Every week, Establishing Shots offers some further enlightenment on the films that will be screening in-cinema at the VIFF Centre and online through VIFF Connect.
With our Black History Month programming running on VIFF Connect throughout February, we continue to profile the films in this year’s series.
The Canadian Resistance shorts program highlights work from Black Canadian filmmakers who are using film as a vehicle for social change. In an interview with Stir’s Janet Smith, Victoria artist Simone Blais discusses how her film, Dance Like Everybody’s Watching, explores cultural appropriation in dance and makes a previously invisible scene visible. Meanwhile, Marathon is directed by Kelly Fyffe-Marshall, who recently had another short, Black Bodies, screen at Sundance. While tweeting her frustrations over a lack of support for her work in Canada, she found herself an advocate in Ava DuVernay. Fyffe-Marshall will be joined by Howard Grandison, whose It Takes a Riot: Race, Rebellion, Reform rounds out the program, and Selwyn Jacob, a veteran Vancouver-based producer, for a Vancity Impact talk on “Cinema & Community, Black Filmmakers and Social Change” on February 16.
Having screened at last fall’s VIFF, Keyboard Fantasies: The Beverly Glenn-Copeland Story returns for an encore, allowing even more viewers to fall under the spell of this singular musician who is one of the most radiant souls you’ll encounter and has finally found a devoted following later in life. Of course, Glenn discretely factored into many of our childhoods thanks to appearances on Mr. Dressup and Sesame Street.
The Oscar submissions for Best International Film keep coming with this week’s addition to the VIFF Connect lineup being Andrei Konchalovsky’s Dear Comrades! Fresh off an appearance at the International Film Festival Rotterdam, the film has amassed rave reviews from a number of influential critics, including The New Yorker’s Anthony Lane who has declared the venerable Russian director’s latest to be “his masterpiece.”
Finally: With the forecast promising Vancouverites a snowy Valentine’s Day, we’re presenting our VIFF+ members with our “Multi-Splendoured Things”, a prickly bouquet of cinema featuring Le Week-End, Amour Fou and A Quiet Passion. These are just three of the films that are free to our members.
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