Skip to main content
The Spoils film image; two people carrying a large framed painting

The Power of Restitution: The Spoils

Free Event + Panel Discussion

Standby What is Standby?

Join us for a special screening of the acclaimed documentary The Spoils, directed by Canadian filmmaker Jamie Kastner, followed by a live Q&A exploring the urgent and evolving global movement for art restitution.

The Spoils traces the extraordinary story of Max Stern, the German Jewish art dealer who fled Nazi persecution, rebuilt his life in Montréal and became one of Canada’s most influential champions of modern art. Stern’s legacy extends beyond collecting and promoting artists such as Emily Carr, Jean Paul Riopelle and E. J. Hughes to a decades long effort to confront the injustices of Nazi era art theft. Through the ongoing work of the Max Stern Art Restitution Project, his name has become synonymous with accountability, recovery and ethical responsibility in global art restitution.

Through rare archival footage and intimate interviews, the film reveals how Stern’s unfinished fight now sits at the heart of contemporary debates on repatriation, decolonizing museums, restorative justice, shifting norms and the power of international law.

The screening will be followed by a panel discussion with Dr. Clarence Epstein, President of the Claudine and Stephen Bronfman Family Foundation and Head of the Max Stern Art Restitution Project; Lou-Ann Neel, Kwakwaka’wakw artist and former Head of the Indigenous Collections and Repatriations Department at the Royal BC Museum, Victoria; and Eva Respini, Interim Co-CEO & Curator at Large at the Vancouver Art Gallery, offering expert insight into the progress and challenges shaping restitution efforts today.

Tickets: Free, registration required

Doors open: 5:30 pm

Presentation begins: 6:00 pm

A collaborative presentation of the Vancouver Art Gallery, Vancouver International Film Festival, Canadian Friends of Hebrew University, Jewish Film Festival, and Holocaust Education Centre.

 

Co-Presented with

                    

Director

Jamie Kastner

Credits
Country of Origin

Canada

Year

2024

Language

In English and German with English subtitles

19+
185 min

Book Tickets

Wednesday May 20

6:00 pm
Free Event Hearing Assistance Subtitles
VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

Credits

Producer

Jamie Kastner, Laura Baron Kastner

Screenwriter

Jamie Kastner

Cinematography

Mark Caswell

Editor

Michael Hannan

Original Music

Tom Third

Also Playing

The Grapes of Wrath

Dir. John Ford
189 min

In this Film Studies workshop, Devan Scott explores the purposes of three-point lighting and the influence of German Expressionism on Hollywood studio filmmaking. Followed by a screening of The Grapes of Wrath, photographed by Gregg Toland.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

The Last One for the Road

Dir. Francesco Sossai
100 min

Two middle-aged drunkards drive across the Veneto region on a freewheeling bender, taking a young college student along for the ride. A celebration of the spirit of drink and the kinds of stories told around a table of old friends and too much wine.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

Blue Heron

Dir. Sophy Romvari
90 min

In the late 1990s, eight-year-old Sasha and her Hungarian immigrant family relocate to a new home on Vancouver Island. Their fresh start is interrupted by increasingly dangerous behaviour from Jeremy, the family’s oldest child.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

How Deep Is Your Love

Dir. Eleanor Mortimer
100 min

Filmmaker Eleanor Mortimer tags along with a team of oceanographers and marine biologists as they survey the Clarion-Clipperton fracture, one of the most remote spots on Earth, home to a dazzling array of unknown creatures.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre