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VIFF continues to champion alternative cinema
by Robert Alstead
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The Corporation, sponsored by Common Ground, is one of the many films showing
at the 22nd Vancouver International Film Festival's 17-day event,
Sept. 25 to Oct. 10.
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Toronto may steal the international limelight, but The Vancouver International
Film Festival, which starts Sept. 25, is what film festivals should be about.
While big budget features clunk relentlessly off mthe production line with the
accompanying marketing blitz, VIFF takes risks, injects new ideas and uncovers
fresh talent with its two and half week flurry of diverse films.
It’s both heartening and stimulating for us as cinemagoers and a boost to
the creative life of our film industry. One would like to think that even if Vancouver
did go all-out commercial, that an alternative film festival would have no problem
popping up in its place, Not that VIFF director Alan Franey is considering a change
of direction.
"The more opposing, in the complementary sense of
the word, our agenda is from what the big business people do, the better. Because
they are controlling what’s on our screens for the rest of the year, the
film festival offers the chance for there to be other values to play on rather
than just the dollar," he says.
Although VIFF champions smaller films, it is big. Compared to Toronto’s
mere 10 days, Vancouver’s 17-day event (Sept. 25 to Oct. 10) is a marathon,
with 500 screenings of more than 300 films from more than 50 countries. The Dragons
and Tigers strand of East Asian films in the first week remains a major component
and there is a "bigger than ever" Canadian images section. Around a
fifth of films are documentaries, "the biggest non-fiction program of any
international festival," points out Franey.
So what to see? "I find it even hard to recommend films to my kith and kin,
because it’s largely a matter of taste," says Franey, who at the time
of writing is finalizing the program.
A good starting point would be The Corporation, sponsored by Common Ground, in
which documentarians Mark Achbar (Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the
Media) and Jennifer Abbott, dissect this pervasive power model through interviews
with CEOs and social commentators like Noam Chomsky, Michael Moore and Naomi Klein.
Carma Hinton’s Morning Sun, a documentary on China’s cultural revolution
(1966-76), also stands out. "This is more or less a definitive film on the
cultural revolution," says Franey, "an amazing piece of scholarship."
Among directors returning to VIFF this year is Germany’s Christian Petzold
bringing Wolfsburg. "I don’t want to give away too much," says
Franey. "It’s a hit-and-run story. But it’s the way it’s
told; it’s got such strong, formal control. It’s just masterful filmmaking."
Australian director Sue Brooks (Road to Hill) is back with Japanese Story starring
Toni Colette. "It took everyone in Cannes by surprise," says Franey.
"It’s kind of a two-hander between a Japanese man and this woman who
set off to the outback and surprising things happen."
Czech director Jan Hrebejk, who made VIFF audience award-winner Divided We Fall,
returns with Pupendo, a drama set behind the Iron Curtain.
One Franey expects to be popular, shares the name of this magazine. Adolfo Aristarain’s
Common Ground is a contemporary drama about a professor in Buenos Aires who after
being forced into early retirement finds his place in life in the country. "It’s
such a mature, intelligent, soulful sort of film," says Franey.
Fans of maverick John Sayles (Limbo, Sunshine State), can catch his latest Casa
de Los Babys, about American mothers who adopt children in Mexico. Patrice ChÄreau
(La Reine Margot, Intimacy) brings Son Frere, "an unsparing account of two
brothers, one of whom is on his death bed and the other who is taking care of
him."
The war in Iraq is too recent to be covered, but VIFF addresses US global agendas.
Return of the Khan looks at Afghanistan through the eyes of a returning Afghani
intellectual. Baghdad On-off, which, unusually is made by Iraqis, furtively documents
the deplorable conditions in Saddam’s capital before the war. Forget Baghdad:
Jews and Arabs The Iraqi Connection, is a Swiss documentary looking at the cultural
dislocation of Iraqi Jews who immigrated to Israel after the founding of the Jewish
state ("quite amazing", says Franey).
The big-budget El Alamein In the Line Of Fire dramatizes the Italian experience
of being caught in the middle of the pivotal WW II battle in North Africa. "It’s
more psychologically interesting then most war films," says Franey. "Not
heroic in its depiction."
As well as a slew of music docs, particularly Latin-flavored, there is comedy
with Day of Wacko from Poland ("a mordant, quotidian humor, I think people
will respond to"), Jagoda In the Supermarket which was a big hit in its home
Serbia and a curious piece called Peter Sellers Story - As He Filmed It compiled
from his 16mm home movies.
Plenty of reasons for hitting the cinemas.
The Vancouver International Film Festival web site is at www.viff.org.
For reviews and news from VIFF and the Trade Forum visit www.iofilm.ca.
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