Joy and sorrow: These are the first words uttered in Huezo’s film, and the emotional key notes in one of the most moving documentaries of recent times. On the surface The Tiniest Place is the story of Cinquera, a village literally wiped off the official map during El Salvador’s 12-year civil war. But on a deeper level it is a story about the ability to rise, to rebuild and reinvent oneself after a tragedy.

Holding the past and present in focus together, the film takes us to the tiny village nestled in the mountains amidst the humid Salvadoran jungle, while villagers, survivors of the war’s massacres, recount their journey home at war’s end. When they first returned their village no longer existed. Nevertheless they decided to stay. And over the years as they worked the land, built new homes and started new families, the people of Cinquera learned to live with sorrow.

The Tiniest Place juxtaposes scenes of contemporary village life, of Cinquera’s remarkable renaissance, with stories of the war - how conflict arose, civil war erupted, and hopes for liberation turned to struggles for survival. "Don’t cry when they kill me" a mother recalls her 14-year old daughter telling her before running away to fight with the rebel army.

And though the village’s history is always visible - in an elaborate memorial for the dead, or the persistent tremor of a survivor’s hand, towards the end of The Tiniest Place we too are returned to the present. . We see that, if Cinquera is reemerging, it is through the strength and deep love of its inhabitants.

Director’s text

I was born in El Salvador, my father is Salvadorean and he and all his family lived through the civil war (1979-1992), I did not. One year before the war broke out, I moved to Mexico with my mother, I was four years old. My mother is Mexican and I grew up in Mexico.

I always travelled back to El Salvador. A few years ago I visited my paternal grandmother in San Salvador and she took me to the town were she was born, Cinquera. It took us three hours to get there on dirt roads. That same evening we arrrived I went out for a walk, alone. Suddenly an eldery woman hugged me, “Rina!” she shouted “you came back! You haven’t changed a bit!”. I didn’t know how to react, I told her it was a mistake, that I wasn’t Rina. The woman didn’t believe me. I’m not Rina, but I could have been.

Later, I stepped into the small town church, the walls were filled with bullet holes, there were only a few wooden benches, a military helicopter tail hung on a wall. There were very few religious images on the walls but there were rows of portraits of young people that died in the war.

The images and sensations of this space touched me deeply. I felt a need to know everything that happened here. These first moments in my grandmother’s town motivated me to make this film.

"A profound expression of the twin powers of life and death…The subject of the Central American wars of recent decades has rarely received such a level of artistic treatment onscreen." Robert Koehler, Variety

"Unforgettable…One of the finest docs I’ve seen over the past year." Howard Feinstein, Filmmaker Magazine

"Superb. 10/10." —Cynthia Fuchs, PopMatters

Curated by photographer Greg Girard, who will introduce the films: House of Bamboo & Long Arm of the Law The Walled City of Kowloon was an amazing and forbidding part of Hong Kong, and who better to introduce these films in which it features so centrally than photographer Greg Girard, whose book City of Darkness: Life in Kowloon Walled City is itself now legendary.

LONG ARM OF THE LAW In the early 1980’s, Hong Kong’s rapid economic development and Mainland China’s new open policy made the city a new land of opportunity for its neighbours up north. This critically acclaimed crime thriller follows a group of opportunists from China - ex army men - looking to strike riches in Hong Kong, only to experience culture shock and betrayals that will lead to their downfall.

Director Johnny Mak captures the chase between the police and the robbers with terrifying realism, enhancing the impact of the action scenes to beyond simple escapism. Nearly 30 years later, the explosive climatic standoff in the Kowloon Walled City remains one of the best finales in Hong Kong cinema history and serves as an important historical record of a landmark lost to modernity. In addition to two Hong Kong Film Awards and two Golden Horse awards (including Best Director), Long Arm of the Law is often recognised as one of the best Hong Kong films ever made - in fact when the Hong Kong Film Festival compiled a list of the 100 best Chinese films ever made back in 2005, Long Arm of the Law ranked sixth.

Presenter: Greg Girard is one of the most accomplished photographers working anywhere today. Greg left Vancouver to explore Asia as a young man in the early 70’s, spending much of his career living in Tokyo, Hong Kong, Shanghai, and travelling very extensively throughout the region from Afghanistan during the Soviet war to present day Bhutan. His work examines the social and physical transformations taking place throughout the region, often on the front lines of conflict and economic and social upheaval.

He is represented by Monte Clark Gallery (Vancouver/Toronto) and also works on assignment for publications such as National Geographic Magazine.

Discount for VIFF members- $3 off tickets purchased in advance- enter discount code VIFF2013

To obtain discount please do not click on the Buy Ticket button above, click here: VIFF2013

On June 8th and 9th and celebrate World Oceans Day with three amazing shows of the best in international ocean film making.

Now in its fourth year, the Vancouver Festival of Ocean Films is dedicated to the issues, personalities and the sports of our oceans. Our goal is to inspire and stimulate the audience to explore their relationship with the ocean by bringing together local and international filmmakers and presenters in a multimedia event and film competition.

