The West Coast filmmaking community swayed to the rhythms of Aboriginal drummers and dancers at the famed Vancouver Aquarium as the 27th edition of the Vancouver International Film Festival kicked off Thursday night.

While the audience’s response to the opening night gala film Blindness was ‘restrained,’ according to Don McKellar, the film’s writer and co-star, everyone was full of praise for the festival itself.

‘I always like going to VIFF,’ said McKellar. ‘You can really see films while you’re here.’

That sentiment was echoed by Charles Martin Smith, the director of Stone of Destiny, which will open the Canadian Images series Friday at 7 p.m. Smith, who won international acclaim as a star of George Lucas’ 1973 classic American Graffiti, moved from L.A. to Vancouver two decades ago. He admits to loving ‘the informality’ of the festival and the city — surely a sharp contrast to Hollywood and Toronto.

Criss-crossing through Vancouver’s cultural crowd munching sushi and drinking wine — dressed in everything from late hippie attire to formal black tie, with nary a roped off celebrity section in sight — is clearly a different experience from the ones offered at TIFF, and a credit to VIFF executive director Alan Franey’s more egalitarian approach.

As for Blindness, no applause was heard as the closing credits rolled. Barbara Willis Sweete, a founder of Rhombus Media, the Canadian coproducers of the apocalyptic drama made with Brazil and Japan, attributed the reaction to the fact that an older version of the twice-recut film was screened.

‘Danny Glover’s narration has been cut out now, and I think that’s a good thing which has improved the film,’ said Sweete. McKellar agrees that the removal of Glover’s voice as an omniscient prophet has strengthened Blindness, making the overall impact more ambiguous and hopeful.

Still, doubts remain. One Vancouver filmmaker, speaking on condition of anonymity, opined that ‘the film was horrible — but so was the book. This is a downer for an opening night gala.’

Far more constrained and thoughtful was Vancouver’s award-winning documentary filmmaker and poet Colin Browne, who observed that ‘the film wobbles between allegory and story. It’s an honorably fashioned treatment of a Nobel Prize winner’s most famous novel.’