PRESS RELEASES – PAGE 1

AMÉLIE, LAST WEDDING TO BOOK-END VANCOUVER FESTIVAL 
Monday, August 27, 2001

Vancouver – Festival Director Alan Franey today announced that the 20th Annual Vancouver International Film Festival will open on Thursday, September 27, with a gala screening of Jean-Pierre Jeunet's exhilarating romance AMÉLIE (Le Fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain). "A wildly entertaining film of unadulterated charm and beauty, AMÉLIE has delighted audiences all around the world, and will open our 20th Anniversary Festival with exceptional style, wit and charm," Franey said. He also announced that the Festival will close with Vancouver director Bruce Sweeney's much anticipated third feature LAST WEDDING.

Amélie Poulain (Audrey Tautou, a revelation) is a shy Montmartre waitress who dreams up elaborate schemes to bolster the happiness of a colourful assortment of café doyens. But can she work up the courage to solve her own love life? In AMÉLIE, Jeunet (co-director of DELICATESSEN) links his dazzling cartoon-based technique to the poetic realism of the French cinema of the 1930s. Unabashedly nostalgic, AMÉLIE is more than just a timeless love letter to Paris' almost insufferably romantic, cobbled streets – painstakingly crafted with an artist's touch, it is a bittersweet tour de force.

A scabrous black comedy, Bruce Sweeney's LAST WEDDING takes a wry look at contemporary relationships through the experiences of three thirtysomething couples, two happily partnered and the third about the walk into a marital disaster. "With leaky condos and other architectural shortcomings, LAST WEDDING will cap our 20th Anniversary by hilariously and effectively capturing a particular slice of middle-class Vancouver life," Canadian Images programmer Diane Burgess said. LAST WEDDING's first-rate ensemble cast includes Benjamin Ratner, Tom Scholte, Nancy Sivak and Molly Parker. Both galas will screen at the VISA Screening Room at the Vogue theatre, which will be in use full-time for all 16 days of this year's Festival.

Franey also confirmed that this year's Festival, running from September 27-October 12, will consist of six main programs: Dragons and Tigers: The Cinemas of East Asia, this year promising to be the largest program ever of Pacific Asian films in North America; Canadian Images, the largest showcase of Canadian features in the world; Nonfiction Features of 2001, a 40-film focus celebrating recent innovations in the documentary form; Cinema of Our Time, the festival's largest program, presenting the best new films from around the world; and Walk on the Wild Side, the popular series of midnight movies. In addition this year, there will also be a series of archival screenings, A Look Back, focusing on past Festival favourites chosen by selected filmmakers, invited guests and festival programmers. More details of the series, sure to be one of this year's highlights, as well other special anniversary events, will be announced at the Festival's media conference.

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