Next month is VIMFF, or Vancouver International Mountain Film Festival. While I will be occupied with VAFF for the next month, I am always content in making an announcement for another festival whilst conducting an interview with the festival director, Ivan Hughes. Technically, he’s Director of Programming & Partnerships for the Vancouver International Mountain Film Festival, but I kept on misspelling that. Ivan used to live in Vancouver, then moved to Squamish for a long time, and is now based in Winnipeg where he currently resides, but always makes time to take a trip to Vancouver and check out VIMFF even after going through all the submissions and remotely helping the rest of the crew prepare for a fabulous fest. Now, VIMFF is not like a lot of other film festivals. The big difference is that its theme centers around mountains, mountain adventures, and mountain activities. A lot of the films are documentaries but you get an adrenaline rush from watching them, I can tell you that much. Ivan can tell us so much more, as I learned over the Zoom call we made together, so grab your mountain gear and let’s scale the heights of Mt. Wisdom as we discover answers together about what VIMFF is.
HNMAG: So there’s a lot of content from BC this year, but is there also contenet coming in from other provinces as well?
Ivan Hughes: Other provinces? There’s films coming in from Alberta for sure, They’re mostly Canadian films from BC, mostly BC and Alberta.
HNMAG: And from other countries as well. How do other films get to qualify to be part of the event?
Ivan Hughes: Well, we accept films worldwide. Basically, as long as they have a mountain adventure theme to them. Some of them have shown elsewhere already, and a lot of them are premieres, but they’re from everywhere.
HNMAG: When I was at VIMFF long ago, almost everything was documentaries. Do you also allow fictional stories that talk about mountain adventures?
Ivan Hughes: I’m going to say its’ 99.9% documentaries, occasionally we’ll get a filmmaker who’s trying to do a fictional play on the genre by doing a bit of a comedy. This year we have one short called the AA meeting, and it’s Adrenaline Anonymous. It’s sort of a fun look at people that are addicted to adrenaline rush that comes from mountain climbing, base jumping, high-lining, whatever it might be.
HNMAG: And with all the extreme content, is there some room for nice calm content like simple hiking or shots of relaxing nature for films? Have you ever received that kind of content?
Ivan Hughes: Yes, we also do mountain culture and mountain environment films, so we’ll get films that are about the culture up in TIbet or Nepal or any kind of mountain environment. Then we’ve got a lot of environmental films as well, we’ve got 38 films in this showing, and in the Feb Fest we do a longer program and in that there’s usually a night that’s dedicated to mountain culture and mountain enviromental films.
HNMAG: How do films qualify to be part of the festival?
Ivan Hughes: They qualify by their content and their submitted online through Filmfreeway, like a lot of other festivals. There’s the mountain festival circuit that a lot of people do and a lot of them do their premiere at BAMFF and they submit to Vancouver after that. There’s not requirements beyond ‘It’s gotta be documentary’, ‘gotta fit into one of our categories, there’s no requirement for a length. I think the shortest film we have right now is 8-9 minute films. Occasionally we’ll program something that’s an hour and a half long, so as long as it’s mountain related or mountain adventure. But that even goes to coast adventures because we do a lot of surf films and water-based films now. It’s adventure with kind of a mountain theme.
HNMAG: And this is labeled as the Fall Series, along with a fest in Feb that you mentioned as well. Are there other VIMFF series and events for the other seasons of the year?
Ivan Hughes: We usually do a summer festival, it usually depends whether we can get funding to do that. The past few years, we’ve been doing a summer fest which is a free event to the public. It’s kind of like ‘the best of the fest’ from the previous year to the current. Then we do the Fall series, and the Feb fest in February-March each year. Then there’s the best of the fest that basically goes on tour across Canada and around the world. It goes everywhere.
HNMAG: Why are there so many events for VIMFF?
Ivan Hughes: Part of it is that we get so many submissions. There’s so many good mountain adventure films we can’t fit them all into the Fall series. It used to be the other way around, the Feb fest was the main festival and we found that there was a real desire to see films when the rain starts in Vancouver. We started off by doing just a couple nights in November, and then it became really popular so we expanded it to 9 nights now. There just seems to be a demand for it so we keep expanding the festival.
HNMAG: And why do you showcase all these films about mountain adventures?
