Over the past half century, our fair city has racked up quite the extensive acting experience in feature films, appearing in roles such as Forks, Washington (The Twilight Saga); Minnesota (Juno); and, unconvincingly, New York City (Rumble in the Bronx). Only on rare occasions has it had the chance to play itself.

Fittingly, the Vancouver Art Gallery’s exhibition WE: Vancouver—12 Manifestos for the City (which runs until May 1), an exhibition about the forces that shape our perpetually in-flux West Coast metropolis, will include a survey of some of Vancouver’s past performances as a city.

Author Michael Turner has assembled two films. “On Location 1 (Elvy Del Bianco’s Annotated Film Collection)” features the titles of 167 made-in-Vancouver films listed on an 11-minute credit roll, each accompanied by one-line synopses. “On Location 2 (Four Double Bills)” features eight Vancouver-shot films, edited to only show Vancouver locations.

In conjunction with the exhibition, Turner will present a special screening and discussion of Zale Dalen’s 1977 directorial debut, Skip Tracer, a locally shot tale of an inexorable debt collector out to win his company’s “Man of the Year” award, at the Pacific Cinémathí¨que at 7 p.m. on Thursday (March 24). Tune in to find out what has and hasn’t changed about Vancouver.