The new Vancouver International Film Centre performed its first official function today, hosting the Media Conference this morning. Highlights of the festival program were touched on, the facilities were explained, and a decent lunch was served.

The Centre houses an excellent theatre that seats 175 people (with a balcony) in the space that a more mainstream theatre would pack in 300; even the new style with the bigger seats. The seats are big, they’re extra plush, with head and lumbar support. They also offer huge arm rests, doubled up between seats, allowing for people to avoid the struggle for that single, inch-wide arm rest that is all too common in theatres; these are padded, and wide enough (3-4 inches per seat) to accomodate both patrons’ arms without issue. Throw in the fact that the drink holder at the end of the arm wrest can hold a drink and not force you to abandon using the arm wrest; my bottle of CityTV branded water fit quite nicely without my having to suffer as a result.

Maybe my appreciation for the fine theatre was affected by the glue fumes hanging in the air; it seems that they were working all night, gluing the carpets down and bolting the seats to the floor. Much in the way of tech toys in the new space, with a podium at the front that is motorized, much to the amusement of the speakers; podium goes up; podium goes down.

Thumbing through the inserts in the media package, there’s a Starbucks card included loaded with $5, which is a free coffee anyhow. Where’s Air Canada with a free trip or Visa with cash? The gift card was enclosed in a folder that stated “Great films help expose us to the thoughts and ideas of other people, other cultures, other eras. That’s why Starbucks is so proud to support the Vancouver International Film Festival. It’s out opportunity to come together, open our minds and see movies with meaning.” I’m pretty sure that their support of the Festival by providing free coffee in a couple locations is more than offset by the number of coffees they sell at their dozen locations on Granville Street during the festival, as well as the kiosks they operate in the lobbies of the theatres.

Also shown were the trailers for the festival itself; three commercials for sponsors that are filmed like commercials. Last year they were jokes about crappy foreign films; including a documentary about pants, a thriller featuring storms of ping pong balls killing people, and a goofy cop buddy movie featuring a Geisha. The trailers from the past two years are available from the agency that made them at http://www.tbwa-vancouver.com/portfolio/viff_2004.html. This year it’s a bit different, focusing on how foreign films don’t need to be completely foreign. The new ones are okay, but they’re not as funny as The Pants I Have Owned or the one from 2003 about the German subtitles. In fact, one of the new ones by the name Forlorn isn’t funny, but features more of a dramatic approach than we’ve seen in the past couple years, showing a lonely woman isolated from the world in what feels like a French movie.

The lineup sounds pretty good, but one interesting bill involves a pair of movies that are screening together; Lifelike and A Perfect Fake. Lifelike is an introduction to the sometimes wacky world of taxidermy, and A Perfect Fake is about the culture of love/sex dolls in Japan; interesting pairing of movies.

I’ll be doing much of my viewing planning based exclusively on being able to see as many movies as possible on the new screen of the VIFC theatre. By the time September 29th rolls around, I’m sure that the smell of glue will have faded, but those seats will remain excellent even without the glue sniffing.