If you're planning to watch a few movies and attend some parties, your best bet is to get a
! This bargain gets you access to ALL the film screenings and parties for one low price.
We can all understand needing a little “something” to get us through a tough time; but do we always know what really works, and when to stop? Set in the 1984 and based on actual events, director Angie Wang’s feature Cardinal X is about the most powerful drug dealer on the west coast of the United States—a 19-year-old coed. After losing her scholarship, Angie is forced by financial necessity to sell the party drug Ecstasy, making it in the chemistry lab of her prestigious West Coast university.
Preceded by the Vancouver-shot, short documentary The Lion from Jonathan Chiang, in which bipolar hip-hop artist Francis Arevalo discovers healing and community through music’s transformative power.
Date: November 3, 2017 - 10:00 pm
Genre: Crime Drama, Music Documentary
International Spotlight Presentation: A Tiger and the Sunset
The award-winning films in our INTERNATIONAL SPOTLIGHT highlight the complex intergenerational, intercultural dynamic—and conflict—of diaspora families. In François Yang’s beautifully-shot French feature The Soul of the Tiger (L’âme du tigre), Alex, a thirty-something man of Chinese descent, displays the typical carefree sangfroid of his generation until his brother’s sudden death. Searching for answers, he seeks to unravel the mystery by digging into his own family history, uncovering a secret. Torn between two cultures and two love interests, for the first time Alex must come to terms with his past and make real decisions.
Preceded by Home is Where the Sunsets from Kayla Tong, in which Alison’s L.A. life and identity turns upside down when her family comes to visit from Hong Kong for the very first time.
Date: November 4, 2017 - 10:00 pm
Genre: Drama
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Uneasy Lies The Head: Two Documentaries
The weight of responsibility and the consequence of action/inaction fall heavily on the subjects of the two Canadian documentaries featured here. In Ashley Duong’s A Time To Swim, Mutang Urud, a stay-at-home-dad in Montreal and former activist for the indigenous peoples of Sarawak in Borneo, returns home for the first time since his exile in 1992. When he discovers his relatives and other villagers now welcome the timber companies, against the will of the village elders, he can’t resist taking up his old cause—in spite of the lingering threat of a Malaysian arrest warrant.
Preceded by the short documentary Anastasia Lin: The Crown from Kacey Cox, chronicling the high personal and professional cost of international notoriety faced by China-born actress and human rights activist Anastasia Lin, after winning the title of Miss World Canada 2015.
Date: November 5, 2017 - 11:30 am
Genre: Documentary
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Canadian Shorts: Life In Multiculture
Our “Life In Multiculture” CANADIAN SHORTS program celebrates the myriad cultural, sexual and individual identities of Canadian Asian and hapa diaspora—especially poignant through the lens of Canada 150. In the mix are the winner and nominees of the VAFF Best Canadian Short Award 2017 and the winning entries for this year’s VAFF Mighty Asian Moviemaking Marathon 12.
Date: November 5, 2017 - 2:00 pm
Genre: Drama, Comedy, LGBTQI, Indigenous, Animation, Documentary
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Canadian Doc Spot: Paint It Red
Whose neighbourhood is it, anyway? Our CANADIAN DOC SPOT
Paint It Red from director Eva Cohen shines a (spot)light on just one of the many issues in the continually contentious development and preservation efforts surrounding Vancouver’s historic Chinatown: What happens when a bunch of seniors face evictions and homelessness? They fight back!
Date: November 5, 2017 - 4:30 pm
Genre: Documentary
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Closing Night Presentation & Festival Awards + After Party
A misunderstood sexual encounter unravels the life of a lonely female security guard and her deadbeat paramour: Welcome to
Wexford Plaza, our VAFF 21 CLOSING NIGHT PRESENTATION from Toronto-based Canadian filmmaker Joyce Wong. Wong’s award-winning dark slice-of-life comedy is based on her memories of growing up in Scarborough, Ontario—isolated and friendless, Betty works as a security guard at a deteriorating strip mall and welcomes an act of random kindness from a makeup salesman, with unintended results.
Followed by the VAFF 2017 Festival Awards Presentation and After Party.
Date: November 5, 2017 - 7:15 pm
Genre: Comedy, Drama
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VAFF Industry Insight Panel Series
Panel 1 Title: Canada 150: Diversity and Representation in Canadian Film and Television
November 4, 2017 12:00 pm
After 150 years of Confederation, what does a profitable, diverse, inclusive Canadian entertainment and media industry actually look like—and how do we realize this vision? A retrospective, current, and future-forward discussion by key industry representatives and professionals.
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Panel 2 Title: Sparking Celluloid: Filmmaking for Social Change
November 4, 2017 2:00 pm
Do we share a responsibility, as artists, to wield our craft as an instrument of social change—and how can this be most effective? Includes a screening of the Deepa Mehta film Anatomy of Violence, which examines one of the country’s most internationally notorious crimes: The 2012 gang rape and murder of a 23-year-old woman on a Delhi bus.
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We Heart Canada Premiere Presentation
November 2, 2017 6:15 pm
Public premiere presentation of short 3-minute videos created as part of the “We Heart Canada” video project celebrating Canada 150 and Vancouver’s diverse immigrant experience. Presented through collaboration between non-profit organizations and independent filmmakers, and in partnership with the City of Vancouver/Vancouver Immigration Partnership. Also featuring a short film from Vancouver Foundation “Fresh Voices”.
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