Cool is in the eye of the beholder, but the Whistler Film Festival (WFF) – which bills itself as “Canada’s coolest film festival” – delivers the cool on multiple fronts.
First, there’s the basic definition of cool. WFF runs Dec. 2-6, and Whistler in December is usually pretty damn cold, so barring any El Niño action, it’s likely that anyone attending the 15th edition of WFF will need to bundle up in winter finery.
But there’s also that other definition of cool that involves being relevant, staying one step ahead of the game, and blazing a trail for others to follow – and with a program packed with Oscar bait, indie fare, and quirky gems you won’t see anywhere else, WFF is, at 15, the picture of cool.
First, the numbers: 89 films from 19 countries, including 46 features and 43 shorts, exhibited on seven screens at five venues over five days. That includes 17 world premieres, 12 Canadian premieres, 5 North American premieres, 25 Westender Canadian premieres, and 21 British Columbia premieres.
“This little film fest is not so little,” says WFF’s Director or Programming Paul Gratton at a WFF media preview lunch in Vancouver last week.
WFF opens with the Canadian premiere of Carol, Todd Haynes’ acclaimed drama of forbidden lesbian love set in the 1950s. The film stars Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara (who took home the Best Actress award at Cannes Film Festival) and is already garnering Oscar buzz – and the fact that the film is having its Canadian premiere at WFF is an incredible endorsement for the festival, says Gratton.
Other films making a stop at WFF on the road to Oscar include Trumbo (starring the eternally cool Bryan Cranston as blacklisted screenwriter Dalton Trumbo), and Legend, in which Tom Hardy offers up a couple of tour-de-force performances as twin mobsters in 1960s London.
There’s also critical buzz for The Lady in the Van (starring Maggie Smith), Born to be Blue (featuring Ethan Hawke as Chet Baker in what Gratton describes as a “jazz riff” on a biographical tale), Maggie’s Plan (with Julianne Moore), The Meddler (with Susan Sarandon), and The Legend of Barney Thomson (in which Emma Thompson is directed by Robert Carlyle).
The fest closes on Dec. 6 with Numb, the highly anticipated feature film debut from Vancouver director Jason R. Goode. Numb – which features Jamie Bamber (NCIS), Marie Avgeropoulos (The 100), Aleks Paunovic (iZombie), and Stefanie von Pfetten (Cracked) in a modern-day gold rush survival tale – is the perfect closer for WFF because, according to Gratton, it represents the festival’s ongoing commitment to heralding local talent (and it doesn’t get much cooler than that).
“I think we’re the most fiercely Canadian film fest in Canada, “ says Gratton. “More than 50% of our titles are Canadian, and I think the opening and closing films should reflect our two tracks: Oscar-bait movies and Canadian titles.”
Other highlights include Ingrid Veninger’s He Hated Pigeons, which will be presented with a live score to create a one-of-a-kind movie-going experience; the 30th Anniversary screening of Sandy Wilson’s My American Cousin; Nestor, the singular effort from Canadian director Daniel Robinson (“singular” because no other individual besides Robinson was involved in the creation of the film); Rehearsal, a world premiere from WFF veteran Carl Bessai (director of last year’s Canuxploitation flick Bad City); Norwegian disaster film The Wave (“As good as San Andreas but had a budget of $5 million,” says Gratton. “I’m hoping it will scare the shit out of everybody”); and When Elephants Were Young, a documentary about the controversial elephant business world narrated by Star Trek’s captain of cool, William Shatner.
WFF runs Dec. 2-6 at venues around Whistler. Find tickets and scheduling information at www.whistlerfilmfestival.com.
