It is the last of three large film festivals in Canada, yet the Vancouver International Film Festival still manages to showcase a substantial number of premieres.

Last year viff featured around 100 premieres that did not play in the Montreal or Toronto festival venues, and this year will be no exception, with around 10 world premieres, 20 international, 20 North American and 45 English Canada debuts.

One event that is stirring up excitement at the 16th annual viff, running Sept. 26 to Oct. 12, is the world premiere of Japanese director Ishii Sogo’s performance piece Mach 1.67, which festival director Alan Franey says is an unprecedented event in the history of film festivals.

Sogo, who has been tagged a leader in Japanese new wave, applies the same principles to his performance of film that a disc jockey would apply to a live club setting, only where they mix records together he is mixing his films. Four projectors will run simultaneously while live music spins in the background.

Another of Sogo’s works, Labyrinth of Dreams, is currently on the festival circuit. According to Franey, viff has shown all of the Japanese directors films to phenomenal success.

Making its international debut is Waco: The Rules of Engagement by American director William Gazecki, who has never had a film at viff before.

Examining the siege at Waco and the American Congressional hearings, the 35mm film is presently causing a sensation in the u.s. Plenty of the footage coming from C-Span broadcasts and overhead spy satellites taking thermal photographs of the siege supply what Franey describes to be some amazing imagery.

Playing in North America for the first time at viff, but already a hit in its home of Sweden, director Christer Engberg’s film Wild Angel can be best described as the Scandinavian version of The Commitments.

As for Canadian firsts, inaugural films from Vancouver filmmakers Stacy Kirk and Mark Tuit will be making world premieres at viff.

Kirk’s Barbecue: A Love Story is about ‘an unlucky man trapped in an endless cycle of attraction, pleasure, betrayal and dissatisfaction,’ while Barnone is a Gen-x comedy examining the trials and tribulations in the lives of four different barkeeps.

According to Franey, viff shows all the good local work and serves a role to celebrate the Western Canadian film community. ‘We don’t privilege it to the extent that we underrepresent the rest of the country, but we do consider it important to our mandate.’

When Franey took over as director 10 years ago, Canadian Images was not one of the most popular sections of the festival, whereas today it is among the best received, best attended and most discussed.

Other programs in the festival lineup include: Nonfiction Features; Cinema of our Time, the general international section; Walk on the Wild Side, the midnight selections; The Best of Britain; and Dragons and Tigers: The Cinemas of East Asia, the largest program of east Asian films anywhere in the Western hemisphere.

Banned in China, Zhang Yuan’s East Palace, West Palace and Frozen by Wu Min (Chinese for no name) will be making North American premieres at viff.

In addition to the usual programs, this year cinephiles will have the opportunity to experience special sections including films under the banners Spotlight on France, A Season in Brazil, Pre-Millennial Tension and Red Hollywood.

Featuring 15 titles including Genealogies of a Crime and Three Lives and Only One Death, by French director Raul Ruiz who will be in attendance, Spotlight on France will explore the heritage of French cinema.

A Season in Brazil will show five current films drawing attention to the resurgence of Brazilian cinema, one of which will be Bruno Barreto’s Four Days in September.

Pre-Millennial Tension is a sociological and historical look at the British films of post World War II while Red Hollywood recognizes the 50th anniversary of the beginning of the McCarthy era and the Hollywood blacklist. Red Hollywood is a tribute to veteran director/screenwriter Abraham Polonsky who Franey considers ‘the greatest talent injured by the blacklist.’

Attendance for this year’s festival is expected to be around 130,000. Says Franey: ‘It is important for people to understand that we have three-quarters of the distributors operating in English North America – excluding the majors – here in attendance looking at films for potential acquisitions.’