The Vancouver International Film Festival Society has undergone a leadership transition in its 33rd year, naming Jacqueline Dupuis as executive director.
Dupuis replaces Alan Franey, who announced he would step aside at the close of last year’s festival, and has served as CEO and festival director for the past 26 years. Franey will remain involved with the festival as director of programming, and Dupuis, who joined VIFF two years ago, will now be focused on the leadership of the entire organization.
"We're so thrilled to continue to work with Alan in that role to keep the artistic core and spirit of the festival in tact," Dupuis told WE Vancouver in a phone interview. "The challenge for the organization and the reason that I'm here, is that, when we moved into the film centre in 2005, the organization had grown beyond [its] capacity, and Alan identified that he wanted to focus more specifically on programming, not running the operations of the overarching society."
The not-for-profit VIFF Society produces year-round programming at the Vancouver International Film Centre in addition to the 16-day International Film Festival and the four-day VIFF Industry Conference each fall. The society employs more than 100 staff and 750 volunteers in BC, with an annual operating budget of approximately $5 million.
By handing the controls to Dupuis, the society is anticipating changes in its focus and direction.
"It's an interesting time for screen-based storytelling because we're seeing so much crossover from content creators, from film to television, to web content and back and forth," explained Dupuis. "We're looking at, 'What does this one-screen world potentially mean?' And, 'How do we find ways to incorporate those various platforms into our festival's year-round programming, and also our industry measures?'"
Prior to joining VIFF, Dupuis served as the executive of director of the Calgary International Film Festival (CIFF), where she headed up CIFF's first-ever strategic planning initiative, which resulted in the financial turnaround of the organization.
Once a strategic planning process is completed for VIFF later this year, the society is expected to roll out a vision that will keep pace with advances in viewing habits, technology, and content creation.
"I see us potentially exploring how we can celebrate excellence in storytelling, which we already do so well for film with the film festival," said Dupuis. "An example of that is the event that we had last year which featured a screening of one of creator Vince Gilligan's favorite episodes of Breaking Bad, followed by an up close and in-person conversation with Vince himself just two days before the season finale. That was a really great profile piece for the local industry, because Vince got his start in TV right here in Vancouver working on X-Files. It also gave us the opportunity to test out content that was developed for a small screen on the big screen, and how that experience differs."
Since joining the organization, Dupuis has most notably launched VIFF's BC Spotlight program, which featured 12 BC-made feature films, a dedicated marketing campaign, and slate of awards in 2013, resulting in the highest attended series in the history of the festival.
"In terms of economic impact, nine or 10 of those films went on to receive theatrical releases," she added.
Actor Tom Scholte as the titular sportscaster in The Dick Knost Show. The film was presented with VIFF's inaugural Best BC Film award at a gala on Oct. 5.
Moving forward, Dupuis will be focusing her immediate efforts on the festival's industry engagement, starting with rebranding the VIFF Film & Television Forum to VIFF Industry.
"Our goal is to make the society not only a cultural beacon of cinematic intrigue but also a leader in industry and the business behind entertainment," said VIFF Society board chairman David Hewitt in a press release.
This year’s forum will see more industry guests and speakers from LA, and will expand its focus from film and television to broad-based screen entertainment, in recognition of Vancouver's status as the third-largest production centre in North America, and the city's growing visual effects, animation and gaming industries
"The industry here has been so busy and madly growing, as we've been growing, and there hasn't been an opportunity to meaningfully sort out how the two align," said Dupuis. "Some people say, 'Why is that important?' But I think it's common for an organization like ours to thrive alongside industry and vice versa. The two are usually not mutually exclusive. I hate to bring up the T-word, but TIFF [the Toronto International Film Festival] and the Ontario film industry are a shining example of this. Together they generate significant cultural and economic impact for the province of Ontario."
The society's mandate is partly to stimulate the motion picture industry in BC and Canada. To explore that role, it will undergo an economic impact study this year, in partnership with Tourism Vancouver, which Dupuis says would be one of the first for an arts and culture organization like VIFF in BC.
"I'm very passionate about the business of the arts," she said, "and we're really interested to better understand the business case of the festival. Certainly not to detract from the artistic value and the importance of arts and culture, but it's important to understand the economic impact on the city, as well as the economic opportunity that the organization represents for screen-based industry. We know it is significant, but we want to know specifically how significant it is."
VIFF runs from Sept. 25-Oct. 10.
