Melissa James (left) and Kate Kroll are working on a documentary, to be called No Fun City, about the changing face of Vancouver and what it means to the city’s cultural vitality.

Credit: Doug Shanks

NEWS: Filmmakers shine spotlight on ‘no-fun city’ rep

Urban development and its attendant clash of class and culture is endemic to any city’s growth, and Vancouver’s coming-of-age is in full bloom. As the Olympics draw near, and the Downtown Eastside continues to bear the most visible evidence of the city’s widespread addiction, poverty, and homelessness issues, questions of how — or if — to improve the neighbourhood remain subject to ongoing debate. Meanwhile, Vancouver’s cultural creatives continue to stake out unwanted commercial spaces in the area for use as galleries and performance venues — a hot commodity in a city where prohibitive liquor-licensing policies have played a large part in shaping our ‘no-fun city’ reputation.

Local filmmakers Melissa James and Kate Kroll have been exploring what gentrification, the Downtown Eastside, and a changing municipal culture mean to the city’s emerging artists in their forthcoming documentary, No Fun City. The film, set for release this fall, explores the city’s subcultures through the eyes of people like Vancouver punk-rock mainstay and Cobalt manager Wendy Thirteen, independent nightclub promoter Malice Liveit, and Downtown Eastside residents who have been observing their neighbourhood’s flux up close.

“There is a clean-up in progress in the Downtown Eastside that is happening very quickly... It’s a time of unrest and uncertainty in that neighbourhood, but there are also interesting revitalization projects happening that bring art and music to the community,” says James, adding that the recently opened Rickshaw Theatre and the forthcoming W2 Community Arts Centre are positive new additions to the area.

“We’ve interviewed many residents of the Downtown Eastside about the opening of venues and new galleries in the neighbourhood, and unanimously they’ve said that they love the idea,” says James. “They are cautious, however, and fear being displaced. Anyone who has spent time in the Downtown Eastside knows how much of a community it really is, and we need to make sure they are part of the change.”

James, who moved to Vancouver in 2006 from Montreal, has previously lived in Toronto, New York, and London, all in neighbourhoods she describes as “in the midst of being gentrified,” such as the plateau in Montreal, Williamsburg in New York, and King’s Cross in London. “When you live in a city with a very high cost of living, you have no choice but to seek out... areas of town where the rent is cheaper, especially for artists and musicians renting studios and rehearsal spaces,” she says. “Here in Vancouver, it’s very extreme... It’s happening at an alarming rate. It doesn’t seem to be occurring organically by one community slowly integrating into another. It feels more like people are being pushed out by developers and expensive restaurants.”

But local entrepreneur David Duprey says development in the Downtown Eastside can be healthy for the community. Duprey owns Main Street’s Narrow Lounge and the Grace Gallery, and he appears in the documentary talking about his work in revitalizing empty buildings in the Downtown Eastside. “I’ve got five buildings down there now... I lease out the buildings, fix them up, and then lease them out to artists... I do what the City calls ‘revitalization without displacement.’ But it can also be interpreted as gentrification, too, because I’m moving artists into the neighbourhood.”

Gentrification, he says, is a difficult term that is often misunderstood. “A lot of people treat [gentrification] as the scariest thing on the planet, but it doesn’t particularly have to be,” he explains. “I really feel strongly that Vancouver needs mixed neighbourhoods... This [Downtown Eastside] neighbourhood needs to have more mixed use. It needs to have people from different demographics. People down here need hope, they need to see there’s a potential to do something else.”

At the heart of the no-fun-city problem, says Duprey, is what is seen every weekend outside the nightclubs on Granville Street. “There’s not enough [live music] venues, there’s not enough bars outside the hell that is the Granville entertainment district,” he says.

James agrees. “I think Granville is designed for a certain type of person, and it doesn’t cater to all of us,” she says. “On paper, it may seem like a great way to cut down on policing and to keep it all contained in one spot, but I think the reality is that not everyone’s idea of fun is to be caged in by police and a bunch of rowdy drunks to listen to Top 40 or dance music.”

What James hopes to convey in her documentary, she says, is the need for more diversity. “The only solution I can see is to allow different types of people to open up more diverse places and to make it easier to obtain primary liquor licenses,” she says. “This will reduce violence, drunk driving... [and] allow the city to really become the fun, cosmopolitan place it wants to be.”

More information on the No Fun City documentary can be found at NoFunCity.org. The project is currently without funding, and James and Kroll welcome the participation of those interested in getting involved with the film.