Vancouver: The 19th annual Vancouver International Film Festival was an ‘up-side/down-side’ year, says director Alan Franey.

Compressed from 17 days to 14 days, the festival dropped in attendance and box office revenues, he says. On the ‘up’ side, the addition of the new Tinseltown theatre meant viff could show up to 39 separate screenings on one day. The festival showcased 200 features and 102 short films and wrapped Oct. 7.

Calgary director Gary Burns was the festival’s big winner, taking the most popular Canadian film award and best Western Canadian screenplay for waydowntown. Runner-up for most popular Canadian film was Life’s Evening Hour, a documentary about blind photographer John Dugdale by Ontario director Karen Murray. b.c. features in the honorable mention category include We All Fall Down (Martin Cummins) and Here’s to Life (Arne Olsen).

The general most popular film award went to Divided We Fall by Czech Republic director Jan Hrebejk. No Canadian film ranked in the top-30 most popular film.

Vancouverite Ross Weber took home the award for best emerging director from Western Canada for his debut feature No More Monkeys Jumpin’ on the Bed.

Filmmaker Simon Capet won best emerging director of a short film from Western Canada for his period piece Evirati.

Local film Protection by director Bruce Spangler and producer Erik Paulsson was the focus of the always popular New Filmmakers’ Day. *