VIFF 2019: Atom Egoyan's film Guest of Honour to be gala opener
Credit to Author: Dana Gee| Date: Wed, 04 Sep 2019 21:40:02 +0000
When: Sept. 26-Oct. 11
Tickets and info: From Sept. 5 at viff.org
Canadian director Atom Egoyan’s new film Guest of Honour will kick off the 38th annual Vancouver International Film Festival, organizers announced on Wednesday.
“Having Atom Egoyan open the festival and do a master class the next day is great. He’s been a huge supporter of the festival and we’ve shown many of his films so there is a lineage there,” said Curtis Woloschuk, the associate director of programming for VIFF.
The film, starring David Thewlis, Laysla De Oliveira, Luke Wilson, Rossif Sutherland and Alexandre Bourgeois, follows a Toronto health inspector as he wields power over family-owned restaurants.
Other special presentations include South Korean master Bong Joon-ho’s Palme d’Or-winning film Parasite and festival closer from France, La Belle Époque from Nicholas Bedos.
In 2019, the festival is showing 201 features, 125 shorts and 82 documentaries, and there are 39 world premieres among the ranks of films.
Also worth noting is VIFF’s strong support of homegrown talent. For almost four decades it has put the spotlight on Canadian films, and this year is no different, as VIFF has 41 Canadian features to share with fans. Ten B.C. features will make up the Sea to Sky program, and in the shorts program 51 entries are Canadian, with 20 from B.C.
Headlining the B.C. bounty at the B.C. Spotlight Gala on Oct. 5 is first-time filmmaker Anthony Shim’s dark family drama, Daughter. The Vancouver native’s film is a look at how tragedy can send one person’s reality out the window. The film stars Vancouver favourite John Cassini.
“It is incredible. Super exciting. I started in Vancouver. I grew up here, this is my hometown,” said Shim, who has been attending VIFF since he was in high school.
“It’s my first film and for it to premiere in the city I grew up in really is a dream come true.”
While the movie programs were at centre stage during the event, Vancouver Centre Liberal MP Hedy Fry was also on hand to announce that the federal Canadian Cultural Spaces Fund, would allocate just over $1.4 million for an infrastructure update for the Vancouver Film Centre, specifically the atrium area. The money will go toward building a micro-cinema and a virtual reality lounge among other upgrades.
“I am always pleased to be at VIFF,” Fry said. “VIFF is a Canadian symbol. It is unabashedly Canada proud.
“Infrastructure — and in particular cultural infrastructure — is a foundation of Canada’s community building … that showcases us and our talent and who we are,” said Fry.
“It really gets us to know each other across this vast country in a way that helps us to understand all the differences we have …”
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