The Shadbolt Centre for the Arts presents Meadows of Stone, a new Canadian musical inspired by true events, on November 7 at 2 pm.

The year is 1918, and two Canadians meet amid the chaos of the First World War: a Voluntary Aid Detachment nurse and a bandmaster. Both are serving in a war they don’t have to fight.

He vows to help in the search for her brother, missing at the Front. There is camaraderie, laughter, love, and loss—and through it all, the music that draws them together as they experience the most exciting chapter in their lives when they least expect it.

Meadows of Stone is a Newman & Wright Theatre Company production written by Amy Lee Newman, featuring music and lyrics by Jim Hodgkinson. Newman and Hodgkinson both perform in the musical alongside Brendan Bailey, with director Larisse Campbell and producer Richard Wright at the helm.

Tickets are available through the Shadbolt Centre.

Post sponsored by Shadbolt Centre for the Arts.

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TAXA performs a live, original score to F.W. Murnau’s Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror at the Shadbolt Centre for the Arts on October 17 at 7:30 pm

F.W. MURNAU’S 1922 film Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror is a masterpiece of German Expressionism and one of the first truly scary entries in the horror genre—and it’s only through sheer luck that we’re still able to watch it to this day.

The film had its genesis when the owners of the German studio Prana Film hired screenwriter Henrik Galeen to adapt Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula. One detail they overlooked was actually securing the rights to the story, which would prove to be a fatal error in judgment.

Stoker’s widow, Florence, took Prana Film to court, which resulted in the studio declaring bankruptcy and a judge ordering all prints and negatives of Nosferatu be destroyed. Unfortunately for the Stoker estate, prints had already been distributed internationally, ensuring that future generations would be able to enjoy Max Schreck’s uncanny performance as Count Orlok (and his unforgettably creepy appearance, conceived by producer and production designer Albin Grau).

What hasn’t survived, however, is most of the original Nosferatu score by Hans Erdmann; all that remains of that is a partial suite. This, of course, gives current composers and bands free rein to imagine their own sonic accompaniment to the 104-year-old visuals.

Locally, there is a dedicated crew of musicians who have made a regular side business of creating scores for classic silent films and performing them live at the Shadbolt Centre for the Arts. Under the name Griefwalker, they have presented their takes on The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari and Faust. A two-piece offshoot, Beautiful Violence, has done the same with Metropolis and The Passion of Joan of Arc.

Just in time for spooky season, the four-piece band TAXA—comprising Griefwalker members Hieg Khatcherian, Andrew Morrison, Daniel Fedak, and Dan McVeigh—will give Nosferatu a fresh soundtrack.

It should be fascinating to hear how TAXA applies its sound, which leans in the direction of post-punk, post-rock, and pretty much post-everything, to an artifact of a time before most of the instruments they play even existed..

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Alliance Française Vancouver is hosting Ballet BC Annex, the junior ensemble of Canada’s leading contemporary dance company Ballet BC, on October 30 at 7:30 pm.

Composed of young high-level dancers, Ballet BC Annex presents innovative works across the province while supporting the development of emerging artists. This season’s repertoire includes world premieres from Cameron sinkʷə Fraser-Monroe and Michael Garcia, as well as Last Flower by Out Innerspace.

Fraser-Monroe is a choreographer, director, and member of the Tla’amin First Nation. He is currently artist-in-residence at the National Theatre School of Canada. Texas-born choreographer Garcia, a graduate of The Juilliard School, is in his fourth season as a Ballet BC company artist.

Out Innerspace was founded by B.C.–born artists Tiffany Tregarthen and David Raymond in 2007. The dance company has an international touring history spanning over 15 countries, and also runs the education program Modus Operandi.

Tickets are available through Alliance Française Vancouver.

Post sponsored by Alliance Française Vancouver.

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Vancouver Writers Fest presents Joss Richard at The Dating Game: Romance Novel Edition at the Revue Stage on October 24 at 1:30 pm

FAKE DATING, NEWSROOM ROMANCE, and a lot of self-sabotage—Joss Richard’s Let’s Kiss and Tell is a sharp turn from the sweeping second-chance romance of her bestselling debut novel It’s Different This Time.

The book follows sex writer Lucy Reid, who has built a successful career assuring people that they don’t need a partner to be happy. But when her editor reveals that her column’s click-through rate has plummeted and most of her readers are already in relationships, Lucy’s position becomes a lot more precarious. Without a second thought, she announces to her office that she has recently started seeing someone and has no problem writing about her committed relationship. Cue the timely entrance of our workaholic male lead, Marshall Oakley (Marsh), the company’s new senior news writer, who just so happens to need a plus-one to his ex-girlfriend’s wedding.

After hitting it off at a work party, the pair mutually agree to enter a seemingly low-stakes, short-term fake relationship. Marsh will be able to put his friends and family’s worries at ease while Lucy attempts to convince her audience, and her boss, that a relationship is not the panacea that everyone regards it to be. The arrangement is simple enough, but it fails to account for the duo’s relentless chemistry. As butterflies give way to romantic tensions and barely contained sexual desire, the journalists are forced to face their feelings and reconsider their preconceived perceptions on love.

If the premise feels reminiscent of a particular ’90s romantic-comedy film, that was exactly the Toronto-born author’s intention.

“One of my favourite rom coms is How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, and this is sort of a love letter to what I adore about that movie,” Richard tells Stir over Zoom. “I love the workplace romance, the fake dating, the power imbalance, so I tried to take those elements to create a story that was my own.”

But Lucy and Marsh aren’t being kept apart by a secret magazine assignment or lucrative bet. Both parties are clear on their motives, as well as their intentions of keeping things professional—as much as the situation allows. The only antagonist thwarting their growing desires is themselves; behind his no-nonsense attitude, Marsh harbours insecurities stemming from the collapse of a nine-year relationship, and beneath Lucy’s larger-than-life persona lies a fear of commitment rooted in the heartbreak and betrayals she has witnessed.

“What I love about contemporary romance is that you have these two characters that are going through a lot of self-sabotage,” observes Richard. “That is usually the main obstacle; it’s either pushing through trauma, grief, or self-doubt.”

Romance wasn’t always part of the plan for the L.A.-based novelist, who built a successful career in the entertainment industry before turning to writing. With over a decade of experience in television broadcast and social media production at several notable networks, including Paramount, Netflix, and Walt Disney Company, Richard shifted her storytelling lens to romance writing during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I was always writing when I was younger, but I didn’t know that being a writer was something I could do. I just wasn’t surrounded by any writers and it always felt like a pipe dream,” she says. “It wasn’t until COVID that I was reading so many books, consuming so much romance, and writing a little fan-fiction here and there, one day I thought ‘Okay, I want to try writing something that’s my own. And that turned into my debut novel It’s Different This Time.”

In a genre far too often reduced to its happy endings, Let’s Kiss and Tell makes a case for the messier middle. Sandwiched between out-of-breath boxing sparring sessions and million-dollar open-house tours are moments of vulnerability, erotic sensuality, and an all too familiar sense of confusion.

“You can have a big sweeping romance, and that’s wonderful if you find that, but I also wanted to accurately represent the people that are single and dating in 2026 that have not found their person or are in a situationship,” says Richard. “Lucy and Marsh definitely have chemistry from the first interaction, but I wouldn’t say it’s a typical ‘love at first sight, we knew we were meant to be’ situation. There are so many different types of love stories, and that quiet, messy, complicated love is just as valuable.”

