Tag: VIFF

VIFF Creator Talk: John Wells (Creator, Shameless)

VIFF is thrilled to host John Wells as he discusses the final season of Shameless and shares some lessons learned and knowledge gleaned over the course of his acclaimed career in television. Over the past three decades, Wells has been a creative force behind some of primetime’s biggest hit series, including ER, The West Wing, and Third Watch. He currently serves as executive producer on the TNT drama series Animal Kingdom, which was renewed for its fifth season; and on Showtime’s Emmy®- nominated Shameless, which was renewed for an eleventh season. He previously served as Executive Producer on the critically acclaimed Southland for TNT, the Emmy® and Golden Globe®-winning Mildred Pierce for HBO, and the Emmy® and Golden Globe®-winning China Beach. Next, he will executive produce Maid, the upcoming series adaptation of Stephanie Land’s best-selling memoir Maid: Hard Work, Low Pay, and a Mother’s Will to Survive starring Margot Robbie, for Netflix; and Red Bird Lane, a TV movie starring Susan Sarandon for HBO Max.

Presented by Creative BC
Supported by Pacific Screenwriting Program

VIFF Creator Talk: Bill Lawrence Co-Creator, Ted Lasso

Co/creator of Scrubs, Cougar Town and Spin City, Bill Lawrence will be online for a VIFF Creator Talk to chat about his latest big-hearted comedy series, Ted Lasso!
The Apple TV+ series, starring and co-created by Jason Sudeikis, is about an American football coach who’s recruited to manage an English soccer team despite having no experience (or even a clear concept of the sport).
Join us for ‘biscuits with the boss’ as Bill Lawrence takes us inside the writers’ room of this series that shows conventional sitcom ideas a red card, brings real depth to a game ensemble cast and proves that comedy and sincerity can be potent strike partners.

Nov. 17, 5pm PST on VIFF Connect.

TICKETS $10: goviff.org/ted-lasso
Free to VIFF Connect Subscribers

IM4 IMMERSIVE KNOWLEDGE TRANSFER SERIES – EPISODE 5

The IM4 lab, in collaboration with Vancouver International Film Festival (VIFF), invites you to attend the ‘IM4 XR Knowledge Gathering’, an exciting live webinar series. This webinar series features conversations among XR media creators, artists, and storytellers from Indigenous and culturally diverse communities.

Episode 5 will feature IM4 Matriarch Loretta Todd, Nancy Lee, and Nyla Innuksuk.

Loretta Todd (Métis Cree Canadian) is the IM4 Lab’s Creative Director, an internationally acclaimed award-winning filmmaker who directed Monkey Beach, as well as co-writing and serving as one of the producers. Ms. Todd has directed over 125 programs, from children’s series, like Coyote’s Crazy Smart Science Show, to Skye and Chang, a sci-fi martial arts mash-up, as well as web-series and numerous documentaries, shorts and animation. She also works as a show-runner and recently created the IM4 Lab, the first Indigenous VR/AR Lab in Canada. Her films have screened at the Sundance Festival, TIFF, ImagineNative and the Museum of Modern Art. Ms Todd has received the Mayor’s Awards for Media Arts – City of Vancouver, Sundance Scriptwriter’s Lab—Sundance Institute, Rockefeller Fellowship—NYU Center for Media, Culture and History and Innovator Award from Women In Film.

Nancy Lee is a Taiwanese-born interdisciplinary media artist, curator, filmmaker and cultural producer. Nancy is a co-producer and co-founder of CURRENT: Feminist Electronic Art Symposium, an intersectional and multidisciplinary initiative featuring artistic and educational programming for and by women, nonbinary artists and artists of colour. She co-created “Telepresence”, a VR 8-channel surround-sound live performance with Western Front, and “Tidal Traces”, an VR 360 dance film with the National Film Board of Canada. Currently, Nancy is collaborating with Kiran Bhumber on a speculative-sci fi exhibition exploring 3D scanning/printing, XR, and live performance, scheduled for 2021 at the Richmond Art Gallery.

Nyla Innuksuk is the founder of Mixtape. A writer for Marvel Comics, Innuksuk co-created the character of Snowguard, a teenage superhero from Pangnirtung, Nunavut. Most recently Nyla wrote and directed her first feature film titled Slash/Back, an alien invasion horror about a group of teen girls from the Arctic. In 2019 Innuksuk was named one of the top 5 To Watch by Playback Magazine. Working in mixed media allows Nyla to channel her passions for technology and genre storytelling among mediums that include interactive graphic novels, film, television and synthetic experiences. Originally from Igloolik, Nyla currently lives in Toronto and sits on the board of directors of Ontario Creates, and the Glenn Gould Foundation. In 2020, Innuksuk was asked by UN Women to represent Canada in discussing the future of emerging technologies in G7 countries.

