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Watch: Tony Zhou’s “Vancouver Never Plays Itself”
Vancouver Never Plays Itself from Tony Zhou on Vimeo.
Vancouver is the third-biggest filmmaking city in North America, and yet it’s always a stand-in for somewhere else: New York, Shanghai and San Francisco are all possibilities. What does it mean to be “ubiquitous and invisible” at the same time? In his latest video essay, Tony Zhou examines the many tricks used to disguise the city (from planting USA Today newspaper stands everywhere to making sure the camera looks down outside, lest it accidentally capture mountains that don’t belong to the city), then issues a stirring call for Vancouver to, for once, play itself.