A testament to the realities of modern dating, Let’s Kiss and Tell embraces the awkward, the uncertain, and unabashedly steamy. One moment, they’re sharing personal stories they’ve never shared with anyone else, only to pretend the next day as if everything’s purely business. Richard ensures readers remain vigilant to the very end.

In celebration of all love stories, Richard will join fellow romance authors Katrina Kwan and Danielle McKechnie on October 24 at the Revue Stage as part of The Dating Game: Romance Novel Edition. Hosted by Canadian book blogger Rachel Sargeant, the Vancouver Writers Fest event brings together the three writers to help romance readers discover their next perfect book match.

As she prepares for her the release of her next novel, a coastal summer romance coming out next year, the author shares her thoughts on the role of contemporary romance in literature. Far from the casually slapped on labels of “fluffy stories” and “smut”, Richard views the genre as opportunities for readers to reflect inwardly through the characters’ journey.

“No matter how many people read your book—five or thousands and thousands—it will connect with someone,” she stresses. “Contemporary romance teaches you how to be a better communicator, how to look at yourself, and in this day and age when there is so much hate in the world, to be able to openly love and tell people that you love them is such a great tool.”  

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The Downtown Eastside Heart of the City Festival is presenting Reimagining Justice, a series of video installations created by The Circle Project, from October 30 to November 7.

The Circle Project is a Vancouver-based association of artists and people with lived experience of incarceration committed to creating provocative art. Produced in collaboration with artists Adad Hannah and Jin-me Yoon, the installations are stimulating riffs on classic theatre that invite viewers to reimagine justice.

Reimagining Justice starts with Time Freed (Beyond Capture) from October 30 to November 7 at Gallery Gachet. Co-created by Yoon and 15 women with lived experience of incarceration, this video installation features 15 mysterious apparitions who dance and move through a landscape, affirming life and freedom. An Opening Reception takes place on October 31 at 12 pm.

Over at KW Atrium Studio, What Fools These Mortals Be and Harlequino’s Folly will be on display from October 31 to November 7. What Fools These Mortals Be is a stunning riff on Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, co-created with Adad Hannah and 14 women with lived experience of incarceration. Harlequino’s Folly is a Commedia dell’arte extravaganza co-created with Hannah and nine performers incarcerated in William Head, a men’s minimum-security prison on Vancouver Island. An Opening Reception takes place on October 31 at 2 pm.

Rounding out the offerings is a Screening & Talking Circle with The Circle Project, taking place on November 7 at 12 pm at Carnegie Theatre. Folks are invited to join The Circle Project community, including artists with lived experience of incarceration, for a screening of the co-created video installations. Following the screening, a sharing circle will invite reflection on the power of art to imagine—and help create—a world beyond prisons.

The Circle Project was created in 2019 by filmmaker Brenda Longfellow and restorative justice advocate Brenda Morrison. Broadly accessible online and shared through multiple platforms, the project’s works use imagination, storytelling, performance, and play to generate rich, intimate encounters with the complex realities of people with lived experience of incarceration.

The DTES Heart of the City Festival is presented by Vancouver Moving Theatre, and admission to the Reimagining Justice events is free. To learn more, visit the festival website.

Post sponsored by Vancouver Moving Theatre.

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Surrey Art Gallery presents Farheen Haq and Russna Kaur: In the Folds of Memory to December 6, with a community weaving session on October 22 and an exhibition tour on December 5

A ROUND LAVENDER PLINTH sits in the middle of the gallery, where visitors can weave using colourful strips of gota ribbon. Translucent fabrics, vibrantly textured paintings, and intimate videos fill the room, accompanied by sounds of crushed bricks and gentle waves of the Salish Sea.

At Surrey Art Gallery, associate curator of engagement Jas Lally reflects on the ways in which artists use textiles and language to record, transform, and share personal and collective stories. Marking the end of the gallery’s 50th anniversary, In the Folds of Memory showcases the distinct material practices of artists Farheen Haq and Russna Kaur, running until December 6.

Lally’s inspiration for the exhibition title stems from a quote she encountered in Jessica Hemmings’s anthology The Textile Reader: “Textiles remember. This is not something that we necessarily ask of them, nor is it something we can divert them from doing. They do it regardless… moments of joy and tragedy are recorded on the surface and embedded into the structure of the cloth, without permission and often without intention.”

“The idea for me is how cloth and textiles can be understood as a witness to lived experiences rather than just an object of decorative material,” Lally explains over the phone. “I really want viewers to take in how the show brings together these works that speak to memory as something carried through material, transformed through the making, and reshaped by the lived experiences of the individual artists.”

Haq’s work is rooted in her desire to reconnect with her inner self and her South Asian heritage. She likens her process of creation to “alchemy”, revisiting past moments, words, or impressions to form something new. The story of her mother keeping her eyes closed throughout her own wedding translates to the 2022 video piece Aankhein Band Kar Ke Dekho (Close Your Eyes and See), where Haq reenacts her mother’s wedding rituals. As the red dupatta sways with the wind, folding and unfolding alongside the steady currents of the Salish Sea, the interdisciplinary artist channels her mother’s strength while tracing her ties to Lək̓ʷəŋən lands and waters. Her 2024 tapestry project Ghoonghat Ke Pat Khol Re (Lift up the Veil) borrows from 15th-century poet Kabir, whose poem of the same title calls for the symbolic removal of ignorance and illusion to discover the divine within. Community members contributed to the embroidery of Kabir’s poem on two panels of delicate red organza framed with gold kiran fringe, in Punjabi and phonetic Urdu translation.

The exploration of language continues in Haq’s 2017 brick and video installation Revelation #2 (part of the gallery’s permanent collection), reflecting her shifting relationship with religion as a Muslim in Canada. In the video, her hands cover and uncover the Arabic word Iqra, the first word of the Quran that was revealed to the Prophet Mohammed, using crushed bricks that allude to the destruction of sacred Islamic sites. In addition to English, Urdu, Arabic, Hindi, and Punjabi are incorporated into her works.

“Language is an important part of my practice as well, and in the last few years I’ve also been leaning into my mother tongue, Urdu,” Haq tells Stir over Zoom. “There’s so many of these core memories and worldviews that I’m able to re-enter and access through exploring language.”

For Kaur, memory surfaces through abstract layers of paint, colour, and texture. Having grown up surrounded by intricate patterns and textiles from her mother’s Indian bridal boutique, the abstract painter’s works often incorporate unlikely combinations of materials and texture that reveal deeper narratives about herself and the viewer. “A lot of my work deals with themes of identity beyond the surface of what we see—thinking about how our lived experiences influence how we move through the world, but also how we approach our surfaces and materials,” Kaur says in a Zoom interview. “You might not be able to understand the story right away just by looking at the surface quickly, but the longer that you look, and the more you pay attention to the composition, a deeper story can start to be revealed.”

In her 2025 painting A mistake now came in a cloudburst, fabric is worked directly into the canvas; the combination of bridal mesh and piped acrylic paint resembling embossed embroidery evoke layered lehengas of South Asian bridal wear. The same can be seen for her 2019 canvas What would YOU do? that spans 16 feet long and 13 feet high. Several fragmented panels are connected through Kaur’s repeated mark-making and raised textures, leaving behind layers of abstracted gestures.

Similarly, text is transformed and obscured in Kaur’s creative process. Her 2021 painting Nice Ending (also part of the gallery’s permanent collection) draws on a humorous memory of miscommunication. The title comes from Kaur’s childhood drawing of a little girl and a creature, with the text: “I think the crocodile will eat me and nobody will see me again.” Her teacher’s casual comment? “Nice ending.” The words are fragmented and scattered across the painting, applied using piped acrylic mixed with cold wax to give it volume. Behind the layers of bright pink, red, blue, green, yellow, brown, and white, is a misty background reminiscent of a foggy glass window of a clothing shop—full of colourful, embroidered fabric and prints.

