To paraphrase that über-popular fantasy franchise about dragons and thrones: the 2015 Vancouver International Film Festival is coming.
Over the last several weeks, VIFF has rolled out some announcements regarding its international offerings (like the showcase of films from the Cannes Film Festival featuring Palme d’Or winner Dheepan from Jacques Audiard, and The Assassin, which won Taiwanese auteur Hou Hsiao-Hsien a Best Director prize), but VIFF – which will screen more than 300 films between Sept. 24 and Oct. 9 – has waited until now to reveal its highly anticipated BC Spotlight slate.
Launched in 2013, the BC Spotlight has earned the highest attendance ratings in VIFF’s history.
The 11 feature films in the 2015 edition of the BC Spotlight represent an array of genres, styles, and POVS, with every film born or bred within the borders of British Columbia.
Watch for the world premieres of Jordan Paterson's Tricks on the Dead: The Story of the Chinese Labour Corps in WWI, Done Four Productions' Charlotte's Song, the North American premiere of Connor Gaston’s The Devout, and the Canadian premieres of Kyle Rideout’s Eadweard and Nicolas Citton's My Good Man's Gone.
The program also features the latest work from Mina Shum (Double Happiness), who returns to VIFF with her first documentary: Ninth Floor, an examination of 1969’s Sir George Williams Affair. Mark Sawers’ satirical mockumentary No Men Beyond This Point introduces viewers to a speculative world in which males face extinction. Charles Wilkinson’s Haida Gwaii: On the Edge of the World, which scored Best Canadian Feature Documentary at Hot Docs this spring, details the Haida Nation’s past travails and plans for a sustainable future.
Here’s the complete list of BC Spotlight films (with write-ups direct from the official press release):
Charlotte’s Song
(Done Four Productions) World Premiere
Think Pan's Labyrinth meets Carnivale and you'll still be unprepared for this astonishing debut from Done Four Productions. In this Dust Bowl-era reimagining of The Little Mermaid, an amphibious siren (Katelyn Mager) falls prey to a nefarious benefactor (Game of Thrones' Iwan Rheon) and ends up in a magical turf war. Sumptuous production design and sinister storytelling conjure a seductive fantasy world.
The Devout
(Connor Gaston) North American Premiere
After his terminally ill daughter (Olivia Martin) claims to have had a past life as an astronaut, a Christian teacher (Charlie Carrick) experiences a profound crisis of faith. Obsessively seeking answers, he risks his marriage and his remaining days with his child to determine whether she’s lived before... and might live again. Reflective and provocative, Connor Gaston’s debut is one of the year’s most unique Canadian features.
Eadweard
(Kyle Rideout) Canadian Premiere
With a mesmerizing Michael Eklund starring as photographer Eadweard Muybridge, Kyle Rideout crafts a complex and compelling portrait of the man who'd be immortalized as both the godfather of cinema and the last American to receive a justifiable homicide verdict (for killing his wife's lover). As fascinations distort into obsessions, Rideout skilfully employs techniques indebted to the infamous pioneer to convey Muybridge's psychological unravelling.
Fractured Land
(Damien Gillis, Fiona Rayher)
What would it be like to live alongside one of the shapers of human events, in their youth, before they transformed history? In Fiona Rayher and Damien Gillis’ documentary, we follow Caleb Behn, a young Dene lawyer locked in a battle with oil and gas industry. He may become one of this generation’s great leaders, if he can discover how to reconcile the fractures within himself, his community and the world around him, blending modern tools of the law with ancient wisdom.