Be sure to check out IM4 Lab’s Youtube channel for the DJ set featured in the live webinar. For information about IM4’s online workshops visit http://www.im4lab.com.

VIFF Creator Talk | Simon Barry, Creator/Showrunner/Exec. Producer of Warrior Nuns

VIFF Virtual Creator Talk: Simon Barry
Creator, Showrunner, & Executive Producer, Warrior Nun on Netflix
Tuesday, July 7, 5pm-6:15pm (PDT)
Livestreamed via Crowdcast

Simon is a Vancouver based Creator/Showrunner/Writer/Director and Executive Producer whose latest series, Warrior Nun launches July 2nd worldwide on Netflix. Simon also Created and Executive Produced the Saturn Award winning Continuum, as well as Ghost Wars and Bad Blood, and served as Co-Showrunner / Executive Producer on season 1 of Van Helsing. His Feature Film writing credits include The Art of War and The Falling. Simon is a graduate of The University of British Columbia Film/TV program and is a founding partner of Reality Distortion Field Inc. a genre focused Film and TV Production Company.

Host: Tim Goodman, Writer
In Partnership With: Pacific Screenwriting Program

Tickets: goviff.org/simon-barry

Schedule:
5:00 pm PDT Simon Barry & Tim Goodman in Conversation
6:00 pm PDT – 6:15 pm PDT Q&A with Audience

Warrior Nun Blurb:

Based on the cult-classic comic series, Netflix’s controversial Warrior Nun follows a young girl with inexplicable powers who is recruited by an ancient society of nuns and priests dedicated to defending the world from hell demons. Featuring bad-ass martial arts-trained nuns, portals to mysterious realms, episode titles that are all Bible verses, tongue-in-cheek humor, teenage romance…so much to unpack in this epic manga-style show with our guest presenter, Simon Barry.

VIFF Creator Talk: Little Fires Everywhere – Liz Tigelaar (Showrunner)

Join ‘Little Fires Everywhere’ Showrunner, Liz Tigelaar as she talks adapting Celeste Ng’s bestseller novel into the hit Hulu series, starring Reese Witherspoon and Kerry Washington; putting together an intersectional writers’ room; hiring cast members from her first series, Life Unexpected; and the huge plot changes that took a marked departure from the book’s original ending.

Host: Sarah Dodd, Writer/Executive Producer, Cardinal

In partnership with: Pacific Screenwriting Program

VIFF Creator Talk: Graeme Manson (Snowpiercer)

Attention all passengers! Snowpiercer must finish its revolution, lest we all die. Based on the graphic novels and Bong Joon-Ho’s film, this apocalyptic sci-fi epic is set in a frozen wasteland and deals with themes of class warfare, social injustice and the politics of survival. Showrunner Graeme Manson will take us behind the high-velocity scenes and into the lives of the survivors who ride the icy rails on a 1001-car train. Currently airing on TNT and from May 25 on Netflix.

Host: Daegan Fryklind, Co-Executive Producer, Shadow and Bone

Thursday, June 4, 5pm (PDT)
Livestreamed via Crowdcast
Tickets $10

In Partnership With Pacific Screenwriting Program

VIFF Creator Talk: Alex Gibney (Citizen K)

Join VIFF for a conversation with Oscar and multiple Emmy award-winning director Alex Gibney as he shares his insight into two of his most recent projects: Citizen K, a meticulously researched portrait of Putin’s Russia; and his latest collaboration, The Innocence Files, a Netflix series focused on the work to overturn wrongful convictions in the US. Gibney’s critically acclaimed credits include Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief and Taxi to the Dark Side.

Thursday, May 7, 5pm (PDT)
Live streamed via Crowdcast.

Tickets $10

VIFF Talks: Michael Moore | VIFF Podcast

For our first episode, we present a conversation with Oscar-winning director, activist and political pundit Michael Moore, who shares his thoughts on Canada, Justin Trudeau and how the themes in his first documentary Roger & Me still resonate 30 years on.

In 1989, Moore burst onto the American film scene with Roger & Me, which chronicled the efforts of General Motors to turn his home of Flint, Michigan into a ghost town. When the groundbreaking film screened at VIFF that year, it immediately captured the attention of programmers and audiences alike, who awarded it the Festival’s ‘Most Popular Film’ title.

Flashforward to 2019 and Moore returns to VIFF, joining us for a special 30th-anniversary screening of Roger & Me, followed by a Q&A with Stephen Quinn, host of CBC Radio 1’s The Early Edition.

VIFF Talks launched April 9, 2020.

Stream 6 Pack of BC Shorts | VIFF Online

Not only do these shorts showcase the talent of filmmakers who call this city home, they also take us into areas of the city, suburbs and province that currently lay beyond our reach. Whether it’s a retelling of a Langley schoolyard scuffle, a journey to an industrial ghost town, or a ride along with Vancouver taxi drivers, these are films – and filmmakers – deserving of discovery.