Returning to the plinth in the centre of the gallery, Haq will lead an evening community weaving session on October 22, which will include an artist talk, poetry, chai, and snacks. On November 21, Haq will also reveal a new video at the gallery’s annual media arts symposium. Her latest project draws on a ghazal by nineteenth-century Urdu poet Mirza Ghalib, delving into her relationship with place as a daughter of immigrants and a settler on unceded Indigenous land. The season concludes with a Punjabi-language tour of the exhibition on December 5, led by Lally.

Reflecting on their distinct yet intermingled practices, Haq and Kaur share their hopes for how visitors will interact with the show. “I always have that aspiration that my work will allow people to just slow down and consider their own inner experience,” says Haq. “I want to create something beautiful and contemplative that might reconnect people to their interiority and their inner landscape.”

“What I get excited about in terms of showing with other artists is the connections between our practices that might seem quite different at first,” Kaur adds. “I hope that viewers will take the time to really slow down the viewing process and think about how even though the output is very different, what’s going on behind the layers of the work is, in some ways, quite similar.”  

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Chor Leoni invites audiences to reflect on the sacrifices of the past, conflicts of the present, and hope for peace at The Soul Flies Away, its 35th annual Remembrance Day concerts.

Voices will reverberate through St. Andrew’s–Wesley United Church during performances on November 11 at 2 pm and 5 pm.

This year’s program features the world premiere of “The Soul Flies Away” by Montreal-based composer and singer Seán Dagher, as well as a new arrangement of “Warm Summer Sun” by Toronto’s Katharine Petkovski. Back by popular demand is Don Macdonald’s composition High Flight, a soaring tribute to a Canadian airman’s journey into the sky and beyond, which made its world premiere during the choir’s 2023 Remembrance Day concerts.

Conducted by artistic director Erick Lichte, Choir Leoni will be joined by pianist Tina Chang, trumpeter Katherine Evans, organist Michael Dirk, and cellist Jonathan Lo.

To purchase tickets to the concerts and learn more about the program, visit Chor Leoni.

Post sponsored by Chor Leoni.

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The Cinematheque presents Forbidden Rooms: Halloween on Howe from October 12 to November 1

IT’LL BE SOMETHING of a homecoming when locally made curio Matinee screens at The Cinematheque later this month. It played the same theatre as part of the Vancouver International Film Festival back in 1989, which is precisely the last time that writer-director Richard Martin got to see his debut feature on a big screen. 

“No one was screaming and yelling and calling it ‘genius’,” he recalls. “But it played okay and then it went out and sold in territories and that was it. So great. Then it took over 35 years to become an overnight sensation. And you know what? That’s just fine with me.”

The affable filmmaker is unduly modest. A tight horror-thriller concerning a killer on the loose at a horror film festival—the inventive marriage of high concept and low budget is already pretty ballsy, not to mention a good five minutes ahead of its time—Matinee retained enough of a reputation to interest the Swiss company Multimedia Ulrich, who contacted Martin out of the blue to put the film back into European distribution. 

“They promptly sent a courier,” he recalls. “I only had one single 35mm print left. Everything else was gone to the landfill. They whisked it off to Munich, which is where they did the HD scan.” This piqued the interest of Kino Lorber in New York, leading to a Blu-ray release complete with commentary by Canuxploitation expert Paul Corupe and the film’s re-evaluation and eventual journey back to the scene of the crime here in Vancouver. And so Matinee returns to The Cinematheque on October 29 as part of the rep theatre’s superb Forbidden Rooms: Halloween on Howe program.

Martin’s initial response to all this was “Why?” The answer: because time inevitably lends a kind of magic to something like Matinee. It captures a Lower Mainland that’s largely vanished almost four decades later, but also reminds us of the sheer invention, energy, and graft that fuelled such independent regional product in the years before Hollywood North.

How, for instance, did they manage to scale up the impressive crowd scenes we see outside Chilliwack’s (now gone) Paramount Theatre, where the film’s first murder takes place? 

“My producer called the local car club and they just circled the block as we were shooting, all night long,” answers Martin, speaking to Stir from his Vancouver home. "We had an ambulance and there were 400 people just standing to the side, which, by the way, you can’t do this kind of thing anymore. You can’t get away with this shit, but we were just, with the bullhorn, ‘You guys wanna be in a movie? C’mere!’ And we crowded the street with them. We were being cowboys and everyone was into it.”

Martin was in his early 30s at the time, and his screenplay was inspired in a fit of what he calls “cynicism” by a marquee on Granville Street advertising Slumber Party Massacre II. “There’s a little bit of homage in there to the genre, while biting it in the ass,” he says. “Someone wrote that it’s an anti-thriller with pretensions to arthouse. And I thought… yeah.” A pre-credit sequence establishes the self-reflexive fun and games that follow, sending up the slasher genre while performing one other vital function. It was actually shot as a kind of teaser for Martin’s script with money cadged from, among others, his parents. The results were impressive enough to generate interest where it mattered.

“Fifty thousand dollars we spent, shot it in 35mm, put it together, and then we got a lot of attention,” he says. “Especially in LA. They’re showing it at Orion Pictures, Atlantic Releasing, we’re doing the Hollywood two-step, going around, trying to charm the pants off these executives. Did we get anywhere? No. But it did open things up in Canada. So we capitalized on that, found a distributor, and that unleashed Telefilm, and BC Film, and so we actually did it. Then it was 25 days of balls-to-the-wall filming. But I was sitting there for a year after we made it, sweating buckets, and wondering: Are we actually going to get this off the ground?

Recently hailed for his 2013 doc Backbone: Vancouver Experimental Cinema 1967–1981, Martin enjoyed a busy mainstream career in the decades following his debut, and there are traces in Matinee of the industry boom that was just about to follow. Playing an anxiety-ridden theatre manager, Don S. Davis was only a year away from Twin Peaks and, on the cusp of The X-Files, Cancer Man himself chews the scenery as an exploitation filmmaker pointedly presented as the film’s biggest asshole.

“Oh, yeah,” laughs Martin, “William B. Davis. I got to write him the best lines. He was basically playing me, ’cause I felt like I’m an asshole too. But we had an incredible crew and a really wonderful cast. I would say, if I knew one thing about directing, it was how to surround myself with a bunch of really talented people.”

The X-Files is also prefigured in the film’s use of Riverview Hospital and the West Lawn Building, “which is now condemned and probably should have been back then,” says Martin, who stitched together a variety of locations to build an exotic and wholly fantastical labyrinth beneath the film’s putative cinema—“It’s like Phantom of the Opera, the only thing I was missing was a river going though it!”—which itself was seamlessly assembled from the Vogue, the Ridge, and the Hollywood theatres.  

“So many locations,” he laughs. “This is where my editing experience came into play. I came up through editing, so I was already in the scene and I know all the people from Phil Borsos to Laurence Keane. I actually edited his movie Samuel Lount. So it wasn’t wide open then. You really had to struggle to get a picture together, and we were all struggling. Charles Wilkinson, me, just trying to get that first thing. There wasn’t a lot of homegrown stuff going on, so we were kind of in a league of our own, slightly together and slightly incompetent. Charming. We were so charming.

