This past year has held some bleak moments for the BC film industry. For a while there, it seemed like every other production was pulling up stakes and touching down wherever the tax credits were friendlier (although good news! filming is slowly picking up again).
But even when the BC film industry was down, it wasn't out. During the darkest moments, local filmmakers were hard at work producing quality cinematic fare.
It's a powerful message that echoes through the Vancouver International Film Festival's schedule, and it's why VIFF is serving up a feast of BC-made films this year under it's BC Spotlight banner.
This spotlight was no accident. VIFF's Canadian Images programmer Terry McEvoy had been motivated by the Save BC Film campaign to take a closer look at what BC filmmakers were cooking up in the current climate. McEvoy's original intent was to program six BC films, but the final tally — twelve — represents the endurance of the film community.
"We've got extremely talented people in every department here, so these people, lacking the service production that softened a little bit in the last couple of years, have found ways to express themselves on low budget productions that are borne and bred in BC," says McEvoy.
VIFF's BC filmmakers might create their films in the same rainy province, but that's about all that unites them. "It's amazing to me that these people are breathing the same air and drinking the same water, because the range of things that we have, from socio-political documentaries to lighthearted comedies to gripping dramas, is huge," says McEvoy.
And VIFF didn't lower any bars in order to include the lucky twelve, according to McEvoy. "We were more inclusive and looked at everything with a new light, but any one of these films will stand up across the country," in different ways.
The BC Spotlight features 3 Days in Havana; Chi, Anne Wheeler's documentary about the final stages of actress Babz Chula's cancer battle; Cinemanovels; The Dick Knost Show; Down River, a drama based on the impact of Chula's death on her community; From Neurons to Nirvana; Hue: A Matter of Colour; Lawrence & Holloman; teen dance competition mockumentary Leap 4 Your Life (which won a red carpet screening via VIFF's #mustseeBC contest); Oil Sands Karaoke; Salmon Confidential; and That Burning Feeling, a romantic comedy revolving around a man who contracts an STD.
Beyond the screenings, VIFF is celebrating BC filmmakers with two cash awards: $7,500 to an emerging filmmaker, and $10,000 to the producer of the best narrative film. The awards will be handed out at an industry gala on October 5. "My fondest hope is that two people get together [at that gala] that wouldn't have otherwise met, and then they go on to make another great project in BC," says McEvoy.
Find the complete festival schedule at VIFF.org.
