native Douglas Coupland (Generation X), the movie premiered in TIFF’s Canada First! showcase, along with a number other B.C. films screening at VIFF, including Andrew Currie’s Fido and Carolyn Combs’ Acts of Imagination.

Also from B.C. and on the VIFF sked are Carl Bessai’s Unnatural & Accidental, which had its Canadian premiere in TIFF’s Contemporary World Cinema program, and Larry Di Stefano’s Love and Other Dilemmas, about a ‘perfect’ wedding that goes awry.

Canadian films from other parts of the country making it to VIFF following Toronto launches include: Sarah Polley’s feature directorial debut Away from Her; Philippe Falardeau’s Congorama, which closed the Directors’ Fortnight at Cannes; Jennifer Baichwal’s doc Manufactured Landscapes; Camelia Frieberg’s A Stone’s Throw; and Patrice Sauvé’s Cheech.

McEvoy says that, ultimately, films are chosen for VIFF based solely on quality.

‘I’d have to say candidly and quite honestly that [getting chosen or not for TIFF] doesn’t impact our decision to pick a film,’ he notes, adding that the only concern is logistical.

‘Because film festivals are clustered together in the fall, if a director has only one print, then we have to ensure it is going to get cycled around [and make it to VIFF] on time,’ he adds.

The 100 films unspooling in Canadian Images were chosen from about 600 submissions.