“There’s a unique moment in our filmmaking history of Vancouver. I’m very proud to be a part of it. I was there, I knew all these people. We fought like hell, we didn’t know what we were doing, sometimes we did, and we managed to make these things and that led to a huge industry. We were part of that thing.”

Forbidden Rooms: Halloween on Howe kicks off on October 12 with the three-hour cut of Japanese classic Kwaidan, paired with the somewhat more visceral Clair Denis film Trouble Every Day. The series continues with Harry Kümel’s sumptuous ’70s lesbian vampire pic Daughters of Darkness, E. Elias Merhige’s extreme grotesquerie Begotten, and two from the reigning master of the horror genre, Kurosawa Kiyoshi: 2001’s Pulse and the very hard-to-see short from 2024, “Chime”. The last film in the series will be Carl Theodor Dreyer’s amazing Vampyr, featuring a live soundtrack performed by the Stephen Lyons–led quartet Applied Silence (also amazing).  

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VINES ART SOCIETY FOUNDER and co-artistic director Heather Lamoureux has announced she’s stepping away from her role.

With roots in contemporary dance, Lamoureux drew on her passions for social justice and the environment to create a unique event that would celebrate both the arts and the land. Since founding the organization in 2015, Lamoureux has watched her original idea for a one-day event where people could experience art outside grow to a multiday festival that brings artists from a variety of disciplines and cultures to city parks for 10-plus days of free public performances. This year’s fest in August spanned live music, drag performance, dance, spoken-word, and hands-on workshops, culminating in the traditional daylong multidisciplinary celebration at Trout Lake.

Along the way, Lamoureux has also built an inclusive arts society that has brought a fresh way of thinking to how a cultural organization could be run.

Lamoureux was praised today for building Vines through a caring sense of experimentation, and a belief that art—and the organizations that support it—can be boldly different.

Over the past year, Lamoureux and Manuel Axel Strain have led Vines as co-artistic directors. Strain will continue as sole artistic director, while Lamoureux will remain connected to Vines as an advisor.

“Through Heather’s vision and unwavering commitment, Vines became far more than an arts organization,” Musqueam Elder Mary Point reflected in the announcement today. “It became a place of belonging, a place where people could bring their whole selves, learn about and share their gifts, and be celebrated for who they are. As she steps away from Vines, please know that her legacy is carried forward in every artist who found their voice, every performer who was welcomed onto a stage, every relationship built through mutual respect, and every person who learned from the example she set.”

“Heather Lamoureux is a visionary artist, a land-based and community-engaged decolonial gardener extraordinaire who is in true allyship with Indigenous peoples, IBPOC, and LGBTQ2IA++ communities,” added artist, ethnobotanist, and Vines Art Society board co-chair Cease Wyss. “She created a beautiful land-based festival that included so many communities throughout our incredible city, and wove her intentions through the land, through communities, and through our hearts and minds. She brought us an incredible decade of beautiful artistic and community-based stories and art in so many forms, reminding us just how creative human beings can be when given an opportunity and a space to create and share.”  

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The Kay Meek Arts Centre celebrates the 20th anniversary of the Six String Nation Guitar with music from the Great Canadian Songbook on November 8 at 7:30 pm. Four artists will hit the stage: Suzie Ungerleider (formerly Oh Susanna), JIMI, Roy Forbes, and Paul Pigat.

The Six String Nation Guitar embodies the countless stories of a truly diverse Canada. Built out of more than 70 iconic pieces of Canadian history—from the Golden Spruce on Haida Gwaii to Paul Henderson’s hockey stick—the Voyageur guitar has a story to tell. It has been played by hundreds of musicians, including Feist, Stompin’ Tom Connors, and Gordon Lightfoot.

Each artist will share stories and songs that explore what it means to be Canadian, drawing from their own creations and beloved classics by artists such as The Tragically Hip, Joni Mitchell, Ferron, and more. Jowi Taylor, creator of the Voyageur guitar and former national CBC Radio host, will host the evening.

Tickets are available through the Kay Meek Arts Centre.

Post sponsored by Kay Meek Arts Centre.

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The Cultch presents Rumble Theatre and ITSAZOO Productions’ The Effect at the Historic Theatre from October 15 to 25

WHEN THE EFFECT saw its local premiere at the Progress Lab 1422 last year, it sold out—possibly in part because its writer, Britain’s Lucy Prebble, is so well known for the small-screen hit Succession. Now, for those who missed it, a new expanded production of the provocative look at pharmacology and love is ready to hit The Cultch’s Historic Theatre.

In a script The Guardian has called “intense and intoxicating”, The Effect follows Connie and Tristan, who sign up for a clinical trial of a new dopamine-regulating drug. But when they start to form a romantic connection, questions arise about consent and pharmaceutical ethics—and whether they’re even experiencing real feelings or chemically induced ones. Supervising the trial are Dr. Toby Sealey, who believes depression is purely a chemical imbalance, and Dr. Lorna James, a veteran psychiatrist who’s skeptical about over-medicating human emotion.

“None of these characters are without flaws—in fact, they’ve got some pretty big ones front and centre, and she really collides them all to construct some very funny moments that are still quite grounded in reality,” director Jiv Parasram told Stir last year when the show opened. “One of the things I really love about her writing is that we can go from quite large, deep philosophic arguments and flip into really human pettiness. I find that contrast very funny in its relatability. I also feel like it adds a certain authenticity to it all.”

As Stir’s review said when it debuted in 2025: “At its peak, her writing brims with equal measures of dark humour and difficult truth,” but added, “rich with timely themes, this production does not simply rest on the strength of Prebble’s writing, but reimagines its moral quandaries.”

Other selling points? The Effect features a crack team of local actors: Meghan Gardiner, Andy Kalirai, Paige Louter, and Anthony Santiago, all adept at the thriller’s rapid-fire verbal sparring, not to mention some memorable one-liners.

It should be interesting to see how the expanded show integrates light, projections, and sound—which in the premiere echoed not just the characters’ emotional state, but the drugs’ side effects, and a growing sense of unease and danger.

It's well worth catching—even if it may leave you questioning how much brain chemistry has to do with love, and just how interwoven the heart is with the brain.  

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On October 1, The Art of Community—an evening of connection and purpose—gathered artists, supporters, and friends at sculptor David Robinson’s East Vancouver studio. After the inspiring event, one impression stands out: community is something that people create together.

The Art of Community united a collection of celebrated creative voices in support of Canuck Place Children’s Hospice. Surrounded by art, conversation, and a shared sense of purpose, guests experienced firsthand how creativity has the power to magnetize people across backgrounds, experiences, and generations.

Art does more than add colour and texture to a room. It sparks dialogue, encourages reflection, and reminds folks that their stories are often more similar than they realize. At Canuck Place, that sense of community is not simply an aspiration—it is a vital part of care.

Every day, children living with serious illnesses and the families who love them are supported by an interconnected circle of nurses, physicians, and counsellors; art, music, and recreation therapists; volunteers, donors, and fellow Canuck Place families. Together, they create a compassionate community that helps ensure no one faces the challenges of illness, caregiving, grief, or loss alone.

In many ways, the themes celebrated through Robinson’s contemporary figurative sculptures echo the work that happens every day at Canuck Place. Just as artists help people feel seen, understood, and connected, Canuck Place creates spaces where families can strengthen relationships, make meaningful memories, and find support.

That connection is deeply personal for host Robinson, as well as for evening sponsor Laura Moore, Stir’s co-founder and director of marketing and partnerships. Robinson’s nephew Sam and Moore’s son Nigel were both supported through illness, end-of-life care, and beyond at Canuck Place. Both understand the profound impact that compassionate support can have during unimaginable times. Their generosity is transforming personal experience into collective action.

