Pancouver

3 weeks ago | pancouver.ca | Charlie Smith

We’re living in a golden age of Indigenous documentaries in B.C. This month, Yintah captured Canadian Screen Awards for Best Feature Length Documentary and Best Cinematography in a Feature Length Documentary. It told the story of two Wet’suwet’en women who’ve faced state harassment and incarceration for trying to protect their unceded traditional territory from the resource industry.

3 weeks ago | pancouver.ca | Charlie Smith

An absurdist comedy-drama that re-imagines Canada as a Farsi- and French-speaking country captured five Canadian Screen Awards on Saturday (May 31). Matthew Rankin, Pirouz Nemati, and Ila Firouzabadi won the Canadian Screen Award for Original Screenplay for Universal Language. The film’s other awards came for Editing (Xi Feng), Art Direction / Production Design (Louisa Schabas), Costume Design (Negar Nemati), and Casting (Marilou Richer and Firouzabadi).

1 month ago | pancouver.ca | Charlie Smith

Asian Heritage Month is nice, but let’s get real. Vancouver is a Pacific-facing city that is very Asian in its heritage, composition, and identity. Yet this isn’t adequately reflected in our institutions, including the media, legislature, city councils, and especially in the senior bureaucracy. To be frank, I’m uncomfortable with creating a one-month silo of Asian cultural stories, which is one of the reasons why we launched Pancouver.

1 month ago | pancouver.ca | Charlie Smith

It was like two bands for the price of one at Gateway Theatre in Richmond on Tuesday (May 27). The Metro Vancouver Overseas Taiwanese Society presented Ten Drum Art Percussion Group 十鼓擊樂團 to perform as part of its Taiwan Pulse tour. Halfway through the evening, the dramatic drumming troupe—which included talented suona, xylophone, and flute players—morphed into a six-member hard rock band. For  the next hour, Cross Metal 手合鐵鼓 still included pulsating traditional drumming from Taiwan.

1 month ago | pancouver.ca | Charlie Smith

Melissa Karmen Lee describes the Chinese Canadian Museum’s major new exhibition as “a celebration of sound, style, and diasporic imagination”. Dream Factory: Cantopop Mandopop 1980s-2000 tells a story about Vancouver that has largely been overlooked, according to Lee, the museum’s CEO. “At its heart, Dream Factory is about how Canada and especially Vancouver played a central role in shaping one of the most influential music movements in Asia,” Lee declares on a media tour of the exhibition.