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Tricia Helfer
It’s VIFF season once again, and while the Vancouver International Film Festival may not have the global cachet of its larger cousin in Toronto, there’s a certain intimacy with the Vancouver festival that makes it a popular draw nonetheless. Last Saturday night, Insight Film Studios hosted a star-studded close to the festival’s trade forum with a red carpet gala at The Italian Kitchen on Alberni Street. Celebrities in attendance included Charles Martin Smith, Wesley Snipes, Robert Lantos, Alan Thicke, Kristin Kreuk, Tricia Helfer and Chris Haddock… among others.
The festival itself continues until Oct. 12, and there are still lots of films left to see, including the Vancouver-shot Charlize Theron vehicle, Battle In Seattle, which you can catch today before its theatrical release in December. For more information about screenings and events, visit www.viff.org.
Hope to see you for a Rambo Thanksgiving: If the festival circuit isn’t to your liking — or you prefer roast pig to turkey — you may want to consider attending the 25th anniversary celebration of the 1982 Sylvester Stallone film First Blood over the coming Thanksgiving long weekend. The Hope Visitor Centre & Museum Complex is celebrating the film and plans to mark the occasion with a Rambo look-alike contest, film location tours — including the Coquihalla river bridge and Coquihalla gorge — a special screening, a Rambo art contest, and a premier showing of the REEL Places documentary about the shooting of the film.
First Blood is widely credited with putting British Columbia on the map as a filming destination. The final film in the franchise, John Rambo, arrives in theatres next January.
For more event details, call the Hope Visitor Info Centre at 1-604-869-2021.
Canadian film industry to confer about dollar: Last week, I discussed the concerns Canadian film industry leaders are having now that our dollar is more or less equivalent to its American cousin.
Peter Leitch, president of North Shore studios, Vancouver’s leading studio complex, recently told Variety there are plans for all the major industry groups in Canada to talk this week and try to figure out how to deal with the fallout from this new exchange rate.
Leitch told the trade he has already been getting a lot of calls from U.S. producers looking for better deals on studio space.