Throughout October, Robinson is donating 30 percent of eligible artwork sales to Canuck Place. And the meaningful evening would not have been possible without a generous community of sponsors, including Robinson Studios, Stir, and Desi Indian Lounge.

To learn more about Robinson’s The Art of Community Give Back Campaign throughout the month of October, contact sage@robinsonstudio.com, or make a direct donation here.

Post sponsored by Canuck Place Children’s Hospice.

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Adam O’Farrill’s Elephant plays Alliance Française Vancouver on October 23 as part of VanJazz ’26

FOR PROOF OF evolution, first examine the fossil record. Over untold eons, in slowly accreting layers of sedimentary rock, we can see how organisms morph into new forms that are better adapted to changing planetary conditions. If they don’t, they die. Closer in time and closer to home, we can also see how certain kinds of fish, such as the freshwater sticklebacks of B.C.’s coastal islands, have changed in the scant 12,000 years since the glaciers of the last Ice Age receded. With different populations rendered incommunicado by tectonic upheaval and rising sea levels, one ancestral form has become 10 separate species, each unique to the watershed it calls home.

In musical evolution, however, Adam O’Farrill is staking a claim for record speed. The 32-year-old trumpeter and composer broke into the jazz scene in 2016 with the album that gave his first band its name, Stranger Days. Through five subsequent recordings and one short decade he’s evolved his sound, creating a personal syntax on his horn that is indebted to the past—Louis Armstrong, Kenny Dorham, Wadada Leo Smith, and Ambrose Akinmusire are among those he cites as important influences—but that is also open to electronics, abstraction, and occasional flashes of sweetness. And now, with the debut of his new band Elephant, he’s taken this idiosyncratic language and put it into the service of straightforward emotion. Elephant’s music is less of an interrogation of possibility and more like direct, honest expression.

“That’s not inaccurate,” the trumpeter explains in a Zoom interview from his Brooklyn home. “With a lot of this music, especially on the first [Elephant] album, I also gave myself the challenge of just letting it flow a little bit. With other albums, I really, really kind of intellectualized a lot and predetermined a lot. Which is not a qualitative comment or assessment; it’s just different.”

One difference is that with Elephant—which makes its Vancouver debut at Alliance Française Vancouver on October 23, as part of the new VanJazz music festival—there’s little “translation” involved. Thanks to especially strong work from pianist Yvonne Rogers, Elephant showcases both the music that O’Farrill composes on the keyboard and the variations that then emerge from his horn. 

“I’ve always written on the piano, you know,” he notes. “It’s always been where I can most clearly hear my ideas and feel my ideas and shape my ideas. And that even applied to Stranger Days, which is a band that didn’t have piano in it. A big part of the fun of Stranger Days was figuring out how to map out all these ideas that I was playing and writing on piano onto an instrumentation that was very bare, with two horns, bass, and drums. I was really into that challenge. And then I did another project, this album called For These Streets, which was a little bit more in that direction, although it was a larger ensemble and maybe a little more traditional in the way that I was taking piano stuff and orchestrating it.

“And then I wanted to give myself the challenge of taking the piano and trying to make that interesting itself,” he continues. “Like, really lean into my background and my inherent proclivity as a composer. And where’s the line between giving Yvonne Rogers what I would play on the piano, and really making it into something different and more fleshed out?”

Rogers is obviously an integral part of the new band; at times she and O’Farrill sound as if they’re improvising with one mind. “She’s fantastic,” the trumpeter enthuses. “Yvonne has really, really big and open ears, and is a deeply responsive and sensitive player. That really pushes me. It’s like everything I play, she catches, and that’s really special.”

Bassist Walter Stinson is special enough to have been carried over from Stranger Days, and his earthiness is the perfect foil for the bandleader’s flights of imagination. “The thing I really love about Walter is that he really expands the language of the bass in a very natural way,” O’Farrill says. “He digs into, as you said, the earthiness of the bass that has traditionally been seen as the role of the bass, providing that firm foundation. But he’s also very elastic inside of that. He doesn’t let that role limit himself; he doesn’t play in a way that feels boxed in by that. I hear a lot of bass players that have so much restraint, and sometimes that’s a beautiful thing. It can feel very nuanced, and very useful. Walter can play with restraint, but he’s also not afraid to break the rules.”

Drummer Russell Holzman is new to O’Farrill’s performing unit, but not to the trumpeter’s world; they’ve been friends since high school, although they’ve often travelled in very different circles. “He doesn’t really play on the jazz scene much; this is one of the few gigs that he does with a band that really exists inside of that language,” the bandleader explains. “He does a lot of work in the drum-and-bass scene and the hyperpop scene; he tours with [Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter] Caroline Polachek, you know! When he first started playing music he was coming from a rock background, and it’s been interesting to see his journey. He knows all the Philly Joe [Jones] hits from the first Miles Davis quintet—he’s a very studious musician—and it’s been interesting to see him incorporate that knowledge into everything he does.” 

O’Farrill stresses that, in true jazz fashion, Elephant is a band of equals, even if they’re all pulling together to articulate his ideas. On Elephant’s eponymous debut, that’s perhaps most evident on Sea Triptych, an 11-minute extravaganza that incorporates the dramatic swells of “Along the Malecón”, the tranquil beauty of “The Three of Us, Floating”, and the chase-scene intensity of “Iris Murdoch”. A late addition to O’Farrill’s plans for the record, it grew out of a simple part that he devised on an ailing piano at his wife’s parents’ house. 

“It’s one of those pianos that’s not really that in tune,” he says, laughing. “The resonance is a little funny. It’s a little clangy, a little washy, and I was playing dyads in both hands with the pedal on and realized, ‘Oh, this makes me think of water. It makes me think of the ocean.’ I just kind of followed that, and it made me think of different relationships I haven with water and the ocean.”

“Along the Malecón” is an oblique reference to O’Farrill’s Cuban heritage; he’s made five pilgrimages to the beleaguered island nation and is inspired by both its scenery—the Malecón is Havana’s more urbanized equivalent of the Stanley Park seawall—and its people. “The Three of Us, Floating” evokes a childhood memory of swimming with his father and older brother. And, naturally, “Iris Murdoch” takes a literary turn.

“I had just finished [Murdoch’s] book The Sea, the Sea as I was writing the piece, and it was on my mind,” he says. “This character named Charles Arrowby—a real piece of work, like a complete asshole—becomes obsessive about an old childhood love, and has this toxic relationship with her. But the book is so fascinating in the way it orchestrates all of this and draws it all out, and most of it takes place in this house by the ocean. So with the melody and the interaction between everybody in the band, I was thinking about the thorniness of this guy and his relationships with all of the characters, and the way it kind of reflected moments in which the ocean is responding.”

Fiction and film are both important to O’Farrill: he admiringly cites Ryuichi Sakamoto’s observation that his music functions “as a soundtrack for a movie that only exists in his head”. Like the Japanese keyboardist and electropop pioneer, he’s aiming for a sound that’s multidimensional and pan-stylistic. And that’s perfectly natural for someone whose grandfather, Chico O’Farrill, was largely responsible for introducing Cuban music to bebop jazz in the 1940s; whose father, Arturo O’Farrill, is a respected bandleader and composer in his own right; and whose mother, Alison Deane, is a formidably skilled classical piano virtuoso.

As O’Farrill notes, adventurous hybridity is baked into his musical and personal identity. “I don’t think I have any other way of doing it,” he says. “There’s not a bone in my body that would let me do it any other way.”

