2020 Vancouver International Film Festival

The 2020 Vancouver International Film Festival, the 39th event in the history of the Vancouver International Film Festival, was held from September 24 to October 7, 2020.[1] On September 3, organizers announced a lineup of 180 films; due to the COVID-19 pandemic in British Columbia and the associated social distancing restrictions remaining in place at movie theatres and other public venues, the festival took place primarily on the online VIFF Connect platform.[2]

2020 Vancouver International Film Festival
Opening filmMonkey Beach by Loretta Todd
LocationVancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Festival dateSeptember 24–October 7, 2020

Most films were geoblocked so that they were available for streaming only to viewers in British Columbia, although some of the festival's other programming, including its VIFF Talks series, was made available to viewers across Canada and internationally.[2]

Awards

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Audience-voted awards were announced at the end of the festival on October 7; however, some of the juried award winners were announced during the festival, beginning with the announcement of the British Columbia film categories on September 27, as a technique to help publicize and promote the winning films.[3]

Award Film Filmmaker
Most Popular Canadian Narrative Beans Tracey Deer
Most Popular Canadian Documentary Inconvenient Indian Michelle Latimer
Most Popular International Narrative My Wonderful Wanda (Wanda, mein Wunder) Bettina Oberli [de; fr]
Most Popular International Documentary The Reason I Jump Jerry Rothwell
Best Canadian Film Beans Tracey Deer
Best Canadian Documentary Call Me Human (Je m'appelle humain) Kim O'Bomsawin
Best Canadian Short Film Bad Omen Salar Pashtoonyar
Best Canadian Short Film, Honorable Mention Moon (Lune) Zoé Pelchat
Emerging Canadian Director Violation Madeleine Sims-Fewer, Dusty Mancinelli
Best BC Film The Curse of Willow Song Karen Lam
Best BC Short Film Cake Day Phillip Thomas
Sea to Sky Award Nuxalk Radio Banchi Hanuse
BC Emerging Filmmaker Brother, I Cry Jessie Anthony
VIFF Impact Award The Reason I Jump Jerry Rothwell
Rob Stewart Eco Warrior Award The Hidden Life of Trees (Das geheime Leben der Bäume) Peter Wohlleben (subject), Jörg Adolph (filmmaker)
Immersed (Virtual Reality Program), Best Cinematic Live Action Kowloon Forest Alexey Marfin
Immersed, Best Documentary By the Waters of Babylon Kristen Lauth Shaeffer, Andrew Halasz
Immersed, Best Animation The Book of Distance Randall Okita
Immersed, Honorable Mention in Animation In the Land of the Flabby Schnook (Au pays du cancre mou) Francis Gélinas
Immersed, Audience Award Ecosphere: Raja Ampat Joseph Purdam

Films

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Contemporary World Cinema

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True North

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Gateway

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  • A Life Turned Upside Down: My Dad's an Alcoholic — Kenji Katagiri
  • Beauty Water — Cho Kyung-hun
  • Dancing MarySabu
  • Memories to Choke on, Drinks to Wash Them Down — Leung Ming-kai, Kate Reilly
  • Mickey on the Road — Lu Mian Mian
  • Moving On — Yoon Dan-bi
  • My Prince EdwardNorris Wong
  • Shanghai Swings — Yang Mingteng
  • The Town of Headcounts — Shinji Araki
  • Twilight's Kiss (Suk Suk)Ray Yeung

Altered States

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Impact

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  • Caught in the Net — Barbora Chalupová, Vít Klusák
  • Citizen Penn — Don Hardy
  • Cured — Bennett Singer, Patrick Sammon
  • The ForumMarcus Vetter
  • The Hidden Life of Trees (Das geheime Leben der Bäume) — Jörg Adolph
  • I Am Not a Hero — Pablo Crutzen, Robin Smit, Stijn Deconinck
  • The Reason I JumpJerry Rothwell
  • Women in Blue — Deirdre Fishel

Insights

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International Shorts

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  • À la carte — Jay Do
  • The Book of Ruth — Becca Roth
  • Destructors — Otis Tree
  • Empty Places — Geoffroy de Crécy
  • Flawless — Nathan Franck
  • Flush — Diego Freitas
  • Home — Alex von Hofmann
  • Homeless HomeAlberto Vázquez
  • The Hunter — Sam McConnell
  • I Want to Make a Film About WomenKaren Pearlman
  • Illusione — Lorenzo Quagliozzi
  • Imelda and Luis — Leonel Chee
  • In This Land We're Briefly Ghosts — Chen-Wen Lo
  • JaneKathryn Prescott
  • Little ChiefErica Tremblay
  • Malakout — Farnoosh Abedi
  • Not a Word — Élodie Wallace
  • Now, Daphne — Johann G. Louis
  • Of Memories and Madness — Maria Isabel de la Ossa
  • The Parrot Lady — Michalis Kalopaidis
  • The Roses of Damascus — Gabriel Gonzalez Guirola, Yasmina Touzani
  • SheMatt Greenhalgh
  • Sheep, Wolf and a Cup of Tea — Marion Lacourt
  • Sin Cielo — Jianna Maarten
  • To: Gerard — Taylor Meacham
  • To the Dusty Sea — Héloïse Ferlay
  • The Twins — Cru Bannon, Douglas Ho, Yuriz Joe
  • Union County — Adam Meeks
  • Wade — Upamanyu Bhattacharyya, Kalp Sanghvi
  • White Eye — Tomer Shushan
  • Widowers — Julian Tuna
  • The Winter — Xin Li
  • A Woman — Tahmina Rafaella

M/A/D

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  • Frida Kahlo — Ali Ray
  • In the Tracks of - Special Edition — Pascale Cuenot
  • Jimmy Carter: Rock & Roll President — Mary Wharton
  • Maguy Marin: Time to Act — David Mambouch
  • Marcel Duchamp: The Art of the Possible — Matthew Taylor
  • My RembrandtOeke Hoogendijk
  • Paris CalligrammesUlrike Ottinger

Modes

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  • All, or Nothing at All — Persijn Broersen, Margit Lukács
  • Becoming AlluviumThảo Nguyên Phan
  • BittersweetSohrab Hura
  • A DemonstrationSasha Litvintseva, Beny Wagner
  • Digital Funeral: Beta Version — Sorayos Prapapan
  • The End of Suffering (a proposal) — Jacqueline Lentzou
  • (e)scape goat — Sid Iandovka
  • In Times of Deception — Michael Heindl
  • A Month of Single FramesLynne Sachs, Barbara Hammer
  • Playback — Agustina Comedi

Short Forum

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References

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