In 2013, we will be continuing our partnership with the Georgia Strait Alliance, a non-profit organization who also shares this dedication. The net profits from the festival will be donated to the Georgia Strait Alliance to assist in their mission to protect and restore the marine environment and promote the sustainability of the Georgia Strait, its adjoining waters and communities.

Whether your interest lies in surfing the cold hard waters of the west coast of Britain, stand up paddling on waters off B.C.’s northern west coast or exploring the many environmental issues that affect our oceans, there will be something here for you and much more!

For festival details visit www.vfof.ca.

For programming info on June 8th visit THIS PAGE

For info on the June 9th matinee visit THIS PAGE

For programming info on June 9 visit THIS PAGE

"The greatest evil perpetrated is the evil committed by nobodies, that is, by human beings who refuse to be persons." - Hannah Arendt

Margarethe von Trotta’s work serves as a corrective to the phallocentric tendencies of history. From the twelfth-century mystic Hildegaard von Bingen (in her last film, Vision) to Marxist Rosa Luxemburg, von Trotta has always been fascinated by powerful, inspiring and complex women.Hannah Arendt is no exception.

A refugee from Nazi Germany, Arendt was a writer, philosopher and academic, the author of "The Origins of Totalitarianism". In 1961, she traveled to Jerusalem to cover the trail of Adolf Eichmann - one of the architects of the "Final Solution" - for the New Yorker, and appalled by this man’s pathetic attempts to exonerate his actions, she coined one of the most resonant and controversial concepts of the twentieth century: "the banality of evil".

Superbly played von Trotta’s longtime collaborator, Barbara Sukowa (and with Janet McTeer as her friend, the novelist Mary McCarthy) Arendt emerges as a bold, uncompromising, and perhaps surprisingly charismatic figure.

Margarethe von Trotta was born in Berlin. Her features include The Second Awakening of Christa Klages (77), Sisters, or The Balance of Happiness (79), Marianne and Julianne (81), Rosa Luxemburg (86), The Promise (94), Rosenstrasse (03), Vision (09) and Hannah Arendt (12).

"Trotta has made an extremely vivid cinematic essay, thrilling in its every minute, deeply moving in its seriousness and suitably unsettling." Elke Schmitter, Der Spiegel

"A thrilling lesson in courage." Deborah Young, Hollywood Reporter

"The best movie this critic has ever seen about the life and times of a writer." Brandon Harris, Filmmaker

Guatemala. The war ended long ago. Though the people want to forget it, the violence continues, and it has spread throughout the society like cancer. Each day, journalists wait to report on the next murder victim, and a social worker helps the relatives of women who have been killed.

The global hunger for cheap resources has been another cause of violence, and a war over bananas has taken on a life of its own. The society suffers from the aftermath of the 36-year civil war. Mass graves are found in the mountains, former rebels mourn their comrades, and a war criminal has nightmares about all the things he’s done. Peace continues to elude Guatemala.

Director’s statement:

Violence pervades life in Guatemala. Just leaving your house involves a real danger of being attacked or becoming a victim of violent crime. Throughout the country, all day and all night. Many citizens have armed themselves, and it doesn’t take much to provoke acts of violence. Human life is not worth much.

While such problems are common in numerous Central and South American countries, the situation in Guatemala is much worse. Furthermore, the country has to contend with the horrible legacy of a 36- year civil war and wholesale killing of its indigenous population. A hike in the picturesque Highlands will take the visitor through a number of villages where descendants of the Maya live on what their modest plots of land produce. When speaking with locals, certain phrases are heard again and again: "Here in our village 50 people were killed and buried back there." And: "They burned them all alive."

Vast numbers of people were murdered here - and the world looked away. While Rwanda, Darfur and Srebrenica caused an international outcry, the fate of Guatemala’s indigenous population aroused little interest.

I asked myself whether there’s some kind of connection between the genocide and the violence of today. Why "Evolution of violence"? When the first Europeans arrived in the New World, they created societies based on extremely unjust social orders. While in many areas entire native populations were exterminated (e.g. in the USA), the descendants of the Maya represent the majority in Guatemala. The unfair and exploitative structures, however, never changed. A society like that is destined to live in continual violence. And all attempts to change this order have been hindered with the aid of the USA and Europe. Guatemala is considered the archetype of a banana republic. This term designates countries where banana exporters are so powerful that they are in fact in control. Whoever opposes their interests is often simply liquidated. Bananas symbolize a world order turned upside down, in which the majority sweats and slaves to create wealth for a small minority. In this film bananas also serve to create a link back to Europe.

In my opinion Guatemala provides an example of a global ideology according to which economic exploitation is veiled by cynical political rhetoric. The film shows archival footage of a speech given by Ronald Reagan. By replacing the word "Communism" with "terrorism" and, in a different clip, switching "bananas" to "oil," the spectator is brought to the armed conflicts of our time. "Evolution of Violence" goes a step further to examine a society after a conflict has ended, or more precisely: to examine a culture of continual conflict. I’m convinced that a similar film could be made about Iraq in 30 years, after the exploitation of a different resource justified by a different political pretext in a different part of the world has come to an end, when the Iraqis are finally left to themselves, all the TV cameras are gone, and the violence has taken on its own life.