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The Chutzpah! Festival hosts An Evening with Ari’el Stachel, an intimate show about identity and resilience, at the Annex on November 9 and 10 at 7:30 pm.

In this original presentation, Tony Award–winning actor Ari’el Stachel draws from the themes and stories that define his critically acclaimed theatrical work. He invites audiences to witness an intimate blend of performance, storytelling, and conversation within the context of rising antisemitism and cultural division.

Throughout the evening, Stachel traces his lifelong struggle with OCD, the pressure to assimilate, and the identity fracture that began in the aftermath of 9/11. As a Middle Eastern Jewish teenager in America, Stachel quickly learned that safety often meant silence. He began hiding his father, denying parts of his heritage, and reshaping himself to fit into a culture that increasingly viewed his identity with suspicion. What began as self-protection became performance—until it all broke.

The piece also reflects on the aftermath of October 7, 2023, confronting the painful complexity of holding both Arab and Jewish identity in a world that increasingly demands division. The result is a deeply personal, politically urgent, and darkly funny exploration of what it means to reclaim wholeness—both onstage and off.

Audiences may recognize Stachel from the musical The Band’s Visit, television show Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, and Olivia Wilde’s film Don’t Worry Darling (Warner Bros.), as well as from his widely recognized Jewish advocacy work online and beyond.

Stachel was born to a Yemenite Israeli father and an Ashkenazi Jewish mother, raised in California, and trained in New York. After years of success playing roles that often flattened or erased his full identity, he set out to share a story only he could tell with Other.

In the acclaimed solo show, which premiered at Berkeley Repertory Theatre and made its New York debut Off-Broadway in 2025, Stachel merges his theatrical virtuosity with raw personal storytelling. He has performed Other at leading theatres across the U.S. and continues to resonate with diverse audiences.

Tickets to An Evening with Ari’el Stachel are available through the Chutzpah! Festival.

Post sponsored by Chutzpah! Festival.

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As part of Latin Expressions 2026, the Vancouver Latin American Cultural Centre presents I Like It Like That! at Performance Works on October 10 at 7 pm

SOME SONGS JUST refuse to die. As originally recorded in 1967 by New York boogaloo pianist and bandleader Pete Rodriguez, “I Like It Like That” is a guaranteed party-starter, due in no small part to the fact that it sounds as if a party was actually in progress in the studio and someone was savvy enough to hit the Record button.

In the mid 1990s, a version by Latin supergroup the Blackout All-Stars (featuring Tito Puente, Sheila E., and others) became a surprise hit after being featured in, of all things, a Burger King commercial. More recently, rapper Cardi B and her producers sampled the original recording for her single “I Like It”. That track, also featuring Bad Bunny and J Balvin, was the undisputed summer jam of 2018.

It’s fitting, then, that I Like It Like That! is the title that’s been given to the dance party at Latin Expressions 2026. There’s no guarantee that you’ll hear the song in question at the event. Trópico Norte—a DJ trio made up of vinyl selectors Ana Rivera (Mexico), Diana Puentes (Colombia), and Tom Howard (Canada) will share sounds from all across Latin America and the Caribbean. We’re talking salsa, cumbia, boogaloo, and other Caribbean-rooted rhythms, so you will almost certainly hear something that will make you want to dance—even if you don’t know how.

No worries on that front, as the queer Latinx-led collective Salseo will be on hand to teach you some salsa and cumbia steps.

You can then try those moves out during a live set by Midnight Boogaloo. Led by Colombian guitarist Alan Ruiz, the Vancouver-based band takes its cues from the vibrant New York Latin music scene of the 1960s and 1970s—the very same scene that gave birth to “I Like It Like That”.

Presented by the Vancouver Latin American Cultural Centre, Latin Expressions 2026 also includes literary events, exhibition tours of contemporary and pre-Columbian art, a film screening, and more. See the website for more info.

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Irish double bassist and composer Caimin Gilmore is joining internationally acclaimed artists Kate Ellis and Lavinia Meijer for a Music on Main presentation. Taking place at the Roundhouse Community Arts and Recreation Centre on November 3 at 7:30 pm, this evening of music moves between contemporary classical, folk, experimental sound, and electronics.

At the centre of the program is BlackGate, Gilmore’s debut record; released in 2025, the album features genre-fluid compositions for double bass, cello, harp, and synthesizer. The musicians will also perform works by Philip Glass, Gabriella Smith, Anne Cleare, and Benedict Schlepper-Connolly, alongside Meijer’s own compositions.

Known as one of Ireland’s leading young double bassists, Gilmore emerges as a new compositional voice, building captivating sounds as he experiments and allows music to flow freely. He has recorded on the opening track of Leonard Cohen’s posthumous Grammy-nominated album Thanks for the Dance, and with Blur and Gorillaz frontman Damon Albarn on his solo record The Nearer the Fountain, More Pure the Stream Flows. Gilmore has also collaborated with such artists as Robert Plant (Led Zeppelin), Justin Vernon (Bon Iver), Aaron Dessner (The National), Anais Mitchell (Bonny Light Horsemen), Phoebe Bridgers, Shahzad Ismaily, and more.

Irish cellist Ellis is artistic director of the world-class new music group Crash Ensemble. She has collaborated with, commissioned, premiered, and recorded works by numerous Irish and international composers, and continues to push musical boundaries while performing with a diverse range of musicians.

Dutch harpist Meijer is the only classical artist to have hit the top 10 in the Dutch rock album charts with three consecutive albums. Her recording of Philip Glass’s Metamorphosis went platinum in the Netherlands. She tours extensively and performs solo concerts in venues worldwide, from New York’s Carnegie Hall to the Berlin Philharmonie.

This performance at the Roundhouse marks the start of a multi-year collaboration between Canadian and Irish artists, leading toward the Canada-Ireland 180 commemoration in 2027. Over the coming seasons, Music on Main will bring artists together to share ideas, create new work, and build lasting connections across the Atlantic.

Purchase tickets to the concert and learn more through Music on Main.

Post sponsored by Music on Main.

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Coastal Jazz and the Chan Centre present Branford Marsalis and Dianne Reeves Celebrate John Coltrane at the Chan Centre for the Performing Arts on October 13 at 7:30 p.m.

BY 1963, JOHN COLTRANE was already recognized as one of jazz’s most important innovators. Thanks to his time spent in the Miles Davis Quintet and as a bandleader in his own right, the saxophonist was known for his boundary-pushing “sheets of sound” and increasingly free improvisation.

One thing he was definitely not known for was working with vocalists. So it must have come as a surprise to producer Bob Thiele when Coltrane asked him to reach out to singer Johnny Hartman and get him into the studio. It almost certainly surprised Hartman himself, who initially declined the invitation, arguing that he wasn’t really a jazz singer. He was eventually won over, and on March 7, 1963, Coltrane and Hartman—along with pianist McCoy Tyner, double bassist Jimmy Garrison, and drummer Elvin Jones—entered the Van Gelder Studio in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, and emerged with a record bearing the no-nonsense title of John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman.

With 2026 marking the centennial of Coltrane’s birth, it has quite naturally been a big year for tributes to the jazz legend. Last month, saxophonist Branford Marsalis and singer Dianne Reeves set out on a tour that will continue through to next April and will take them all over the United States and Europe. An upcoming Chan Centre concert is one of only three Canadian stops on the tour, which finds Reeves joining the Branford Marsalis Quartet—including Joey Calderazzo on piano, Eric Revis on bass, and Justin Faulkner on drums—to perform a tribute to the Coltrane/Hartman LP.

