VIFF Podcast

In this episode we welcome filmmaker Kim Albright, director of With Love and a Major Organ , and producer Madeleine Davis in  conversation with VIFF programmer Tom Charity. Struggling artist by night, virtual insurance broker by day, Anabel has a heart problem: it’s just too big for this world. Rejected and derided by her more sophisticated “friends”, Anabel falls for George, a stranger with a pen...

In this episode we welcome Canadian filmmaker Pier-Philippe Chevigny, director of Richelieu in  conversation with  VIFF Director of Programming Curtis Woloschuk. Drawing from neo-realist traditions, beautifully photographed and elegantly constructed, Richelieu paints an undeniable portrait of a crisis unfolding across North America. Director Pier-Philippe Chevigny avoids didacticism and delivers a...

In this episode we welcome Mark Mangini, sound designer of films such as Blade Runner 2049 , The Fifth Element , and Gremlins in conversation with film producer Matt Drake Mark Mangini has made it his life’s work to create the unimagined worlds and fabricated sonic realities of the most epic films you can imagine. Known for films including Blade Runner 2049 , Star Trek I , IV and V , The Fifth Ele...

In this episode we welcome Meredith Hama-Brown, director of the feature film Seagrass , in conversation with Sonja Baksa, Programmer + Program Lead at VIFF Having decamped to a Gabriola Island couples’ retreat in a last-ditch attempt to save their crumbling marriage, preoccupied Judith (Ally Maki) and Steve (Luke Roberts) leave their young daughters to their own devices. In turn, 11-year-old Steph...

In this episode we welcome Corey Payette, director of the movie musical Les Filles du Roi , in conversation with the film’s editor Christian Díaz Durán. Adapted from Urban Ink’s stage production, this locally-shot film screened at VIFF 2023. Les Filles du Roi tells through song the powerful story of the young Kanien’kehá:ka girl Kateri and her brother Jean-Baptiste, whose lives are disrupted upon...

In this episode, we’re featuring a conversation with Sierra Teller Ornelas –  co-creator, showrunner and executive producer of the critically-acclaimed, native-centred comedy series Rutherford Falls. Ornelas had written for Superstore, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Selfie and Happy Endings before coming on board with Mike Schur and Ed Helms to bring Rutherford Falls to life, becoming the first Native Americ...

In this episode, we’re featuring a creator talk from the 2021 Vancouver International Film Festival with Craig Zobel – the director behind the wildly popular HBO crime drama, Mare of Easttown , starring Kate Winslet. The Emmy-nominated director spoke to host Zach Lipovsky about crafting a crime series that leaves room for soulful human drama and humour, shooting emotional and technically daunting...

In this episode, we revisit a conversation from the 2021 Festival with award-winning Canadian production designer Jade Healy. Jade Healy has created the look of some of our favourite films, including A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, Marriage Story, The Killing of a Sacred Deer, A Ghost Story, Pete’s Dragon, Mississippi Grind, and Ain’t Them Bodies Saints. 2021 saw Healy reunite with her freque...

In this episode, we bring you a masterclass in editing with BAFTA-nominated editor, Fred Raskin. Fred Raskin is best known for his collaborations with Quentin Tarantino on Once Upon a Time… In Hollywood , Kill Bill, and The Hateful Eight , Justin Lin on The Fast and the Furious films, and James Gunn on Guardians of the Galaxy 1 and 2 .  Speaking to two-time Canadian Screen Award-winning editor Mat...

In this episode, we’re joined by a Songwriter Hall of Fame inductee – artist, producer, composer and all-around powerhouse, Linda Perry. Linda Perry began her journey as the lead singer and songwriter of 4 Non Blondes – penning the band’s hit song “What’s Up?” – before turning her hand to production. As a songwriter-producer, Perry quickly established herself as one of the industry’s heavyweights,...

In this episode, we’re throwing it back to a creator talk from the 2021 Festival, with one of the filmmakers behind the documentary My Name is Pauli Murray.   Co-directors Julie Cohen and Betsy West received an Academy Award nomination for their documentary RBG , on the life and career of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. It was from RBG that they first learned about their next subje...

In this episode, we’re revisiting a conversation with Canadian writer-director Emma Seligman, about her debut feature – the darkly comic, utterly chaotic coming-of-age story, Shiva Baby . Based on Seligman’s 2018 South By Southwest eight-minute short, Shiva Baby finds twenty-something Danielle (played by Rachel Sennott), dutifully attending a shiva for a family friend, where she spends her time lu...

