I bring my VIFF 2010 Dragons and Tigers coverage to a close with short takes on a few films. One of Vancouver’s great services is to bring attention to young filmmakers and interesting films before they have been “discovered” by the film festival establishment at large, those major festival that put the stamp of acceptance on the films that will be the subject of discussion in critical circles for the next year. The Dragons and Tigers selection is filled with World Premieres, International Premieres and North American Premieres. Not that all of them are great or even good (I have yet to find anyone besides programmer Shelly Kraicer who found anything of interest in Crossing the Mountain from China, a film that feels more like a structuralist graduate student assignment than a movie) but exposure to ideas and images and narrative concerns is still a worthy goal of festival attendance. And it sure beats seeing yet another derivative shot-on-DV American indie repeating the same clichés that have become codified in the last couple of decades.
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