Highlights from the 2023 Vancouver International Film Festival
Christien Di Angello (he/him) // Contributor
Ethan Woronko (he/him) // Illustrator
A hostess bar burns in Suwa, Japan. No one knows who started it, or why. From across this little-known city, landlocked in Japan’s Nagano Prefecture, Saiori Mugino and her 11 year-old son Minato watch the flames tear away the building’s facade. This is how the 2023 Japanese film Kaibutsu (Monster) begins.
Kaibutsu is one of almost 240 films that screened this year at the Vancouver International Film Festival (VIFF). Today, with the entire world at our fingertips, it’s surprising to learn about VIFF’s instrumental role in the growing accessibility of international films in Vancouver.
Leading Lights curator Anthony Shim said in a speech at the festival that only 20 years ago VIFF was one of the only places in Vancouver where international films were regularly celebrated. VIFF turned places like Suwa, Nagano from names on a map into never-before-seen crucibles to explore cultures and themes from around the globe. As VIFF winds down its 42nd consecutive film festival, let’s recap VIFF’s stand out series from this year.
VIFF’s heavy hitting Special Presentations displayed pictures from the most acclaimed directors around the globe. This is where you’ll find the aforementioned Cannes Best Screenplay Winner, Kaibutsu (2023), directed by Hirokazu Koreeda, the visionary behind 2018 Palme D’or winner, Shoplifters. Popular screenings from this series sold out almost immediately, including but not limited to Justine Triet’s own 2023 Palme D’or winner Anatomy of a Fall, and Hayao Miyazaki’s The Boy and The Heron—Miyazaki’s first time directing a feature film in a decade. The audience choice winner for Special Presentations was Koreeda’s masterfully written Kaibutsu.
Celebrating the next generation of international films was the Vanguard series. This series shows an expansive collection of films, each with their own unique and specific voice. These stories ranged from Ecuador’s tactile animalism in Ana Cristina Barragán’s latest picture La piel pulpo (Octopus Skin) to Argentina’s stylized curiosity in Melisa Liebenthal’s El rostro de la medusa (The Face of the Jellyfish). Boasting a wildly eclectic sense of voice, the Vanguard series presented nuanced cultures and experiences for Canadians to take in. The Vanguard series featured Greek filmmaker Sofia Exarchou and her heartbreaking film Animal, an incredibly performed drama that left audiences in awe.
Canadian culture is often underrepresented in the media, so for audiences looking for Canadian content, there was the festival staple Northern Lights series. Here, audiences could find powerful depictions of the places they knew best. A few of these fresh takes on Canadian film were Meredith Hama-Brown’s Seagrass, a heartfelt family drama set on Gabriola Island, and Caitlyn Sponheimer’s Wild Goat Surf, a warm coming of age comedy set in Penticton, B.C. This year’s Best Canadian Film was awarded to the touching Northern Lights coming of age drama Fitting In, directed by Molly McGlynn.
This year, VIFF also introduced their new Leading Lights series, which was created to highlight four films that inspired an influential Canadian filmmaker from the previous year. Curating for VIFF’s 42nd annual film festival was the filmmaker Anthony Shim, director of the critically acclaimed 2022 film Riceboy Sleeps, which won VIFF’s Best Canadian Film the previous year. Among his curated films were John Cassavetes’ dramatic tour de force, A Woman Under the Influence, as well as Lee Chang-dong’s nonlinear masterpiece Peppermint Candy. The Leading Lights series gave valuable insight into the inspiration behind a notable Canadian filmmaker of the decade.
VIFF 42 hosted a wide variety of films both international and closer to home. From the global prestige of the Special Presentations to the personal curation of the Leading Lights series, VIFF has put together another year of exceptional films to move the next generation of film lovers and creatives alike.