In this VIFF podcast episode, we’re featuring a special talk from the 2021 Vancouver International Film Festival with Jonas Poher Rasmussen, the writer & director behind the Sundance Grand Jury Prize-winning film, Flee . Blurring the line between documentary and narrative filmmaking styles, Flee tells the personal story of pseudonymous Amin Nawabi (a longtime friend of Rasmussen’s) and his har...

This week on the VIFF podcast, we’re featuring a conversation from our year-round virtual Creator Talk series with Dune Production Designer, Patrice Vermette When it comes to making movies, it’s a production designer’s job to transport audiences to a different world. But in the case of Denis Villeneuve’s epic sci-fi film Dune , that also involved creating entire planets. To pull off the godlike fe...

Hello! And welcome to the VIFF Podcast – a place to revisit some of our favourite conversations recorded at the Vancouver International Film Festival and year-round. We’re back with another season of in-depth interviews with some of the film industry’s most exciting creators including the Production Designer for sci-fi epic, Dune , Patrice Vermette; Editor of The Suicide Squad, Fred Raskin; The Gr...

In this episode, Emmy Award-winning production designer Mark Friedberg dives into the process behind creating the iconic cinematic worlds of films such as The Ice Storm, Joker, If Beale Street Could Talk, Selma and Barry Jenkins' limited series adaptation of Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel for Amazon Studios, The Underground Railroad . Speaking to writer and film critic Nathal...

In this episode, Joel Bakan and Jennifer Abbott join us for a conversation to dissect their approach to The Corporation follow-up.  After Mark Akbar and Jennifer Abbott transformed VIFF audiences in 2003 with The Corporation , Bakan and Abbott returned to the 2020 Festival with  The New Corporation: The Unfortunately Necessary Sequel.   Refreshing the corporation’s evolution as a legal "perso...

In this episode, we’re joined by one of the most iconic musical voices in the world.  From his start in 1980 as trumpeter with the Lionel Hampton Orchestra to his collaboration with Spike Lee on Da 5 Bloods (for which he received an Oscar nomination for Best Original Score), Terence Blanchard has been an idol in the worlds of jazz, theatre, film and television.  Headlining the 2020 VIFF AMP Music...

In this episode, we’re joined by Academy Award-winning screenwriter Charlie Kaufman who shares insights into his Netflix adaptation of Iain Reid’s novel I’m Thinking of Ending Things – a tightly wound metaphysical thriller that tackles our assumptions about identity and relationships in Kaufman’s signature surrealistic style.  Speaking with VIFF’s Associate Director of Programming, Curtis Woloschu...

In this episode, filmmakers Eliza Hittman, Director of Never Rarely, Sometimes Always , Kris Rey, Director of I Used To Go Here and Amy Seimetz, Director of She Dies Tomorrow , discuss how they navigated the disrupted 2020 festival-circuit to ensure their stories were brought to life – earning them multiple awards and rave reviews along the way. This conversation is hosted by VIFF’s Associate Dire...

In this episode, we’re joined by the creators behind two of the most audaciously funny series of the last year.  Tony McNamara is the creator of the Emmy-nominated The Great , a genre-bending, anti-historical ride through 18th-century Russia – following the wildly comedic rise of Catherine the Nothing to Catherine the Great. Tony is joined by Peabody Award-winning Alena Smith, creator of Dickinson...

In this episode, we revisit a conversation with Bill Lawrence – the creator behind hit sitcoms Scrubs, Cougar Town, Spin City , and the animated series Clone High .  Joining us online as part of our 2020 virtual Creator Talk series, Bill shared a behind the scenes look at his latest big-hearted comedy Ted Lasso.  The Apple TV+ show finds Jason Sudeikis recruited to manage an English Premiere Leagu...

In this episode, filmmakers Tracey Deer and Jules Koostachin discuss the legacy of resistance.  Tracey’s powerful feature debut Beans is inspired by her own coming of age as a Mohawk girl in Kahnawake during the 1990 Oka Crisis – the turbulent 78-day standoff between the Mohawks, the Quebec provincial police, and the Canadian military. This conversation was recorded at VIFF 2020, on the day that m...

Hello! And welcome to the VIFF Podcast – a place to revisit some of our favourite conversations with filmmakers and storytellers that were recorded at the Vancouver International Film Festival and year-round, as part of our VIFF Talks program. We’re back with another season of in-depth interviews with some of the film industry’s most exciting creators including, I’m Thinking of Ending Things direc...

In this episode, we present a conversation with Oscar and multiple Emmy award-winning director, Alex Gibney, whose critically acclaimed credits include Taxi to the Dark Side and Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief . Alex Gibney was hailed as “the most important documentarian of our time” by Esquire Magazine and has a signature cinematic style that lends itself to penetrating, grippin...