Ivan Hughes: Inspiration. I lived in Vancouver for a long long time, and like a lot of our audiences now I started in the audience at VIMFF. I sat there, staring at that screen thinking “These are the most inspiring stories that I’ve ever seen.” I was a climber at the time, still do a bit of climbing now. I was really inspired by it and it made me want to go out and make a film of my own. That’s what got me hooked on the adventure storytelling documentary realm. I hope what it does for other aspiring storytellers is get them inspired to find stories and tell them. What we find at VIMFF and makes us stand out from a lot of other festivals is we get a lot of first-time and emerging filmmakers here and then we get those high-end films that are done by National Geographic or established filmmakers.
HNMAG: VIMFF is at a few venues throughout BC this year, but are there mountain film festivals you’re connected to in other provinces?
Ivan Hughes: Well, we’re not directly associated with the BAMFF mountain film festival, but we attend every year and we have a close relationship with the progammers and organizers. As we do with other film festivals around the world. Alan the executive director of VIMFF, also runs a festival in Slovakia every spring. We got a festival organizer in Jordan, that’s trying to do his own festival and we’re working very closely with him to help him put his festival on. There are other festivals we attend all the time to get inspiration from, see what kind of films they’re programming, and see how they put their festivals together. I found there’s a rule of comradery around these festivals and we’re all kind of sharing information, helping each other put on better festivals, and just trying to reach more filmmakers
HNMAG: What are you looking most forward to for this particular event and what do you hope people will take away from it?
Ivan Hughes: There’s a couple of films I’m super excited about, and they both feature a Canadian skiier. She used to be on the Canadian ski team and her name is Christina Lustenberger. In both those films, she’s done first ski descents, like an alpine climb up a mountain. One of them being Trango Towers, and the other being Mt. Robson here in Canada. That in itself is an achievement and it’s amazing to see something like a first like that because it’s hard getting up in the mountains and shooting the content. It’s one thing to climb a mountain, it’s another thing to bring a camera up there and acutally document these incredible feats. But they’re also really good stories. I hope when people go to these films, they come away with inspiration to go up into the mountains and live their own adventures. Hopefully in a safe way and in their own area. But there’s all kinds of adventures that people can have in the mountains. You can hire a guide or climb/ski/bike within your limits.
HNMAG: You mentioned there’s a lot of new and emerging filmmakers. Have you seen a lot of these filmmakers move on to create lots more things?
Ivan Hughes: I’ll tell you a little bit of my history, I decided to make a film that won best of the fest in 2003. After that, I actually started working with the festival. I’ve seen filmmakers that were submitting films back over 20 years ago, now becoming very good fimmakers and those were their first few films back 20 years ago. I’ve seen the evolution, I came back to the festival a few years ago. I have worked with Alan doing the programming for around 2005, 2006 till about 2011. Then I moved out west to Winnipeg, I come back to the festival, this has been my 2nd year now and it’s really incredible to see the progression of those filmmakers from 20 years ago. The work that they’re putting out now is really amazing.
HNMAG: Speaking of progression, what do you hope that VIMFF will do to progress further as the years go on?
Ivan Hughes: Well, we’re sort of in the midst of an initiative right now that I think is really important. What we’re doing right now is we got some funding from BC Council and BC Arts, we’re going to take films to remote communities. We went to Haida Gwaii with a program, it was obviously a mentorship program where we’re entering local curators into curating their own festival locally and we’re giving them the funds to put on the festival, to pay the coordinators to hire local talent to do the projections, sound and all that kind of stuff. Have local dance troops or elders open the screenings and just help them put on a festival. That is going to be then to invite people who took part in that to Vancouver and see how we put on a festival. They’re going to be part of a jury, that whole process and then go back to Haida Gwaii next year and put on some adventure fimmaking workshops so when they put their festival on the following year, it’ll hopefully feature one of the films that’s been made locally as well. Initiatives where we’re trying to get into remote communities and help them make their own content. Hopefully VIMFF can then feature films made in these remote communities and we’re empowering local storytellers to find their own voices and tell stories.
Ivan also went on to explain how in the film about Mt. Robson, they go into history and details of those who attempted to ski down that hill. Now that he has a lot of experience, he knows what films can come really close. Of course, it’s a struggle for him to break the bad news sometimes. However he encourages feedback and offers help to anyone so they can resubmit with some new additions. Which is what not only improves the directors and their content, but the festival and other festivals as well once submitted and selected. He knows how to assist in a lot of ways, and I can’t wait to see what VIMFF does next, or Ivan for that matter. Get some tickets today! It’ll be a mountainous experience without a single dangerous avalanche. Well, maybe an avalanche of information.