Hadwin’s Judgement
(Sasha Snow)
In his compelling drama/documentary hybrid, Sasha Snow explores the complexities of Grant Hadwin, a logging engineer who chainsawed down a 300-year-old sacred tree on Haida Gwaii as a protest against rampant logging in the area. Inspired by John Vaillant’s Governor General Award-winning book, The Golden Spruce, Snow focusses on the more mysterious elements of Hadwin's story and fate, crafting “[a] gorgeously photographed, compulsively watchable, sympathetic doc...”--Globe & Mail
Haida Gwaii: On the Edge of the World
(Charles Wilkinson)
VIFF favourite Charles Wilkinson (Oil Sands Karaoke) returns with a visually stunning paean to breathtaking Haida Gwaii and the spirited people who populate it. The natural beauty of this culturally rich archipelago has served as a backdrop for tragedies such as outbreaks of smallpox and the exploitation of natural resources. And yet, the Haida Nation remains undaunted, preparing for a showdown over the Northern Gateway pipeline and planning for a more sustainable future. Best Canadian Feature Documentary, Hot Docs 15
My Good Man’s Gone
(Nicolas Citton) Canadian Premiere
Arriving in Story, Arkansas (pop. 89), Joni and Wes realize they're not in L.A. anymore. There to settle their estranged father's estate, they've arrived on Decoration Weekend, when locals celebrate their dearly departed. As a clearer picture of their father emerges, decisions become less obvious. This affecting dramedy from Nicolas Citton (That Burning Feeling's screenwriter) is a bittersweet celebration of community and family.
Ninth Floor
(Mina Shum)
Over four decades after the infamous Sir George Williams Affair was sparked by allegations of faculty discrimination against black students, Ninth Floor reopens the file on a watershed moment in Canadian race relations and one of the most contested episodes in the nation’s history. Making an audacious foray into nonfiction, writer and director Mina Shum (Double Happiness) engages the original protagonists in a compassionate cinematic exercise of reckoning and redemption.
No Men Beyond This Point
(Mark Sawers)
In a world where women procreate asexually, male babies have become passé and an entire gender faces extinction... What's a guy to do? Well, the youngest man alive (Patrick Gilmore), who toils as a housekeeper for a West Vancouver all-female family, is unaware that he's about to become a key player in a battle for survival. Camera Shy's Mark Sawers is at the height of his satirical powers with this hilarious speculative mockumentary.
The Sandwich Nazi
(Lewis Bennett)
If you can't take the nudity and coarse language, stay out of Salam Kahil's deli. The moment Lewis Bennett's fascinating documentary takes us inside the shop, the hilariously crass Salam lets fly with a barrage of profane insults and ribald anecdotes. As he rewrites his own history on a whim, we're left to wonder how an irascible Lebanese male escort actually ended up in Surrey serving the largest sandwiches known to man. With humour and humanity, Bennett unearths the truth.
Tricks on the Dead: The Story of the Chinese Labour Corps in WWI
(Jordan Paterson) World Premiere
Jordan Paterson's involving docudrama delves into a little known chapter of Canadian history. During World War I, 140,000 indentured Chinese labourers were secretly transported from Vancouver to Halifax in locked trains and then shipped to the Western Front to dig trenches and clear the dead. Through intrepid research, interviews, rotoscoped animation and re-enactments, Paterson backs Voltaire’s assertion that “history is nothing but a pack of tricks we play upon the dead.”
VIFF will handout two awards as part of its BC Spotlight program: The Best BC Film award, which includes a $10,000 development bursary provided by the Harold Greenberg Fund plus $15,000 of post-production services from Encore Vancouver; and the BC Emerging Filmmaker award, which consists of a $7,500 cash prize sponsored by the Union of BC Performers and ACTRA Fraternal Benefits Society, as well as a $10,000 equipment credit supplied by William F. White. Winners will be determined by the members of the BC Spotlight jury and announced at an awards ceremony on Oct. 3.
Traditionally, the dedicated mustseebc.viff.org promotional microsite receives over 10,000 unique visitors in the two weeks preceding the festival, while the #mustseebc campaign generates over 100,000 social media impressions.
Additional films will be announced on a weekly basis, with the full festival program revealed on Sept. 3.
And before you plan your VIFF journey, a final word from your friends here at Reel People: VIFF is big – expansive and engrossing and, perhaps, a little bit intimidating, especially to the newbie –but we’ll be there for you before and during, with previews, interviews, reviews, and red carpet coverage.
