Keep It Curious

I totally flaked out this year on the Vancouver Film Fest. It wasn't for lack of anything that caught my eye, I just wasn't really stoked. Then there's the lineups, the sheer number of films, and well...most of the good ones are coming out on DVD nowadays anyways. But I'll get my cinema fix this year regardless, as Resfest storms into town with a visual assault of experimental short films, rare music videos, digital trickery, and the hottest animation. Highlights include Chris Cunningham's Rubber Johnny, videos for Bloc Party and Arcade Fire, Chris White's take on "Evil" by Interpol, and a little something from hotshot Michel Gondry.

Also on tap is keynote speaker Charlie White and a travelling poster exhibition from Woodsuch. Circlesquare will finish off the night with some electronic beats and bass lines swirling into guitar pop.

Resfest is broken down into Shorts, Music Videos, Feature Films, Retrospectives, and Special Programs.

The shorts are divided into three programs "surveying the year's most compelling live action, animation, CG and hybrid forays into short-form visual storytelling". They have also added two themes to the mix; By design and Cut and Paste. The former is a survey of stop motion and broadcast design which "offers a decidedly human touch this time, with work based around such disparate inspirations as the writings of Kafka and Yeats, Star Wars, Legos (sic) and the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle." Cut and Paste focuses on the proliferation of digital technology and accessibility as a viable art form, "from mash-ups and remixes to collage and traditional animation". Some higlights are the Grey Video, a mash-up of Beatles footage and Jay-Z clips set to Danger Mouse's underground hit mash-up of the two. In America's Biggest Dick, Bryan Boyce replaces Cheney's speech from last year's Republican National Convention with Al Pacino's dialogue from Scarface, to hilarious effect.

The Music Videos are broken down into Videos That Rock and Cinema Electronica. Videos for The Shins, Arcade Fire, Bloc Party, The Flaming Lips, Grand National, LCD Sound System, and Guided By Voices are featured in Videos That Rock. While Coldcut, Circleaquare, Daedelus, Dizee Rascal, The Streets, RJD2, and Alias make up some of the vids in Cinema Electronica.

While Thumbsucker is listed on the website as a feature film, it doesn't look like Vancouver is gonna get to see Mike Mills' hit flick. Instead we'll see Just For Kicks, and Ginga: The soul of Brasilian Football. Just For Kicks looks like one for the hip hop kids as it traces the popularity of sneakers from the streets of seventies New York, to the $26 billion dollar industry it is today. "From Run-DMC's role in catapulting Adidas into the consciousness of global youth culture to Nike's visionary marketing strategies targeting urban populations worldwide, Just for Kicks turns interviews with personalities like hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons and urban culture chronicler Henry Chalfant, as well as an assortment of sneaker freaks, music legends, break-dancing greats and product designers into an entertaining exposition on the history of the world's most popular form of footwear."

Ginga turns the lens on that certain something which characterizes Brazillian football players, while examining the macro elements of social status and geography. Produced by Fernando Mereilles (City of God, The Constant Gardener) the stories of the players "yield a thoughtful, detailed portrait of Brazil's fascinating and complicated culture."

And it looks like Vancouver will get a special Cancon showcase instead of a Retrospective. I guess I should've been looking at the Canadian site rather than the international one. Oops. Even so, the site doesn't have much info on the Cancon section. Just a list of films. And this nice photo montage:

We're gonna need a montage.