I know that VIFF ended over two months ago, but I lacked the drive to write for a long time. Since we’ve passed Christmas, I figured it’s enough wasting time and to get out the wrap-up blog.

Last year, the Vancouver International Film Festival ended the Sunday before Canadian Thanksgiving. This year, they end on Sunday October 6th: a week before Canadian Thanksgiving. Still, it was an excellent 11 days of cinema. Yes, there was the continuation of downsizing for the festival. There were less than half the number of films there were in past Festivals before the pandemic. The church that used to be the Centre In Vancouver For Performing Arts was not available this year as it has been in past years. Despite that, most facilities that had been available for the VIFF in past years were available again. VIFF also continued to showcase digital films and digital arts as it’s fast becoming a growing art form. The common cinematic films still remained the highlight of the Festival and there were excellent turn outs. There were sellout shows and repeat screenings for many films. I’ll explain more when I talk about my volunteering experience.

For this year, I was only lucky to see twelve films. I still had my goals of watching a shorts segment, a Canadian feature-length film and a Best International Feature Film Oscar contender. I was able to accomplish all three. I often want to go above and beyond it but it didn’t work out. I didn’t have as much free time during VIFF as I normally do. Outside of Monday September 30th that was a national holiday, there weren’t any regular weekdays when I could see films at any time. Another problem was not as many films had a 9:30 start time on the weekdays that’s often the best bet for me. Despite those setbacks, I did make it work. Twelve is the same number of films I saw last year. There were at least two days when I saw three films. Yes, I have a habit of cramming. Actually there were three days I saw three films but one was a day I saw a single one by choice and the other two as an usher.

For volunteering, I worked ushering at the International Village again. The crazy thing about this year is there were a lot of changes in set-up. In the past, there would be a ticket purchase booth at ground level, line control and organizing for the three cinemas on the second and the cinemas on the third floor. This year there was no booth on the main floor, lines were still on the second but ticket purchase was on the third floor just outside the theatre entrance. Even the volunteer meeting room changed. In the past, it was in a room past the theatre admission area. This year it was moved to an area just outside the main entrance. It was a lot of getting used to and sometimes a discomfort. I volunteered for three days.

The first two shifts took place the evening of the first Saturday (September 28th) and the Sunday afternoon the following day. For those two days, they were mostly to do with line control and supervising the Platinum Pass lounge. In both cases, I didn’t have the luck of seeing films. It was after that Sunday afternoon shift completed that I went to see two films after. On Saturday, October 5th, I had the luck of being able to see an Altered States film before I could start my third and last volunteer shift. With it being my last shift for the year, I had the luck of being an usher and seeing two films in the theatre. Both were documentaries.

With only nine films seen before the last day of the Festival (Sunday October 6th), I made the final day my catch-up day. There would be two films I wanted to see but would not be guaranteed a seat because their tickets sold out: the Latvian animated film Flow and the Farsi-language Canadian film Universal Language. I first took a gamble with Flow by being in the standby line-up 45 minutes in advance. After waiting and waiting, I was able to get in. I got in ten minutes after it began. It was that high in demand and it was one of the few films at VIFF open to all ages. I saw it and enjoyed it. Also I wasn’t too disappointed with coming in late because I would later have the luck of seeing it in its entirety at the VIFF volunteer party held a week later! For the rest of the day before attempting to see Universal Language, I tried making judgments of what else to see and when. I saw the Marlina film in between that time and then went back to the International Village to be early enough to see Universal Language. While the gamble with Flow paid off, the gamble with Universal Language didn’t. Being only second in the standby line did not assure me a seat. So with limited time and distance left, I rushed over to the Queen Elizabeth Theatre Warehouse to see The End. Although I wasn’t happy with The End, I was glad to see the last film of VIFF 2024 to complete itself.

For those that want a list of the films I saw at VIFF 2024, here they are in the order I saw them in:

• Bird
• Balomania
• Short Segment: Forum 3
• There, There
• The Piano Lesson
• Paying For It
• Frewaka
• The Thinking Game
• Luther: Never Too Much
• Flow
• Marlina The Murderer
• The End

Now some of you may want to know which films are the award winners. There were six juried award winners and nine people’s choice award winners. Interesting for this year, they changed the names of the juried categories! Descriptions of the awards are with the named categories:

JURIED AWARD WINNERS

SUMMIT Award
for outstanding narrative feature by an established Canadian director:
–Universal Language (dir. Matthew Rankin)

HORIZON Award
for outstanding first or second feature by a Canadian filmmaker:
–Mongrels (dir. George Yoo)

TIDES Award
for outstanding documentary feature by a Canadian filmmaker:
–Ninan Auassat: We, The Children (dir. Kim O’Bomsawin)

ARBUTUS Award
for outstanding feature film production in BC:
–Inay (Mama) (dir. Thea Loo)

SHORT FORUM Award
open to all short films in the Short Forums
–Strawberry Shortcake (dir. Deborah Devyn Chuang)

VANGUARD Award
open to all feature films in VIFF’s Vanguard section
–78 Days (dir. Emilija Gasic)

AUDIENCE AWARDS

Galas and Special Presentations
–I’m Still Here (dir. Walter Salles)

Showcase
–No Other Land (dirs. Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal, Yuval Abraham & Rachel Szor)

Panorama
–Angela’s Shadow (dir. Jules Arita Koostachin)

Vanguard
–Red Path (dir. Lotfi Achour)

Northern Lights
–The Stand (dir. Christopher Auchter)

Insights
–The Chef and the Daruma (dir. Mads K. Baekkevold)

Spectrum
–Grand Theft Hamlet (dir. Pinny Grylls & Sam Crane)

Portraits
–Luther: Never Too Much (dir. Dawn Porter)

Altered States
–40 Acres (dir. R. T. Thorne)

There you have it! That’s my long-delayed wrap up blog for VIFF 2024. Next year’s VIFF will actually start in the month of October! The Festival is expected to go from October 2 – 12 in 2025. Looking forward to it.