The Goods from VIFF Centre

Vancouver, BC | From experimental shorts and festival favourites, to family-friendly flicks: indulge your senses with five picks coming to the VIFF Centre during the month of March 2024:

ARTIST-CURATED

XINEMA: notes on the colour blue + Derek Jarman’s Blue

It’s a wavelength hardly seen by the human eye. It’s a feeling we use to describe ourselves at our lowest. It’s blue. In this shorts program presented by artist-run experimental film series, XINEMA, a series of international and local experimental films take the screen recounting experiences of grief, love, distance, and interiority. The showcase precedes a screening of Derek Jarman’s BLUE, marking the 30th anniversary of his death. The film highlights his experiences with AIDS in an exploration – with voices, sound effects and music – of the meanings associated with the colour blue.

Sunday, March 3rd, 7 pm | TICKETS

FESTIVAL FAVOURITE

The Monk and the Gun

Winner of the VIFF 2023 Audience Award (Showcase), this delightful Bhutanese comedy keeps you guessing about why a venerable Buddhist monk sends a disciple to secure him a gun. As fortune and farce dictate, this mission coincides with the arrival of an American smuggler intent on clinching a deal for an antique rifle – not to mention civic rehearsals for Bhutan’s first ever democratic elections. From the director of Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom, this is a gentle, joyful movie offering shrewd and surprising reflections from a culture far-removed from our own.

From Friday, March 15th | TICKETS

LIVE ONE-TIME-ONLY JAZZ SCORE

VIFF Live: The Crowd – Silent Movie with The Chris Gestrin Trio

Maybe the greatest of all American silent films, King Vidor’s masterpiece The Crowd – here screening with a never-before-heard improvised jazz score performed by multiple Juno-winner, Chris Gestrin – keys into the fault lines at the heart of the American Dream. John is born on the Fourth of July, 1900. Arriving in New York City as a young man, he’s determined to make a name for himself. He takes a wife, Mary, and they have kids. But success remains elusive. And then tragedy strikes…

Sunday, March 17th, 7:30pm | *TICKETS
*Get your tickets before March 8 at the early bird price of $18 (regular $25)

SPRING BREAK

BREATHTAKING ANIME: Beyond Ghibli

There is a world of Anime beyond the universal fairy tales of the Ghibli tradition. Japanese animation has a storytelling sophistication and breadth that puts Hollywood to shame. In this short series we celebrate filmmakers whose work uses Anime to express the human experience with creative complexity, passion and wit. You’ll find sports movies, slacker comedies, love stories, coming of age dramas, sci-fi fantasy, a couple of musicals… And, always, breathtaking imagery that speaks to all ages.

From Monday, March 18th | *TICKETS
*Youth tickets are just $8

BEST OF BC: The Great Bear Rainforest, Narrated by Ryan Reynolds

Originally released only to IMAX theatres, these two outstanding 40-minute nature documentaries for families, include the BC-shot Great Bear Rainforest. Journey to a land of grizzlies, coastal wolves, sea otters and the all-white spirit bear – the rarest bear on earth. Located right here in BC, it is the last intact temperate rainforest in the world – a place protected by the region’s indigenous people for millennia. Presented alongside underwater cinematography film, Secrets of the Sea.

From Saturday, March 23rd | *TICKETS
*Youth tickets are just $8

The VIFF Centre is located at 1181 Seymour Street and encompasses two theatres, offering cinema-goers the chance to catch the best cinema year-round, and during the annual Vancouver International Film Festival in the fall. Learn more at viff.org.

VIFF Centre

Neighbourhood: Yaletown

1181 Seymour St.

Box Office Helpline: 604-683-3456 (Mon-Fri, 12-5pm)

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