2018 Vancouver Island Short Film Fest Aims to Please ‘em All

Two years ago when I reviewed the 11th annual VISFF, I didn’t hold back. The films were – most of them – shall we say not what one would expect or hope from our very own film fest; lacking in substance, majorly un-local. I was left wondering where the “VI” part of the acronym was, and downright objecting to what we ended up with. I mean, if we were gonna cast our net wide, shouldn't we not just leave it sitting there?

I’m glad I didn’t have to be a festival farter again, because this year was in a whole other quality echelon. The crowd was pleased, laughing at the appropriate times and praising the diversity of the films. Indeed, there was something for everyone - comedy, drama, documentary, sci-fi, subtitled, vape swan, I forget what else because I lost my pamphlet. The festival itself included new, fun stuff such as a jazz band, a packed filmmaker Q&A, way cool merch, and a general aura of festivity. So no complaints here. Because the international selections were so good, I was less bothered by the fact that there were even fewer local selections from two years prior, but still left wondering about that “VI” part...

I spoke to 3/4ths of the festival organizers for an underwater look at what made this year different and how to satisfy all the people all the time.

Interview with VISFF Organizers Gregory Brown, Hilary Eastmure, and Karla Duarte

J: Where’s Matt [Carter]?

K: He’s announcing. He’s a sports announcer on top of everything.

H: He’s the best MC in Nanaimo. That’s why he’s the film festival MC.

J: I feel bad because I had forgotten that he was the guy who made that cheesy Hollywood/Harewood joke 2 years ago that I made fun of. I realized it was him after he made the variation of the same joke this year.

K: I thought that was so funny. I was like, “Do it again!”

J: Anyway, how was the fest this year from your end?

H: Best year yet. Hands down.

G: Organizationally, it was the easiest year yet.

J: How about the submissions?

G: I think they were, in general, stronger. I think we had more good films than we’ve had in previous years, and that was probably a function of the fact that we had more films submitted overall. We got 127 submissions this year.

J: Were they more international?

G: Last year and this year were pretty similar. Last year was a big year for the festival because we moved to a new submission portal, which meant we got a lot more submissions and a lot from all over the place. This year we got submissions from 19 different countries.

J: Hey that’s cool. Now a bunch of my questions won’t apply because you guys don’t actually choose the films do you?

G: We don’t, which is by design.

K: We appoint committee members that have more expertise in film. Same with the judging committee. It maintains that boundary. Not all festivals do that.

J: So what would you like to see more of in future fests? What kinds of films would you like to show?

K: People ask me that question every year and there’s people who are really opinionated on there should be more films on social justice or documentary, but I think people come because they don’t know what they’re gonna get. I think that’s part of the appeal. I wanted more documentary and less horror, but that’ just a personal preference.

J: At this rate, the submissions are probably just gonna keep increasing, right?

G: Yeah, I think. Last year we got 60 more submissions than we got the year before.

J: Do you think with more submissions there’s gonna have to be some sort of narrowing of the margins of what kinds of films to screen so as not to overwhelm the selection committee?

K: At this point we’re just taking baby steps to try things out because the way that it’s grown, it’s causing pressure to change, but if we change too fast then there’s certain reactions. At the end of the day we’re gonna need to sell tickets, so what is gonna be appealing to a Nanaimo audience? Getting to know the audience. But at the same time, every single festival Matt asks the question, “Who’s here for the first time?” and it’s 90 percent of the audience.

Johnny [Blakeborough], the founder [since 2006], he basically built the audience from people that he knew. He knows and he gets to know those people and so they have supported it and formed that audience. I didn’t know what was going to happen when he retired [in 2015], but it seems like it’s doing fine. It’s very rare that a film festival of this size has this many people attend. I went to the one in Vancouver and it’s about similar. Victoria has a shorts component and they get maybe 50 people. Then the Toronto short portion toured and they came to Vancouver and had about 12 people. So it is rare.

G: And that’s one of the exciting things that we hear back from a lot of the filmmakers who come with their films, is how excited they are to have shown their films to such a large crowd. It’s pretty rare, I think, for short filmmakers to get that kind of audience.

J: “VISFF” is a bit of a misnomer because it’s almost all international films. I think first-timers expect them to be local. Why not call it the VIISFF then?

H: We already have a double letter in the name.

K: I thought about this a lot last year when this came up quite strongly. I polled a bunch of festivals and I looked, and a lot of film festivals that are international don’t necessarily have the word “international” in it. So is it necessary? It is confusing to people.

J: If you got enough quality local submissions would you move toward it being local-only?

H: It’s a meritocracy. It’s the best films that get submitted, so that’s already an option to screen all local films if they’re the best.

J: How many local submissions were there this year?

G: I think there were 12, which is about 10 percent of the overall submissions. Which is what we screen [the quota]: 10 percent. Statistically bears out.

