About Vidfest

• Vidfest Archives
• Past Speakers
• Press Kit

The Vancouver International Digital Festival is an event for the top creative minds working in digital media. Attracting visionaries from games and digital entertainment, Web 2.0, interactive design, animation and mobile applications, it is an annual ‘must-attend’ in Vancouver, Canada. The event includes international business matchmaking, ‘big picture’ conference sessions on the latest trends and markets in digital media, a recruiting fair, high-level seminars for creators, designers, and producers, and loads of networking parties.

Organizers:

The Festival is produced by New Media BC and aided by an Advisory Board and Program Committee. New Media BC is a not-for-profit full service agency. We represent the digital media industry at large and implement strategic projects derived from ongoing dialogue and consultation with our sector.

A Q. & A. with the VIDFEST Team:

1) When it comes to digital entertainment, what’s your guilty pleasure?
2) Blogger, Social networker, Gamer?
3) What’s your favorite sci-fi film/book? Why?

Lynda Brown: Executive Producer
1. I find my blackberry quite entertaining at times. Surfing real estate sites is an addictive guilty pleasure.
2. Social networker and gamer. Facebook, SIMS
3. Bladerunner and The Matrix. I actually got the screenplay for The Matrix and quoted it in my graduate thesis. I love Bladerunner because it reminds me of wandering the streets of Shanghai.

Kirstin Richter: Creative Director
1.  I am quite taken with my PVR and j’adore my new MP3 phone.
2.  Now that I’m a mom I’ve had to put blogging on hold, but I can always find time to post new baby pics to Flickr!
3.  Definitely The Matrix.  And I’m a relatively new convert to the fabulousness that is Battlestar Galactica.

Dennis Chenard: International Partnerships Manager
1. Guitar Hero!!!
2. Gamer/Social Networker
3. Star Wars. Power droids and Jedi mind tricks - need I say more?

Kelly Verchere: Speaker and Program Coordinator
1. iTunes, iMovie…I’m now becoming friends with Wii. Oh, and of course, txt messaging.
2. Social networker
3. That’s a tough one! I have so many sci-fi favourites. If I have to pick one though it’s Galaxy Quest - it holds up after repeated viewings (believe me). Oh wait, that’s not a real sci-fi is it? Hang on, for a view of the future, it’s a tie between A.I. and Minority Report. I think what we saw in those may actually come to pass. (The stories are a bit dark though…sheesh).

Adam Gooch: Communications Manager
1. TikibarTV, The Burg and The Lonely Island
2. Oldschool Dabbler
3. The Firefly TV series (Serenity is the film version) I think Joss Whedon is one of the definitive story tellers of my generation who just happens to execute his visions in the sci-fi genre.

Jessica Schaap: Content Editor
1. Pet movies on YouTube. Dogs that skateboard, cats that love rabbits. I’m addicted.
2. Facebooker. Lazy blogger.
3. Oryx and Crake - it’s funny and bitter. My favorite films are probably eXistenZ in all its creepy glory and before Jude Law became a bit of a twit, and Children of Men. That ambush scene on the country road. Wowza!

Philippe Filiatreault: Sponsorship Coordinator
1. My guilty pleasure is to duke it out on EA’s Fight Night Round 3. Whether it’s PlayStation or Xbox, you can find me taking on anyone who claims, ‘I’m the greatest’.
2. Social networker when I’m not gaming.
3. Favourite Sci-fi film is Flight of the Navigator, book, George Orwell’s 1984.

Program Committee:

Kris Krug, Quasi-Sage, Bryght
Jennifer Ouano, President, Elastic Entertainment
Mark Baxter, Producer, Threewave Software
Wil Arndt, Creative Director and Principal, Mod7
Philipp Postrehovsky, Brand Strategist, Signals
Sang Mah, VP Strategic Projects / Researcher, ComVu Media