Eight VIFF Films That Deserve a Closer Look
The 45th Vancouver International Film Festival showcased films beyond its high-profile premieres, with eight narrative and documentary works exploring politics, displacement and identity from less familiar angles. The article highlights how these films use personal stories and unusual forms to examine changes that leave people and communities behind.
The selections include Tizza Covi and Rainer Frimmel’s portrait of an elderly Vienna blues musician facing the loss of his longtime home, and Matthew Rankin’s experimental documentary about how Brian Mulroney’s public image was shaped. Other films follow an ageing New York pickpocket caught in a crime plot, teenagers from North Korean defector families finding belonging in South Korea, and a Russian executive drawn into the country’s wartime draft drive. The festival’s programme represented 76 countries; the supplied article text ends partway through its account of *Minotaur*.
- VIFF’s less prominent films explored displacement, identity and political change.
- The festival’s programme spanned 76 countries.
- Featured stories ranged from an ageing musician to North Korean defectors’ children.