Whistler Film Festival’s slogan is “Inspiring and Connecting Stories that Matter”, which is so generic I had to look it up even though it is attached to the pre-movie montage at every screening and we’ve seen ten movies in the last four days. But in the spirit of WFF’s slogan, here are some thoughts and themes inspired by our time here at the festival.
1. Consistently great Canadian movies
At least half of the movies we saw were Canadian or co-Canadian productions, and they were consistently good. Canadian content rules have conditioned me to see Canadian movies as filler and nothing more, but I need to get over that notion and Born to be Blue, How to Plan an Orgy in a Small Town, The Legend of Barney Thomson, and my favourite of the festival, River, are helping me ease into that new mindset.
2. Real-life storm porn
It’s a good thing we brought an umbrella. The local weather forecast called for 110 inches of snow this week. I didn’t bring my ruler, and most of that snow had turned into rain by the time it reached the village (which is 5,000 feet below the mountain peaks) but I think for once the meteorologists got it right. Even the rain was pleasant, though, and the thick, fluffy
snow capped off the idyllic experience in this beautiful mountain town (or more accurately, “resort municipality”, because it doesn’t seem that anyone actually lives here).
3. Technical difficulties
From long, unmoving lines in an empty 8 theatre cinema, to lines that were permitted to merge when they should have been kept separate, to triple viewings of the same commercial, to cancelled screenings, to reserving more than half the seats in a theatre for patrons who never showed, the Whistler Film Festival was an utter mess. This topic deserves its own article, so stay tuned!
4. Australians
There must be more Australians in Whistler than anywhere outside Australia. It’s absolutely insane that their accent here is more common than ours. Whether you’re in the gondolas, hotels, theatres, coffee shops, pizza places, box offices, restaurants, equipment rental places, or grocery stores, in Whistler there is no escape from talk of dingoes eating babies.
5. Uncircumcised penises and other gratuitous nudity
I lost count of the number of penises I saw this weekend. It was a lot. And I think there might have been even more times when I thought, that woman is only naked because the director/screenwriter/executive producer wanted the excuse.
Then again, this whole art instead of porn approach is one I can get on board with!
That’s all I’ve got for now but we have a five hour plane ride coming up so that will give us lots of time to come up with more to say.