Speed dating, classes that are cool, schmooze...Trade Forum, baby!
While I don't cover this event during the VIFF (I'm too busy seeing movies!), the annual trade forum runs for four days during the festival and gives the experience filmmaker a chance to connect with top players in the biz. This year, if you want to meet the guy who currently writes for
The Simpsons, talk to one of the producers of
Desperate Housewives or talk shop with the director of the excellent docu
Touching The Void, this is the place to do it. From the press release:
"The VIFF's Film & Television Forum, western Canada's premier event dedicated to the art and business of filmmaking, launches its 21st year with a focus on content. The four-day professional development event takes place September 27- 30, 2006 and features master classes, seminars, workshops, tête-à-tête sessions and industry networking events with inspiring speakers from international award-winning productions."
Read the full press release
HERE.
VIFF finally gets out a press release!; Short Ends
The 25th Annual Vancouver International Film Festival (VIFF) will open on September 28 with a screening of Pedro Almodóvar's VOLVER . Festival Director Alan Franey also announced a few of the special events and thematic highlights of this year's festival, which will take place September 28 to October 13 at ten theatres in the Vancouver area, again centred at the Empire Granville 7 Cinemas.
“In our 25th year, rather than reflecting on the past, the VIFF looks to the future with much curiosity and some degree of alarm,” Franey noted. “It seems like just yesterday that our 20th Anniversary festival took a look back at achievements of our first two decades. This season, in keeping with the dawn of year-round programming at the Vancity Theatre and with the forward-looking films that we are most excited to be programming, our emphasis is on where we are going. By where we are going, we mean where the world is going, for it's certain that the most interesting question encouraged by this year's festival selection is ‘what sort of world lies ahead?'”
Read the full press release HERE
(Rather odd that they mentioned the Granville 7 remaining the official Ground Zero for the festival but made no mention of Cinema #7 becoming the new VISA screening room.)
More Short Ends:
- In the same first media release, the VIFF has elected to roll out Mobile VIFF, which will "offer the potential to interact with other users, and allow Festival-goers to make informed decisions on films to attend, give an instant and democratic voice to those who wish to contribute and connect festival attendees in mobile space." An interesting idea, but I prefer the old-fashioned method of everybody disagreeing with everyone in the in-line and post screening hangouts at Ground Zero (Granville 7 area) rather than giving another excuse to turn on your Blackberry inside the cinema.
- Prior to the VIFF, if you feel like getting your Kieslowski freak-on (and I know I do), the Vancity Theatre as well as Pacific Cinematheque are planning to unearth pretty much everything the master has done. (And don't forget Cinematheque's late August Antonioni retrospective.) My goodness, this is going to be one expensive vacation.
- The Toronto Film Fest has put up their schedule, and thusly my head explodes.
- The previously mentioned Keane concert on 10/1 has been cancelled due to one of the band members deciding to go to Rehab. A friend and I were planning to see the show but decided to pull out since Ticketmaster elected to send us balcony seats instead of the orchestra tickets that I paid for. Either way, that's $50 back in my pocket.
- The weather for Vancouver is holding between "sunny" and "mainly sunny" with warm temperatures for the next few weeks. Are we going to have a warm, sunny VIFF this year?
Jason
efilmcritic.com
