| Media Contact: Laine Slater, laine@viff.org or 604.685.0262 x 809 |
| For a printable version of this release, please click here. |  | PAST/PRESENT: ROBERT LEPAGE ON FILM
May 13-15, 17, 19-20
Throughout May, renaissance man and national treasure Robert Lepage will be appearing at the Vancouver Playhouse to present his latest enthralling one-man production, The Andersen Project - A Modern Fairy Tail (May 3- 27). A world-renowned playwright and actor, the Quebec City-born Lepage's cinematic output is equally innovative and just as important to the contemporary Canadian cultural landscape.
The Vancity Theatre invites you to take advantage of Lepage's visit to Vancouver to become reacquainted with his impressive filmography, an ambitious and dazzling mix of theatre and history, loaded with film references and breathtaking leaps in time and space. |  | LE CONFESSIONNAL
May 13, 7:00; May 15, 9:00
CANADA 1996 // Director: Robert Lepage // 100 min // 35mm
Winner of the Claude Jutra Award and three Genies, including Best Direction. | Robert Lepage's suspenseful, stylishly directed debut film, which opened the Director's Fortnight at Cannes, still remains his masterpiece. Set in Quebec City, both in 1989 and 1952-the year Alfred Hitchcock arrived in the snowy environs to shoot his epic of Catholic guilt I Confess, Lepage's film concerns the adventures of Pierre (Lothaire Bluteau) who has returned from China for his father's funeral. He's reunited with his gay adopted brother, Marc, who believes his family secret can be found with a nefarious civil servant-and the search eerily parallels Hitchcock's plot. Recreating scenes of I Confess, and linking them spatially to the present with references to other Hitchcock classics, Le confessionnal is simply immaculate: no shot is out of place. And the cumulative impact is nothing less than overwhelming.
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|  | NÔ
May 13, 9:00; May 19, 6:45
CANADA 1998 // Director: Robert Lepage // 85 min // 35mm
Winner, Best Canadian Feature, 1998 Toronto International Film Festival. | Lepage's third feature, the deftly farcical Nô is partly inspired by his critically acclaimed play The Seven Streams of the River Ota. The film is set in the fall of 1970, shifting back and forth between its two protagonists: a Quebec actress (Anne-Marie Cadieux) who is performing Feydeau at the Osaka World's Fair and her activist boyfriend, a member of a radical theatre troupe who is back in Montreal hiding from the police, caught up in the October Crisis. The vast differences in space and time that separate the couple impair their communication, leading to an emotional crisis that parallels the political breakdown. (As if dealing with the FLQ wasn't enough, the title also applies to the 1980 Referendum, which slyly sneaks into the film as a coda.)
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|  | TECTONIC PLATES
May 14, 7:15; May 20, 9:15
CANADA 1992 // Director: Peter Mettler // 106 min // BetaSP
"...a combination of unforgettable images, artful performances and a kind of inexorable intelligence..." Now Magazine | | "Set in Montreal, New York and Venice, this adaptation of a Robert Lepage stage piece uses plate tectonics as a metaphor for the ways people merge and shift their identities. Featuring Lepage himself as a gender-bending art teacher, the film features elegant, innovative and often improvised camera work across a wide variety of spaces. The original stage production was itself a product of sustained improvisation exercises, in which Mettler participated for nearly a year...Tectonic Plates feels like a conversation between Mettler and Lepage, both of whom have a strong and clearly visible creative presence throughout."-Jerry White. "Mettler uses cinematic techniques to suggest layers of ideas, images and historical eras with which Lepage shapes his play. More than a recorded performance, Tectonic Plates articulates cinematically the intersection of past and present, culture and nature, interior and exterior, representation and reality." -Tom McSorley, Take One |
|  | POSSIBLE WORLDS
May 14, 9:15; May 17, 7:15
CANADA 2000 // Director: Robert Lepage // 93 min // 35mm
"Allusive, mysterious and moving, with the ambition of its assembly amplified by the calm beauty of its surface, the film shows Lepage at the peak of his art" Time Out London | | Lepage's only English-language film-and the first not based on his own material (here, the Governor General Award-winning play by John Mighton)-is impossible to forget. As the film begins, George Barber (Tom McCamus) has been murdered and his brain neatly removed. On the quest for clues, we are transported into the many lives of a seemingly ordinary man with the extraordinary ability to exist in an infinite number of possible worlds at once. As he searches for the love of his life (Tilda Swinton), he meets her again and again in different realities that become increasingly tangled and surreal. "Part love story, part thriller and wholly intriguing, the film is often reminiscent of the work of Andrei Tarkovsky-a fascinating, dreamlike exploration of the boundaries of consciousness and the perception of our own existence."-Canadian Film Encyclopedia |
|  | THE FAR SIDE OF THE MOON
May 15, 7:00; May 17, 9:00
CANADA 2003 // Director: Robert Lepage // 105 min // 35mm
"Lepage brings a prodigious talent for startling, interwoven imagery to bear on a story already laden with metaphorical possibilities. " Eddie Cockrell, Variety | | A truly inventive adaptation of his one-man stage play into a lavish hi-def big-screen production, Lepage's fifth feature offers a sly, semi-autobiographical lesson in the motion of bodies, on and above the Earth. In his most popular work, Lepage lyrically fuses childhood memories with present-day Quebecois sibling rivalry. Far Side of the Moon is also the first time Lepage has directed himself-and he plays brothers. As lousy academic-slash-telemarketer Philippe, the portly director is a sad sack extraordinaire, barely coping with his beloved mother's recent death and the obliviousness of the scientific community to his theories about the ego-driven nature of the space race. As well-to-do gay meteorologist André, Lepage sports a pathetic goatee, and seems to have inspired Philippe's harebrained hypotheses. Lepage patiently brings the two mirror-image narcissists in line, like planets on parallel orbits, and spins a rich, moving film that acknowledges humanity's power to break out of Earth's daily gravity. |  |
| | | VIFC TICKETS AND INFO | Call the Starbucks Hotline 604.683.FILM (3456) for the latest info and listings. Tickets can be purchased in advance on-line at www.vifc.org or in person 30 minutes before showtime.
Double Bill Pricing!
The Vancity Theatre is offering double bills at a special price. At just $12 for two films ($10 for Students/Seniors and Bronze and above members), it's one of the cheapest (and still most comfy) seats in town!
Note: Double Bill pricing is not available for online sales. However, you can purchase your first ticket online at the regular price and get the double-bill price on the second ticket when you arrive at the box office. Double Bills are two consecutive films on the same day at the Vancity Theatre; rentals and Special Events are not included.
Adult tickets: $9.50 (Double Bill - $12)
Student/Senior $7.50 (Double Bill - $10)
Matinees $7.50
Bronze and above members receive a $2 discount on their tickets. (Double Bill - $10)
Silver and above members also receive a $2 discount for a guest ticket.
As a registered non-profit society, the VIFC screens films that have not always been seen by the BC Film Classification Board. Under BC law, any person wishing to see these unclassified films must belong to the VIFC Society and be 18 years or older. Valid for one year based on the date of purchase, the VIFC basic membership cost is $12, but includes the ticket price of your first film.
Please note that membership benefits and restrictions are valid for VIFC presentations only. They are not applicable to Vancity Theatre "Rental" presentations by other organizations.
For More Membership Information go to http://www.vifc.org/membership.html.Vancity Theatre is located at 1181 Seymour St. (at Davie) | |