This is not new territory for these musicians, who recently recorded a studio album of their own versions of tracks like “Lush Life” and “My One and Only Love”. Jazzwise called Dedicated to You an “exquisite commentary on the 1963 album”, highlighting the “sense of longing, the melodicism, and the way in which the music stays true to the spirit of the original” and praising Reeves’s “burnished, luxuriant timbre”.

Rarely have performers been so perfectly matched with the material they’re covering, which makes this a can’t-miss event for jazz fans.

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A vibrant, enriching retreat awaits literature lovers this fall, as the Whistler Writers Festival returns for a celebratory 25th edition from November 5 to 8.

Set against a backdrop of golden forests and mountain vistas, the festival provides the perfect reason to escape to Whistler for a weekend of literary discovery, community connection, and fall adventure. The events in store cater to curious minds of all kinds, from poetry fans to murder-mystery aficionados.

Among this year’s highlights is a wide array of author readings, literary conversations, and book launches. Hands-on experiences range from writing workshops to one-on-one editing and publishing sessions. There are also panels and events across genres—including fiction, nonfiction, poetry, children’s books, and YA literature—plus writing, coffee, and networking opportunities.

The opening night event, Celebrating Sea to Sky Storytellers, honours deeply personal new publications by local authors Heather Hendrie, Bronwyn Preece, and Brad Sills. Elsewhere, natural and literary beauty meet during Being Forest: A Salish Stroll, a nature walk with pauses for readings by debut author Avis Blackbird, the City of Vancouver’s current Poet Laureate Elee Kraljii Gardiner, and the inaugural winner of the Whistler Independent Book Award for Poetry, who will be unveiled at the festival.

Notable festival guests include Michelle Good, award-winning and bestselling author of Five Little Indians; Clara Hughes, six-time Olympic medalist, humanitarian, and memoirist of Learning to Breathe; Loghan Paylor, author of The Cure for Drowning and winner of Canada Reads 2026; and Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas, originator of the Haida manga-verse with The Lost Haida Manga: A Compendium.

Tickets to all events are on sale now.

Beyond the festival, Whistler in autumn is more than beautiful scenery—it’s a season of inspiration, with art galleries, live performances, and cultural events. Fall is one of the best times to experience Whistler’s renowned dining scene through seasonal menus, local ingredients, and unforgettable mountain dining experiences. There are plenty of opportunities to relax while indulging at patios, craft breweries, cafés, and award-winning restaurants.

Dine Whistler: Fall Edition features limited-time prix fixe menus and exclusive dining offers at participating restaurants, making it easier than ever to explore Whistler’s award-winning culinary scene. Fall also brings great value on accommodation rates and special offers, with guests who stay three or more nights receiving a $100 Whistler Dining Credit.

For outdoor enthusiasts, fall in Whistler offers a mix of seasonal adventures like hiking, biking, golfing, and ziplining. A stroll through the Village reveals the spectacular colours of autumn leaves, crisp mountain air, and a first snow dusting the alpine peaks, creating one of the most stunning seasons to visit. In the surrounding forests, folks can spot local wildlife preparing for winter, enjoy quieter trails, and discover a slower, more relaxed side of the area.

Visit the Whistler Writers Festival website to learn more about the events in store, and start planning a fall getaway at whistler.com/fall.

Post sponsored by Tourism Whistler.

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Upintheair Theatre presents The Array: Supermassive Black Hole, a thrilling fusion between sci-fi and experimental performances, in association with What Lab from October 21 to 23. Four brand-new creations will be performed at What Lab by Jarin Schexnider, duo danielle Mackenzie Long and Shion Skye Carter, Plastik Theatriks, and Upintheair Theatre.

Now in its sixth instalment, The Array continues to draw inspiration from recent discoveries in science. This year’s theme is the discovery of a single, supermassive black hole that puts into question the history of the universe as we thought we knew it. British Italian astrophysicist Roberto Maiolino and his colleagues found that the black hole is as heavy as 50 million suns, with no parent galaxy in sight—a concept that contradicts with the previous teaching that black holes are formed when a galaxy’s stars collapse into one another.

The Array will showcase four unique responses to that shared theme. This year’s featured performers are Long, Carter, and Schexnider; Loreto Andrea and Regina Ríos of Plastik Theatriks; and Jesse Del Fierro, Jessica Hood, David Mott, and Sarah Roa of Upintheair Theatre. The creative team includes producers Mott and Hood, curators Mott and Schexnider, technical director Ash Shotton, stage manager Kayleigh Sandomirsky, and lighting designer Alexandra Caprara.

In astrophysics, an array is a group of satellites and telescopes that can be trained on a single phenomena to provide a more detailed, nuanced, and multi-dimensional understanding of the subject than could be gained by a single instrument. The Array proposes artists as telescopes.

Last year’s edition of The Array—also presented at What Lab—was Less Than Zero, an exploration of negative time in the quantum world. More previous editions include An Exquisitely Sensitive Machine at What Lab in 2023; Beyond the Knowledge of Humankind at What Lab in 2022; First Contact, a special online presentation that took place during the pandemic in 2020; and The Shape of the Galaxy at The Greenhouse in 2019.

Performances of The Array: Supermassive Black Hole take place at 7:30 pm each night, with a post-show artist talkback slated for October 22.

Tickets are available through Upintheair Theatre.

Post sponsored by Upintheair Theatre.

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HERE’S A BRIEF look at some local films hitting the Vancouver International Film Festival this week—works that will take you from remote German villages to cryogenic labs and the teeming streets of the Downtown Eastside. The fest runs from October 1 to 11.

Sometimes, I Imagine Them All at a Party 

October 9, 6:30 pm, The Cinematheque and October 11, 10:45 am, International Village

At the age of 17, Daniela Magnani Hüller was attacked on the street and nearly killed by a classmate who was widely known to be stalking her. Bystanders looked the other way. When Hüller woke up in hospital with multiple stab wounds, a shaken investigator pleaded with her to “not lose faith in humanity.” This project, made 14 years later (and included in VIFF’s Focus on New German Cinema), might be an attempt to honour or at least interrogate that request. Hüller interviews witnesses including a teacher, another classmate, and an investigating officer, clearing the air over an incident still obscured by shame, propriety, and legal fog. A visit to Brazil adds more detail, and as this riveting film proceeds, we’re gradually allowed to see more of Hüller’s face, and also her flesh, in close detail that underscores its terrible vulnerability. One of the interviewees says she admired Hüller for never concealing her scars, but we do not see those. Some very placid and poetic images offer relief, but there’s a flintiness to the project that’s understandable. We are watching serious trauma investigating itself in the face of perpetual societal weakness and failure—the title refers to Hüller’s vision of victims who didn’t survive their encounter with male violence—conditioning us for a conclusion that knocks everything sideways. AM

Trial of Hein

October 2, 6 pm, The Cinematheque and October 3, 2:30 pm, Fifth Avenue Cinemas

Another striking New German Cinema work that upends form, director Kai Stänicke’s Trial of Hein builds an austere, unsettling fable to tell a deeply personal story of an outcast attempting to return home. After 14 years away, Hein (Paul Boche) arrives by boat at his isolated island community, where the townsfolk and even his own family—all dressed like 18th-century peasants—fail to recognize him. But this strange, windswept world isn’t quite what it appears to be. As with Lars von Trier’s Dogville, its thatch-roofed homes turn out to be open-air set pieces beyond their façades; even beds sit on wooden platforms, exposed to the elements. Similarly, the community offers Hein no shelter: instead, they force him to testify to his identity in a makeshift courtroom, his recollections starkly contrasting with those of others. Without giving too much away about this compelling and assured experiment in allegory and Brechtian distancing devices, Stänicke is getting at how he feels as a queer filmmaker, excavating the lingering scars and distorted memories that come from being closeted, and from the people who wish to shun and pigeonhole. JS

