VIFF Live 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, celebrates 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.

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?

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