Steve Gravestock (middlde) at the opening night of “Wayway Heroes: A Survey of Modern Icelandic Cinema”
February To celebrate Black History Month, Trinidadian-Canadian filmmaker Selwyn Jacob introduced a screening of Mighty Jerome (2010), an NFB documentary Jacob produced on African-Canadian track legend Harry Jerome. The video work Hogan’s Alley (1994), which explores the history of Vancouver’s Black community, preceded the film, and was introduced by its co-director Cornelia Wyngaarden. Director Jonathan Tammuz introduced a screening of his B.C. road movie Rupert’s Land (1998), winner of six Leo Awards. A screening of multimedia artist Maggie Lee’s Mommy (2015), copresented with the Vancouver International Centre for Contemporary Asian Art (Centre A), was introduced by the film’s producer Asher Penn.
March Dorothy Woodend, cultural editor at The Tyee, introduced a program of animated films produced in British Columbia. Guests included animators Bettina Matzkuhn, Jody Kramer, Elisa Chee, Diego Maclean, David Fine, and Alison Snowden. Selina Crammond introduces The Gleaners and I
Special Guests & Events January Acclaimed Canadian cinematographer Norm Li (Never Steady, Never Still, The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open) introduced a screening of his directorial debut Under the Viaduct (2018), an artful critique of Vancouver’s homelessness crisis. Italian-Canadian director (and SFU instructor) Simone Rapisarda Casanova joined us in person for a program dedicated to his poetic and principled brand of “meta-documentary.” Colin Browne, Vancouver filmmaker, poet, scholar, and Professor Emeritus at SFU, introduced the opening program of “The Image Before Us: A History of Film in British Columbia — Take 5,” curated by Harry Killas. Anne-Marie Dekker introduced a program dedicated to the films of her late husband Daryl Duke (1929–2006), the first Western Canadian to win the Directors Guild of Canada’s Lifetime Achievement Award. Filmmaker and ECUAD Assistant Professor Lindsay McIntyre introduced a screening of Gil Cardinal’s reclamation documentary Totem: The Return of the G’psgolox Pole (2003) and its sequel, Totem: Return and Renewal (2007). Vancouver-based film producer Cari Green joined us for a screening of Hugh Brody’s The Washing of Tears (1994), a documentary, produced by Green, on the Mowachaht/Muchalaht First Nation of Friendly Cove, Vancouver Island.
Indigenous actor Angel Gates joined us for a screening of Vancouver filmmaker Wayne Wapeemukwa’s audacious debut feature Luk’Luk’I (2017), which she appears in. Curtis Woloschuk, Associate Director of Programming at VIFF, introduced a screening of Anne Wheeler’s powerful documentary Chi (2013) and Jill Sharpe’s Emmy-nominated Bone Wind Fire (2011), with Sharpe in attendance. Director David Paperny joined us in person for a screening of his Oscarnominated documentary The Broadcast Tapes of Dr. Peter (1993), based on the video journals of Vancouver physician and AIDS activist Peter Jepson-Young. As part of “Frames of Mind,” New York-based director Sandra Luckow joined us in person for the Vancouver premiere of her documentary That Way Madness Lies (2018). Thierry Garrel, a French Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres, introduced the opening screening of legendary French film essayist Chris Marker’s newly restored The Owl’s Legacy (1989), a 13-chapter symposium on ancient Greece. Garrel and Marker produced the ambitious work, originally broadcast on European television. On the morning of March 30, The Cinematheque welcomed a coterie of diehard cinephiles for our biennial 24 Hour Movie Marathon, which featured 24 consecutive hours of essential cinema around 2019’s theme of seasons.
April Vancouver cinematographer and experimental filmmaker Kirk Tougas introduced a screening of Linda Ohama’s Obachan’s Garden (2001), which Tougas shot. To conclude the fifth season of “The Image Before Us: A History of Film in British Columbia,” Christine Haebler introduced a 35mm screening of Bruce McDonald’s Canadian rock ‘n’ roll movie classic Hard Core Logo (1996), which Haebler produced.
