My experience at the Vancouver International Film Festival this year was terrific; 2014 is already an amazing year for world cinema, as far as I'm concerned. At VIFF I saw 54 feature-length films and 11 shorts. (That might seem like a lot, but there were more than 150 other feature films at VIFF that I did not see!) Kudos to the festival ( Read more... )

My favourite documentaries of 2012; most of these seen at DOXA or VIFF.

1. Marina Abramović: The Artist Is Present (dir. Matthew Akers). Completely engrossing portrait of performance artist Marina Abramović.

2. Street Dogs of South Central (dir. Bill Marin). Dramatic and engaging, this great little documentary brings us into the world of ( Read more... )

VIFF ended yesterday. Here’s a list of films I saw (and directors). My top ten are double-asterisked (top 5) or single-asterisked (6 to 10). I’m defining “short” as less than 20 minutes, “mid-length” as 20 to 60 minutes; everything else is a feature (61 minutes or more).

• Protektor | Protector | Marek Najbrt (Czech Rep.)


• Rewers | Reverse | Borys ( Read more... )

The VIFF 2010 Fact Sheet issued on September 8 contains a blatant contradiction. The first line says there are 359 films; the second line says there are 230 feature-length films and 150 films under 60 minutes. So is the total number of films 359, or 380 ( Read more... )

With the Vancouver International Film Festival beginning tomorrow, here is a list of the films playing there that I have already seen, with a brief comment. I may update this post later. Page numbers correspond to the official program book; descriptions and schedule are also on the guide at the VIFF web site.

▪ Windfall [p. 69] - Strongly ( Read more... )

I saw two different movies today with a scene of a girl brandishing a tennish racquet as a weapon - Son of the Sunshine and Pinprick.

Nice rainy Vancouver morning today for the beginning of VIFF.

In alphabetical order, the films I am most eager to see:

• Beetle Queen Conquers Tokyo: This documentary sounds awesome.
• Everyone Else: If this film by Maren Ade is half as good as her last film, The Forest for the Trees, it will make my top ten list for this year.
• Gigante: I tend to like ( Read more... )

As I Lay Dying: Sort of interesting, though I didn’t quite get it; were those supposed to be stigmata? 6

Escape: I found this boring. 3

Summer Afternoon: The basic concept of this short is unoriginal; the execution of the concept does occasionally show flair but the film is just too muddled. 5

The End of the Tunnel: The best of this group of ( Read more... )

When It Was Blue: A thoroughly engrossing film made by overlapping two 16mm films. The images are often recognizable, sometimes abstract, but never boring. I strongly recommend this; it plays again tonight (Friday) at 9:30. 9

Sheltered Life: I have seen a lot of boring films at VIFF this year, where all I could think of during the film was “when ( Read more... )

Bedroom Dancing: Kind of an interesting short, about a man arrested in Singapore for masturbating in front of his apartment window. Beyond that the story is kind of lacking. 6

Lucky 7: A Singaporean film in the form of an exquisite corpse. It sounded like an idea that might have worked well but probably not; I think maybe if Lars von Trier had ( Read more... )