The Vancouver International Film Festival doesn’t have the Hollywood stars like Toronto or the business deals of Cannes, but it has carved out its own unique presence on the film fest circuit.

This year offering more than 333 films from over 75 countries – screening from Sept. 27 to Oct. 12 – VIFF has developed a reputation for presenting the best in international cinema and unabashedly shying away from mainstream American movies and world premieres.

‘It is like species differentiation,’ explains festival director Alan Franey. ‘We are all part of an ecosystem, so we shouldn’t all be feeding on the same food supply. Just as we plan our festival as a complementary opposite to what is on screen the rest of the year in Vancouver, we also plan it as a complementary opposite to Toronto and other festivals in the country.’

At press time, VIFF announced that Kari Skogland’s The Stone Angel will open Canadian Images. It also announced its opening gala and closing night galas.

The fest will bow with Atonement, by Pride & Prejudice director Joe Wright, whose bold adaptation of Ian McEwan’s period melodrama novel stars Keira Knightley. The event will wrap on Oct. 12 with Priceless, writer/director Pierre Salvadori’s comedy of morals set on the Cote d’Azur, where a scheming seductress is taken for a romantic ride by a lowly hotel worker.

In total, VIFF will host 13 world premieres, 31 North American premieres and 35 Canadian premieres this year. But the number of new presentations is not a key programming strategy, Franey points out.

‘Toronto is such a dominant festival internationally and has such a focus on world premieres that there is no point in us being a pale imitation of them,’ he explains. ‘We have taken a different tact. We want to retain the focus on non-Hollywood films here and presenting the best in world cinema.’

In particular, VIFF is internationally recognized for programming one of the largest and most successful showcases of documentary films at a general festival. And its Dragons & Tigers series is the largest program of East Asian films shown outside that region. Closer to home, the festival’s Canadian Images series is one of the biggest presentations of Canuck films.

Entering its 26th year, Franey says VIFF isn’t planning to reinvent the wheel and no radical changes are planned for the 2007 event, but he is building on the festival’s core strengths by expanding several of its most renowned programs.

A new Spotlight on China has been added to Dragons & Tigers, and Shelly Kraicer, a Chinese-speaking Canadian film scholar, has been hired to program.

‘We thought it was time to diversify the program, and since B.C. is gearing up for stronger China ties – and the entire world is either lusting after or concerned about China as the world’s fastest growing power – we wanted to put that country front and center for our growth horizon,’ Franey says. ‘As well, Chinese cinema is a particularly fertile area, and there is quite a bit of interest in it.’

Nonfiction continues to be another key focus of VIFF, with 90 feature-length docs screening at the festival this year (see story, p. 24).

New for 2007, the festival is adding an environmental film series – Climate for Change, and offering a $25,000 juried award for best environmental film, the largest prize available at the festival (see story, p. 24).

Another first-time initiative is an Imax retrospective series that will present about a dozen of the best giant-screen films ever made, as selected by veteran producer and director Morgan Gabereau.

In the international Cinema of our Time program, VIFF will present several films that were highly acclaimed at Cannes, including Palme d’Or winner 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days by Romanian filmmaker Cristian Mungiu, centering on illegal abortion in the waning days of the Soviet Bloc; and best screenplay winner The Edge of Heaven, a German/Turkish coproduction by Fatih Akin.

Another Cannes treat is special jury prize winner Persepolis, an animated feature by Iran’s Marjane Satrapi and France’s Vincent Paronnaud, based on Satrapi’s graphic novels about coming of age during the Islamic revolution.

A significant number of films from Latin America will also be shown this year.

‘We are finding that the Latin American section of the festival is growing, in part because Vancouver has seen a huge influx of Latinos,’ says Franey.

‘We are still very much an audience-oriented festival and one that is based on a cultural mandate of increasing the knowledge of other nations through cinema. So we have to change our focus according to the market and demographics of the city,’ he elaborates.

Canadian film screenings at the festival are a perennial favorite. A total of 82 dramatic and nonfiction Canadian films and shorts will screen as part of the 2007 Canadian Images program.

‘I am delighted to say we haven’t had to force people to eat what is good for them,’ says Franey, pointing out that Canuck screenings at the festival are always well attended.

However, the mystery continues regarding the disappearing audiences after the festival lights go down, as Franey is well aware.

Two years ago, VIFF’s non-profit society opened its own cinema, the VanCity Theatre, which it operates year-round, and Franey says that getting people in seats for Canadian films has proven difficult.

‘So while we are delighted that the festival audience is so enthusiastic for Canadian films, why doesn’t that translate to interest in the films the rest of the year?’ he asks.

Overall attendance at VIFF has hovered at the 150,000 mark for the past few years.

Franey says he doesn’t expect those numbers to increase – not because he doesn’t think the festival can entice new audiences, but due to theater capacity in the city.

‘Last year we lost our biggest house [the Vogue], and this is a trend in many cities,’ he says. ‘The big theaters are dying. We used to have numerous theaters with over 1,000 seats, and now the biggest one is 650.’

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