11:26 AM, Thursday, October 2
The management of Vancouver International Film Festival (VIFF) is doing everything in its power to avert a serious disruption of our event by construction work just now beginning outside the Empire Granville 7 Cinemas at 855 Granville Street. The noise generated from this work could well mean the cancellation of many of the 200 screenings remaining at this venue. We received assurances from street engineers that consideration would be made of the fact that the Film Festival attracts 100,000 attendees to this block between September 25 and October 10. That consideration appears to be inconvenient now. We have received sympathetic counsel from everyone we spoken to at City Hall and at B.C. Hydro, but nothing has so far averted this extremely serious blow to the Festival. Since no explanation has been forthcoming as it why this work absolutely needed to coincide with our brief event, it is time to warn our public. Hopefully a more public airing of our concern will encourage reasonable action to be taken in time.

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