When it’s time for another year of the Vancouver International Film Festival I’m eager to see more docs about kids winning science fairs, odd local films about the young and clueless, and perplexing indie flicks about the world ending while a young man plays a game of Pac-Man for a year. For most of my life I knew exactly what to expect from a film festival, but VIFF Live, a program created in 2017, is here to smash the boundaries of the on-screen experience.

Ken Tsui is the Producer & Curator of Films+ and the programmer for VIFF Live; he described his job to me as to oversee all programming “that expands the dialogue and expectation of the cinematic experience.” Of this he says, “over the last number of years traditional film has been challenged by a rise in streaming options. As people have more autonomy in the content they consume at home nowadays, we're finding that audiences are looking elsewhere to find something more impactful or memorable—unique experiences you just can't get at home.”

There are plenty of weird, terrifying, unpredictable performance events happening out in the world of storytelling. At Mortified adults read their embarrassing teenage writing and at The Moth storytelling series (at cities around the world) professionals and amateurs alike tell wild tales, including ones about a Mormon’s struggle to date an atheist, an ex-stripper's job as a companion to the royal family of Brunei, and a mild-mannered woman who was recruited to be a secret agent. Some of the most-listened to podcasts, like This American Life and 99% Invisible, have restructured their content and format to create live touring shows. And the innovative Pop Up Magazine (which will be at VIFF Live in 2019!) aims to reimagine a printed magazine as a performance of film, music, storytelling and more. In all these instances, live experience and human interaction are key.

Pop Up Magazine is the one I am dying to see, and might be most relevant for Geist readers and magazine lovers. It a companion project to California Sunday Magazine and provides a venue for journalists, writers and artists to use story ideas that are not quite appropriate for a traditional magazine reading experience. Pop Up Magazine is described by its creators as a "magazine performed live." Pop Up Magazine features are almost always multimedia, made up of previously unpublished or unperformed material. Past segments include a filmmaker showing a short about fog in San Francisco, accompanied by live music; a photographer narrating a story about, and based on, a photo album he’d found at a flea market; and a piece in which cookies were given to every member of the audience. Tsui couldn’t offer many hints about this year’s content (always kept a secret ahead of time), but he did say that the show “has a dynamic screen-based component, often incorporating filmmakers as part of their live story segments. These segments are custom commissioned short films made specifically for the show, so you won’t want to miss them.”

If you’ve ever worn lederhosen to the Sing-a-Long Sound Of Music or thrown toast at The Rocky Horror Picture, then you already know that cinemas can be spaces for active participation rather than passive contemplation. But in the last several years, festivals that I have attended (like PuSh, DOXA and VIFF) are adding more and more programming that challenges genre boundaries and alters audience expectations of what will happen when we go to see a film. The first performance that thrilled me with its multi-genre originality was Winnipeg Babysitter, a live show at the PuSh Festival in 2013, for which the artist Daniel Barrow showed outrageous and ambitious lo-fi public access TV programs from Winnipeg, most of which he had saved from obscurity or imminent destruction, and used projections while he told stories about the rise and fall of the shows and their outrageous creators.

“There's nothing quite like the feeling of going on a collective musical, cinematic journey with an auditorium full of sound, visual, energy, and atmosphere," says Tsui. “That's what VIFF Live is, a celebration of genre-defining work with a contemporary twist, bringing together some of theatre, comedy and music’s brightest performers for memorable live events at VIFF, all with a cinematic connection.”

VIFF Live started in 2017 with the Kronos Quartet’s live version of The Green Fog, a reimagining of Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo by weirdo Canadian director, Guy Maddin. A highlight of 2018 was a performance by RZA of the Wu Tang Clan, who live-scored his favourite Shaw Brothers kung-fu film, The 36th Chamber of Shaolin, using laptops, turntables, piano and many clips of Wu Tang instrumentals.

If you like some film history with your musical content, this year you can see Chuck D of Public Enemy, who is coming to VIFF for a live version of the podcast Song Exploder, to talk about his song “Fight the Power,” and the central role it played in Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing. Another hot tip is Feminist Live Read’s reappraisal of Some Like It Hot, in which a cast of women will play men playing women.

What are the next steps for VIFF Live and other genre-busters? Tsui mentioned a desire to “incorporate edible experiences and more non-music driven live performances.” Cookies for everyone, please.

Stay tuned for Geist, the Musical?

VIFF Live events are part of VIFF, which runs Sept 26 - Oct 11 2019.