One of the glorious things about living in the Pacific Northwest is the way that summer comes in with a bang and goes out that much faster. So when the rain kicks in, we’re never at loss for things to do, and thanks the beginning of film festival season, things to watch.
The Vancouver Queer Film Festival just celebrated it’s 22nd edition of being proudly out and about in the city. The VQFF has always been the spunkiest of the smaller festivals, lacking the funding of the Vancouver International Film Fest but making up for it with spirit and a killer after party. This year’s edition was not as well attended as previous years but still showed kick. Peruvian ghost story Undertow was a viewer’s choice with Italian queer folk talk Sea Purple being a visual treat. The highlight though had to be The Coast is Queer, a series of Vancouver lead series of short films including The Heist, a hip-hop lead film as strikingly viewable as it is original.
If that’s not your thing, the Vancouver Latin American Film Fest and the Vancouver Asian Film Fest will be exploding over the city in the months to come. One of my favorite underdog festivals has to be Spark, the local animation festival that focuses on the massive amounts of world class talent that are coming out of the city and yet is still beholden to the filthy mouths and minds of the old Spike and Mike festivals from back in the day.
Then there’s the grand poobah, the Vancouver International Film Festival. Running a little later than usual this year it remains, for many big names, in the shadows of its Torontonian brother. Then again, most Vancouverites couldn’t give a toss about TO and neither do we. A legendary stop of the Pacific Rim film fest circuit, the VIFF is two weeks of guaranteed madness with the Dragons and Tigers program being a highlight for most Asian film fans. The VIFF doesn’t get great deal of the big Sundance-esque films, but that’s never been the point. Most of those will get distribution deals and be in regular theatres anyway. It’s the curation of films from around the world, and specifically the northwestern environmental focus, that gets butts in the seats.
Let’s be honest: When it rains here, you don’t want to be outside, in line.