J: How do you think the local films compared this year?

[recording paused]

K: But you can see the change in the filmmakers. From when Ray started, how he is now. And Zach, how he is now. I mean John, he did that in one month, one minute.

G: The local filmmakers have gotten quite a lot better even in the last few years.

H: But here’s another thing about the local films: those films weren’t made with a festival in mind. Zach’s was a comedy that he was making as part of a broader project to do brief comedy bits on a regular basis. John’s movie was made for the Hub City Cinema Society’s one minute movie challenge, and Raymond’s movie is a music video for a client.

J: So that could be a difference. Maybe if people were making films with the fest in mind, we would get more and better films.

G: The other thing, too, is local for us is the entirety of the Island. It felt to me we didn’t get a lot of stuff from Victoria, and I know there are really good filmmakers in Victoria.

H: In the wake of the VISFF making the shift to including international films, Hub City stepped up and created their own Cinefest which featured all local films, and they did run feature length films.

K: There was a small public backlash last year because we didn’t screen enough local films. This wasn’t intentional. It just happened that way. At the same time we have to be transparent to all the filmmakers, because they all paid the same entry fee.

J: Was there a quota last year for local films?

K: No. We didn’t think we would get 112 entries.

J: What was that award the fest won this year?

K: It’s on Film Freeway. It’s the 100 top-rated films festivals. I didn’t even realize it until someone else pointed it out, but it’s out of 4700 film festivals.

J: Whoa. How was that decided?

H: The filmmakers who entered had scored the festival really high and gave the festival really good feedback.

K: Even this year they were coming and saying they immediately felt like they were part of the community, that they felt welcome.

H: They’re, like, “It’s one of the best film festivals we’ve ever been to. Best organized.” And we’re like, “Err, really?”

J: Yeah, it seemed a lot cooler this year if that’s the right word. The jazz was new, and Denisa as always. Cool poster too.

K: The filmmakers love Denisa. I don’t know what she says to them.

H: She doesn’t even have to say anything. It’s just Denisa. It’s like, “Wow, that’s the coolest chick I’ve ever seen.”

[R.I.P Denisa from The Sub]

J: Were you surprised by the People’s Choice this year?

H: Yeah. People’s choices was surprising, and I think it was a very high complement to the selection committee and the direction we’re taking the festival in, because it was this black- and-white, French-made, subtitled black humour comedy that won people’s choice. It was the epitome of an international film. Second? Cuba No Vaca.” Also subtitled, also a comedy. Third place “Oculus Malus”, also subtitled, tied with “Trying,” which was also a comedy. So top three were comedies, subtitled, international. If that’s what the people want, then VISFF is for sure on the path to giving the audience what they want.

J: Hey, you’re people, what were your choices?

H: Doesn’t matter.

G: I actually didn’t vote.

K: I didn’t vote either, but it would been Cuba No Vaca.

J: Me too! That’s what I would like to see more of if we’re gonna have international films. I want to learn more about what’s going on in the places that are submitting that we would never learn otherwise.

H: That’s what’s going on in France right now. After hours drinking apricot juice in a little bar making weird jokes.

G: It’s interesting because normally there’s a push by friends of local filmmakers to get one of the local films to win the audience award. Last year John [Gardiner]’s film won, and the year before Michel Chen’s film won, but it seemed like this year’s audience was more or less indifferent to the fact that some of these films were created by local filmmakers.

K: Yeah, it’s really interesting too because I think there’s an assumption that the audience is mainly made up of friends, but this year we didn’t really didn’t see that. There were all kinds of people.

G: We have done some thinking about how can we, if we’re going to screen fewer local films than we have in the past, then how can do engage the community in other ways? So bringing in local artists to do design work for us. And last year we ran a contest for local filmmakers. We gave away $1000. Why are you shaking your head?

H: Don’t go down that rabbit hole.

K: I’m sure we’ll see the film one day.

G: So yeah, we’ve been talking about how we can support the local filmmaking community outside of giving them a venue for them to screen their work.

K: But there’s no reason why VISFF and Hub City can’t partner to do something else.

H: I think it was ultimately a good thing that Hub City took ownership of the fact that they really wanted to have a local film festival. And they did an amazing job of it, also had a great poster, also had a really good turnout. So there’s definitely an audience and an interest in supporting both of these things.

J: Well on that inspiring note, thank you very much for talking with me and I’m sorry about the rude article now that I know you guys, but not sorry for writing it and I would have written it again if this year’s sucked. But it didn’t! It was great. Thank you for all your hard work.

H: Hey, we just appreciate you (and everyone else!) coming to the fest - taking a chance, trusting the selection committee, and appreciating that it’s a unique opportunity to see a real range of short films, some you might love, some you might...not. Plus, free popcorn! See you front row next year!

J: There was free popcorn?!

photos by Denisa Kraus <3