TIFF might have the glamour of Hollywood stars and starlets ambling down red carpets, but VIFF can boast more Canadian titles.

The 21st Vancouver International Film Festival, running Sept. 26 to Oct. 11, will screen 104 Canadian films, with the highly anticipated family drama Flower & Garnet, starring Callum Keith Rennie and directed by Keith Behrman (Ernest), opening the Canadian Images program. Canadian Images will screen 29 features, five ‘mid-lengths’ and 62 shorts. Canadian films also figure in four Special Presentations and one Gala, with three more Canuck works popping up in other fest programs.

This year will be the festival’s most expansive to date, with 302 films from 50 countries being presented in more than 500 screenings, up from 440 last year. The increase has been made possible by the addition of the Granville 7 multiplex to the list of VIFF venues. VIFF has announced plans to open its own Vancouver International Film Centre in the fall of 2004.

The opening-night film is 8 Femmes, French director Francois Ozon’s fusion of an Agatha Christie-style murder yarn with musical numbers and the florid melodrama of 1950s filmmaker Douglas Sirk (Written on the Wind), starring Catherine Deneuve and Isabelle Huppert. The ghost of Sirk arises again in Closing Gala Far From Heaven, a much-hyped 1950s suburban melodrama directed by Todd Haynes (Velvet Goldmine) and starring Julianne Moore and Dennis Quaid. The Anniversary Gala spot is occupied by Bollywood/Hollywood, Toronto director Deepa Mehta’s romantic comedy that sends up both Indian and Tinsel Town cinema, starring Rahul Khanna, Jessica Pare and Lisa Ray.

Other programming sections this year include: Cinema of Our Time, focusing on international new cinema; Dragons and Tigers: The Cinema of East Asia; Spotlight on France; and Walk on the Wild Side, a midnight series of ‘out there’ movies.

Speaking of out there, Dracula: Pages from a Virgin’s Diary, a filmed dance interpretation of the Dark Prince performed by the Royal Winnipeg Ballet and directed by esoteric Manitoban Guy Maddin (The Heart of the World), will screen as a Special Presentation. This program also features perhaps the two most eagerly awaited Canadian films of the year, David Cronenberg’s Spider and Atom Egoyan’s Ararat. Between Strangers, an Italy/Canada copro shot in Toronto, directed by Edoardo Ponti and starring his mother, Sophia Loren, rounds out the series.

VIFF 2002 has peered in the vault and come up with a couple of notable Canadian archival screenings: Madeleine Is… (1971), the first Canuck feature directed by a woman, Sylvia Spring, and A Tout Prendre, the New Wave-ish 1963 Claude Jutra feature that some believe put Canadian cinema on the map. The latter will be screened along with Claude Jutra: An Unfinished Story, a new doc about the late great Quebec filmmaker, directed by Paule Baillargeon.

VIFF reports its largest Nonfiction Features program ever, with more than 50 docs scheduled, an indication of how the exorbitant cost of shooting drama is making docs more attractive to filmmakers. Canadian Images features docs as well, including the world premiere of Oliver Hockenhull’s EVO. Docs also figure significantly in this year’s Trade Forum activities, with sessions addressing doc pitching, what broadcasters want in docs, and creative approaches to doc production.

The National Film Board, which has four docs and five animated shorts screening, will present its eleventh annual award for best international documentary feature. The Canuck docs Fix: The Story of an Addicted City, directed by Nettie Wild, and Gambling, Gods and LSD by Peter Mettler number among the 11 films eligible for this prize.

Trade Forum

The 17th annual Film & Television Trade Forum will take place at the Rogers Industry Centre at the Roundhouse Community Centre, Sept. 25-27. The Trade Forum assembles international industry players who will address developments in global film, TV and new media production. Subjects to be discussed include funding through public and private sources for Canadian productions of varying size, the state of international distribution and coproduction and in particular the advantages of coproducing with South Africa and Ireland.

The craft of filmmaking will also be dissected in sessions about directing, script adaptation, first screenplays, TV writing, voice-over work and music composing. The growing relationship between games, interactivity and storytelling will also be examined by a couple of panels. New Filmmakers Day, on Sept. 28, will offer sessions on the creative process and financing of features in the $750,000 range, using Guy Bennett’s feature Punch, which is also screening, as a case study.

The Telefilm Canada International Tete-a-Tetes are working sessions organized by VIFF that facilitate the development of Canuck copros. Projects that will be addressed were submitted to VIFF in the summer.

A new announcement this year concerns the establishment of the $12,000 Citytv Western Canada Screenwriter’s Award. VIFF 2002 will screen 44 films from Western Canada, seven of which are eligible for this prize: The Burial Society (Nicholas Racz), Flower & Garnet (Keith Behrman), Long Life, Happiness and Prosperity (Mina Shum, Dennis Foon), The Nature of Nicholas (Jeffery Erbach), Punch (Guy Bennett), Saint Monica (Terrance Odette) and Various Positions (Ori Kowarsky).

The screenwriting prize joins the Telefilm Canada Awards, which consist of a $5,000 prize for the best emerging feature film director from the Western provinces and a $4,000 prize for the best emerging short or mid-length film director from the Western provinces. The festival jury will select both winners.

Other awards include: The Air Canada People’s Choice Award for most popular film, the Federal Express Award for most popular Canadian film, The Chief Dan George Humanitarian Award and The Dragons & Tigers Award for young cinema. The Awards Ceremony takes place on the fest’s final day.

Virtual VIFF is up and running at www.viff.org, providing online scheduling info and news updates.