The cliché that “Vancouver never plays itself” — popularized six years ago in a video essay by Tony Zhou that has close to 2 million views on YouTube — is difficult to dispute, especially when considering the innumerable examples of Vancouver standing in for places like Seattle, Chicago, or San Francisco. The Cinematheque’s series The Image Before Us: A Film History of British Columbia aims to challenge this narrative and celebrate, or perhaps simply identify, the province’s understated and too often overlooked cinematic identity. Founded in 2015 by Vancouver filmmaker and scholar Harry Killas, The Image Before Us is in its sixth season, returning after a two-year hiatus due to COVID-19. The current edition of the series includes a mix of contemporary films set in B.C., or works by B.C.-based filmmakers set elsewhere, in addition to a handful of older pictures produced in or centred around the province. Titles this season include Atom Egoyan&r