A novel Canadian lineup for VIFF

A novel Canadian lineup for VIFF
Three based-on-a-book movies are slated to screen


Glen Schaefer, The Province(Vancouver)

Published: Wednesday, September 05, 2007


Three adaptations of Canadian novels are among the highlights of the Vancouver International Film Festival's Canadian Images program. This year's complete lineup of Canadian and international films is to be announced at a press conference this morning.

The festival chose 82 films from among 300 submissions to its Canadian program. The Stone Angel is director Kari Skogland's adaptation of the classic Margaret Laurence novel, with Ellen Burstyn as the novel's headstrong Hagar Shipley.

Director Bruce Macdonald offers up a younger rebel with his adaptation of Vancouver writer Maureen Medved's The Tracey Fragments, starring Ellen Page as a defiant runaway teen.

Rounding out the trio of novel adaptations is Jeremy Podeswa's Fugitive Pieces, from Anne Michaels' globe-spanning historical novel.

The Canadian program, which includes 23 features, nine feature-length documentaries and 49 shorter films, is part of the festival's program of more than 300 films from around the world screening from Sept. 27 to Oct. 12.

Also among the Canadian films are Clement Virgo's boxing drama Poor Boy's Game, Mike Barker's Vancouver-filmed thriller Shattered (the city plays Chicago for Pierce Brosnan, Maria Bello, Gerard Butler and the always-busy Callum Keith Rennie), and Guy Maddin's My Winnipeg (that city plays a surreal version of itself).

Elsewhere, Carrie-Anne Moss stars for Vancouver director Carl Bessai in the Victoria-filmed drama Normal, Rebecca de Mornay stars for Vancouver's Bruce Sweeney in American Venus, and Canada's Saul Rubinek gets together with a bunch of Canadian collaborators in Los Angeles to make the post-divorce comic drama Cruel But Necessary.

From Quebec, Patrick Huard leads the way with the comedy Les 3 P'tits Cochons (writer-director-actor Huard is the hitmaker behind last year's Bon Cop, Bad Cop).

On the documentary side, former TV journalist Tiffany Burns probes the RCMP methods used to convict her West Vancouver-raised brother Sebastian of a Washington state triple murder in Mr. Big, writer/bank robber Stephen Reid has the prison doc Inside Time, and past Oscar winner John Zaritsky heads from Vancouver to Switzerland for the gripping euthanasia documentary The Suicide Tourist.

Tickets go on sale Saturday through the VISA Charge-by-Phone line at 604-685-8297 and at www.viff.org.

gschaefer@png.canwest.com

© The Vancouver Province 2007


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