Family Fears Another Night of Terror 

October 4, 9:15 pm, Fifth Avenue Cinemas and October 5, 4:15 pm, International Village

A massively enjoyable Argentine crack at analogue horror, Cristian Ponce’s film purports to be a TV scarefest from 1986 but takes off in all sorts of logic-defying directions, going meta while still somehow maintaining its creepy affect. Set inside a pointedly spartan studio set, it begins with freaked-out Mom trying to coax something from its hidey-hole on top of the pantry. Meanwhile, her metalhead son obsesses over a song by the band Ataque Satanico (there’s a copy of Michelle Remembers on his desk) and Dad pretends everything is okay until suddenly he doesn’t, confessing to his wife that he believes the neighbours are plotting to replace him with a doppelgänger, at least when they aren’t peering at the family through the windows and possibly even the mirrors. Turns out the “neighbours” are the least of their concerns, but in any case, writer-director Ponce and his excellent cast produce something puzzling and upsetting in all the right ways, replete with glitchy video effects and a gesture toward the media’s dum-dum attempts at containing Satanic Panic. In the end, it’s like a terrible and unthinkable truth infiltrates and explodes the 1986 TV event called Family Fears Another Night of Terror, and look out! It might even leak into your theatre! AM

Ba’s Book

October 4, 6:15 pm, VIFF Centre; October 05, 4 pm, International Village

Anh Duong’s memoir Dear Da-Lê recounts his incredible experience of not just growing up during the Vietnam War but then fleeing the Iranian Revolution and later emigrating to Canada. Now his daughter Ashley Da-Lê Duong takes the story to a further, complex level, re-enacting what she has called his Forrest Gump–like tale for film with her father’s relatives and neighbours. She brings him along on his first journey back, at 73, to the home in Hue’s rural outskirts that he left at just 22. The unusual mix of dramatizations and interviews with survivors pushes beyond the stoic surface of families scattered after the trauma of the war. Ashley gently prods her father and his relatives to relive painful memories and express regrets, and to revisit moments of poverty, loneliness, and violence. In one of the most moving scenes, Anh’s elderly sister tearfully recalls forgoing school to cook and clean for her male siblings, even as the older Anh used his math skills to leverage escape to Tehran. The question that hovers, and remains unanswerable, is, Was it worse to stay or flee so far from home? A raw and deeply personal project to add to a growing body of strong documentaries reflecting on the lasting intergenerational, and intercontinental, effects of the war in Vietnam (recalling Saigon Story, earlier this year, at DOXA).

Still Night, Burning House

October 6, 6:30 pm, International Village; October 7, 4 pm, VIFF Centre

A perfect compliment to Ba’s Book, this NFB feature from Vietnamese-Canadian filmmaker Carol Nguyen digs into more unspoken family trauma. Nguyen, too, gathers family for a trip back to Vietnam, this time to explore the effects of silence across time and generations, almost 20 years after her uncle’s mysterious death in the country where he took refuge. She and her cousins were told varying stories about the reason he died, but digging into medical records and stories about his journey from Vietnam to an Indonesian refugee camp to Canada reveal the more complex story of mental illness that was long suppressed. The film’s highlights are in its serene rituals, enacted in Vietnam, as a form of delayed mourning, and several liminal, near mystical sequences in the bluish light of late day. With an assured sense of craft and the help of Arie Verheul van de Ven’s haunting soundtrack, Nguyen forges a new connection with home and culture, processing grief while acknowledging the corrosive damage that comes with secrets. (Filmmaker Nguyen will be in attendance of both VIFF screenings.) JS

Relax, Open Your Eyes 

October 2, 6 pm, Lindsay Family Stage at Granville Island and October 6, 3:15 pm, Lindsay Family Stage at Granville Island

It must be a legal minefield, but there are facilities around the globe that will cryogenically preserve your head or body for… who knows what, exactly?—and at least one other company that will keep your brain in chemical storage in the event that we can ever upload our consciousness into “the Cloud”. That’s assuming that consciousness even resides in the brain, mind you, which is a very good question that the transhumanists don’t care for too much. David Ehrenreich’s fascinating doc maintains a positive view of a tech that some might find pretty ghoulish, especially when the camera follows Calgary-based mom and ardent cryonics believer Carrie Radomski into a dimly lit operating theatre where she trains in “perfusion”, which is the process of replacing blood with antifreeze. The film is built around Radomski, who puts her smarts and determination to work building the Futurist Club, Canada’s first cryonics service, bankrolled by husband Witek, who’s sweet and likeable and who obviously made a killing in the tech sector. It feels unkind to question the thing they so fervently believe in, but the film circumvents a lot of pretty common sense questions about a practice dependent on forever infrastructure to support extreme Hail Mary theories. That said, it also takes us to the Alcor Life Extension facility in Arizona, which has been freezing people since 1972, so what do I know? On a more philosophical note, Radomski “loves life” but, like (almost) everyone we meet here, is driven by a consuming fear of death. Tangentially, it’s interesting that the couple took their operation to Alberta from B.C., where you can’t even find a GP, let alone get your corpse reanimated. AM

Seventeen

October 2, 8:45 pm, Rio Theatre; October 4, 3:45 pm, Fifth Avenue Cinemas; and October 11, 9 pm, International Village

In his debut feature, Vancouver’s Justin Ducharme finds a striking balance between warmth and grit that feels comfortably at-home on street—and alley—level in the Downtown Eastside. Three young, queer, Indigenous sex workers struggle to get by, their lives intersecting over a 17-hour period as they find strength through chosen family. The clock ticks as Tamara (Nizhonniya Austin) searches for her missing passport to avoid being deported back to the U.S. December (Aalayna) deals with grief over her recently deceased father. And perhaps most compellingly, skateboarder Aiden (Taio Gélinas) has to work overtime as a male sex worker to raise the money for a subsidized-apartment (telling a housing worker he’s a kind of “gig” worker). Ducharme—who came out publicly as a sex worker with the 2018 short film Positions—avoids stereotypes and judgment, tapping the real DES community for amateur actors. Ducharme has asserted a different kind of film about sex work and Canada’s “poorest postal code”. His characters have intelligence and agency, all too aware of the structural forces that have put them where they are, but relying on intuition and supporting each other to not only keep going, but to push back. JS

Whispers in May

October 2, 1 pm, International Village and October 7, 9 pm, SFU Woodward’s

In China’s remote Liangshan Mountains, childhood comes with responsibility. With parents away as migrant workers, 14-year-old Qihuo and her two best friends already care for their younger siblings, cooking and hand-washing clothes—only sporadically making the long walk along hilly paths to the local school. The entry into adulthood will only carry more burdens—factory work, marriage, and more hardship. Still, Qihuo and her pals try to celebrate as they embark on a multiday trip by foot into town to search for the traditional skirt that marks her passage to womanhood. Filmmaker Dongnan Chen has crafted this lyrical, observational “hybrid documentary” with her young actors. Their story is partly made up, but there is nothing false or affected about the girls, who let us in on their deepest secrets, their crushes, and their anxieties, and yet remain stoic about the looming, bleaker realities of their future. The film’s greatest strength is the exquisite empathy Chen brings to her subjects—people who manage to find joy amid hardship, and beauty in simple things. JS  

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