Vancouver is a city of film festivals, but few of them are family-friendly. Not so with Reel 2 Real International Film Festival for Youth, which returns this month for an entire week of kid-centric programming. The festival opens with The Sun at Midnight, about an artsy city kid (Devery Jacobs) sent to live with her grandmother in the Northwest Territories; and closes with Louise by the Shore (France), an animated feature about a septuagenarian’s vigour for life. In between, there’s Play Your Gender, Kinnie Starr’s documentary about the gender gap in the music industry; Considering Love and Other Magic, in which a teen girl (Maddie Phillips) tries to help a boy (Ryan Grantham) who thinks he sprang to life from the pages of a short story; and Pat & Mat, a dialogue-free animated comedy from the Czech Republic. Also on the schedule: animation workshops, a Youth Media Conference, and an all-you-can-eat pancake breakfast. April 2-8 at VIFF Vancity Theatre and Roundhouse Community Centre. Tickets and schedule at 2017.r2rfestival.org.
It's not often that Telefilm Canada and the Canada Council for the Arts come together to support a film. But then again, Alexander Carson’s O, Brazen Age isn’t exactly an ordinary film. O, Brazen Age seeks to smash our expectations of what a Canadian indie film should look or sound like, combining experimental structures with traditional narrative as it follows a group of Toronto artists in their twenties. Critics and film fans lost their minds over the film when it premiered at VIFF 2015; now, O, Brazen Age enters limited-release territory via wholly unique “pop-up premieres” in six cities across the country. In Vancouver, the film will be preceded by craft beer plus live music from Terence Jack, and followed by a Q&A with the filmmaker. April 4 at VIFF Vancity Theatre. Tickets at viff.org.
