VIFF returning with 260 films, featuring a spotlight on Korean cinema

The annual Vancouver International Film Festival (VIFF) is set to open its 44th season in just over a month, bringing 170 feature films and 90 shorts to 70 screens around the city.

This year, VIFF will present Spotlight on Korea, part of a new program that will feature several presentations from a specific country each year.

“We will have six first features by South Korean directors, three of which will be world premieres here at the festival,” said Curtis Woloschuk, the festival’s director of programming.

“It really honors VIFF’s long-standing tradition of showcasing Korean cinema. Some of the great Korean directors like Bong Joon-ho showed their early films here, and I truly believe that some of these young filmmakers who are showing their first features here this year have the potential to go on to such international prominence.”

He says one of festival’s standout films this year will be Resurrection, directed by Bi Gan, which he saw at Cannes.

“‘[Resurrection] is 100 years of Chinese history, also 100 years of Chinese cinema told through six different chapters, each in a different film genre,” he said.

“It is just bold, exciting filmmaking.”

Woluschuk is quick to point out that this is by no means the only outstanding film this year.

“You’re asking me to pick my favourite child,” he said.

VIFF will open with Richard Linklater’s film-about-film Nouvelle Vague.

The schedule also includes the Canadian premieres of Noah Baumbach’s comedy-drama Jay Kelly, which stars George Clooney and Adam Sandler, and Father Mother Sister Brother, directed by Jim Jarmusch and starring Cate Blanchett and Adam Driver.

Screenings aren’t the only feature festival-goers can expect.

“There will be live events and talks with leading creators,” he said.

These include Jenny Lumet, co-creator of two Star Trek series, and Janicza Bravo, director of the film Zola and episodes of the TV series The Bear as well. As well, Marc Maron will be part of an extended Q&A following a documentary called Are We Good? — directed by Steven Feinartz — that documents Maron’s life, post-pandemic.

Woluschuk says they are in the process of getting final confirmations on guests, but one of the guests in particular that he hopes to get is Chandler Levack, who was at the festival with her film I Like Movies in 2023.

“Her new film, Mile End Kicks, is about the Montreal music scene in the early aughts and is really a fun film about a female music journalist,” he said.

“It is kind of a foray into that world and dealing with the toxic masculinity within it as well.”

Ticket sales will open on Wednesday for members and Thursday for non-members. Each screening will cost $18 plus service charges.

The festival runs from Oct. 2 to 12.

— With files from The Canadian Press.