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Live

Unparalleled experiences that go beyond the screen

Join Our Live List

Image: RZA: Live From The 36th Chamber, VIFF 2018

Join us for live performances that push the boundaries of traditional film programming, intersecting cinema culture with music, comedy, podcasting, and performance in unique, cinema-infused live shows.

VIFF Live: Festival 2024

For the VIFF Live series this year, I’ve been guided and inspired by artists working at the outer edges of sound and image; artists that experiment with form, blur boundaries between disciplines, and explore deep relationships between storytelling, memory, time, and presence. I hope you will join us to share and witness these extraordinary live performances.

The series reflects an intergenerational spectrum of voices and premieres of compelling new work:

The Vancouver premiere of Eno, the world’s first generative documentary, celebrating the iconic artist and musician Brian Eno. Director Gary Hustwit developed custom generative software to create the film and he will be in attendance to create a special version of the film live in real time, that will never be seen again; Elisapie‘s Uvattini explores and reflects on her home community and childhood through story song and image filmed in collaboration with Émilie Monnet; the renowned filmmaker Alanis Obomsawin offers a unique and rare live performance of music alongside rising, next generation voice Jeremy Dutcher; acclaimed experimental electronic musician William Basinski invokes the power of his own archive and memory in a new work Arcadia Archives that manipulates the experience of time through sound and image—40-year-old tape loops transformed in a cinematic conversation with new video created by his longstanding personal and creative partner, artist-filmmaker James Elaine; and Eiko Ishibashi offers GIFT, her latest live and evolving collaboration with acclaimed filmmaker Ryûsuke Hamaguchi, which refracts and reframes visual storytelling through a new sonic lens.

Jarrett Martineau headshot, VIFF Live curator

Jarrett Martineau, VIFF Live Curator

Each artist considers and responds to similar questions: What can the past tell us about our present? How do collaborations shape creative imaginings and give new form to their expression across disciplines? How do archives of story, song, and image—both personal, communal—live beyond us? What is carried forward, and what is left behind?

Supported by

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VIFF Live: Year-Round at the VIFF Centre

The Etiquette of Dying: Film + Ron Samworth Concert
The Etiquette of Dying film image; blurry diagram of drawn human skeleton

The Etiquette of Dying: Film + Ron Samworth Concert

Dir. Melissa Hubert
110 min

Guitarist Ron Samworth's brush with cancer a few years ago inspired a suite, which in turn inspired Melissa Hubert's contemplative 51-minute animated film. After the screening Ron will lead a 4-piece band in an improvised performance.

VIFF Centre - Vancity Theatre

Vampyr

Dir. Carl Theodor Dreyer
73 min

This Halloween, experimental music duo Magazinist will perform a live score to 1932 classic Vampyr using an array of supernatural contraptions, including a homemade tagelharpa, dulcimers, zithers, synthesizers, and ethereal vocal drones.

VIFF Centre - Vancity Theatre

A Page of Madness: Live Score by Anju Singh / The Nausea

Dir. Teinosuke Kinugasa
73 min

Experimental artist Anju Singh uses her project The Nausea to explore Teinsuke Kinugasa's expressionist horror masterpiece. An asylum janitor wants to help his beloved wife escape, but she doesn't want to leave...

VIFF Centre - Vancity Theatre

Past VIFF Live Events

Beverly Glenn Copeland performing

Beverly Glenn-Copeland, online performance, VIFF 2020

Claudio Simonetti’s Goblin Plays Deep Red Live, VIFF 2019

On Cinema at the Cinema Live!, VIFF 2019

This is Spinal Tap: Anniversary Live Score, VIFF 2019

Song Exploder Live with Chuck D, VIFF 2019

Feminist Live Reads Some Like It Hot, VIFF 2019