Celebrate National Canadian Film Day on April 16, 2025

On April 16, 2025, venues and audiences all over the country observe the 12th anniversary of National Canadian Film Day. Presented by REEL CANADA, CanFilmDay brings together hundreds of thousands of Canadians from coast-to-coast to celebrate our stories and the incredible achievements of Canadian filmmakers. Whether hosting a screening, attending one, or watching from home, CanFilmDay is all about connecting with our cultures and shared values.

Following a successful past edition that boasted 1740 events worldwide and 2.5 million at-home viewers, the 2025 programming theme is “Something to Believe In”. It spotlights 60 films that instill strength, inspiration, and hope. Discover all local events on the CanFilmDay website.

Support B.C. films and see a handful of the screenings you can attend:

 

Vancouver: VIFF Centre

This year, the VIFF Centre is celebrating with a weeklong series of screenings for Canadian Film Week, which spotlights 18 features, including seven films from B.C. filmmakers, some of whom will be in attendance for post-screening Q&As. The lineup also features returning classics, new favourites, and free screenings on National Canadian Film Day. Here are the B.C. films you can catch from April 11 to 17:

SCAREDSACRED (dir. Velcrow Ripper)
April 16 | Free Admission

In the wake of 9/11, BC filmmaker Velcrow Ripper (Incandescence) embarked on a form of pilgrimage, visiting ground zero in Manhattan and other sites of disaster and human calamity around the globe — war-torn Cambodia and Bosnia, Bhopal in India, Palestine, Afghanistan… A sobering itinerary, to be sure. But the artist’s mission was to seek out hope and the seeds of regeneration; to turn fear on its head and connect with what is truly sacred. Twenty years on, the world remains a scary and a fragile place, but the lessons Ripper took, from the Dalai Lama and others, are all the more precious. This free screening is presented as a tribute to producer Tracey Friesen.

MY AMERICAN COUSIN (dir. Sandy Wilson)
April 16 | Free Admission and Q&A with the director.

Sandy Wilcox longs for adventure and a modicum of respect. Neither is readily available to a 12-year-old growing up in rural Penticton in the late 1950s. Enter Butch in a screaming red Cadillac Eldorado Biarritz. He’s 16 going on James Dean, a California runaway and about the most exciting thing to hit town since rock-n-roll. Sandy Wilson’s first feature — 40 years young — is a genuine Canadian coming-of-age classic. With its lovely shots of the Okanagan valley, it evokes a heartfelt nostalgia for a more innocent time, while also capturing that adolescent restlessness that yearns for energy and change.

SWEET SUMMER POW WOW (dir. Darrel Dennis)
April 11 | Q&A with the filmmakers.

After proving he could pull off comedy and suspense with the local hit The Great Salish Heist, writer-director Darrell Dennis proves his versatility with this charming love story about two young people who meet cute on BC’s Pow Wow circuit: Jinny – daughter of the Chief of the Coyote Lake Tribe, destined for law school, yet overwhelmingly drawn to dance – and Riley – part of the rival White Bluff Indian Reserve. Around the edges the film points to issues like addiction, diabetes, and generational trauma, but at its heart this is (as the title suggests) a sweet, affirmative romance about two teenagers finding their way.

INCANDESCENCE  (dir. Nova Ami, Velcrow Ripper)
April 11 | Q&A with the filmmakers.

Filmed across the Okanagan before, during and after several devastating fires by veteran non-fiction filmmakers Nova Ami and Velcrow Ripper, INCANDESCENCE is a mesmerizing cinematic contemplation of the power of wildfires, and also a philosophical rumination on loss and regeneration. While much of the film is chastening, there’s hope here too, in the relatively recent acknowledgment that Indigenous practices of controlled burns are a smarter strategy than full-on fire suppression.

TEA CREEK (dir. Ryan Dickie)
April 15

For Indigenous food sovereignty activist Jacob Beaton, the very real threat of the climate crisis pushed him into action. Starting in 2020, Jacob transformed Tea Creek from a family farm into an Indigenous food sovereignty and trades training initiative that has touched the lives of hundreds of members of the local community. The documentary follows the farm’s third year, capturing the ups and downs of life at Tea Creek while exploring the history of Indigenous agriculture – and the colonial actions to destroy it. Against the odds, Jacob and his team are reconnecting participants with the land, recreating resilience, and providing healing for their northern community and beyond.

FIELD SKETCHES (dir. Carl Bessai)
April 12 and 14 | Q&A with the filmmakers.

In Carl Bessai’s plaintive mid-life crisis film, a Vancouver architect is trying to set up his own company more in line with his ideals. This proves expensive. His influencer girlfriend calls it quits when he tells her they will have to sell the house. His 20-something daughter can only stand back and hope he pulls out of his tailspin. A quixotic decision to tough out a Saskatchewan winter in a bare-bones family cabin opens the floodgates of memory.

ARE WE DONE NOW (dir. Ben Immanuel)
April 12 and 13 | Q&A with the filmmakers.

Director Ben Immanuel returns with his third feature, a wry, self-aware Covid comedy in which a socially distant Vancouver documentarian checks in with a stressed-out therapist and several of her patients over the course of the pandemic. Although the tone is predominantly comedic, this framework allows Immanuel to take the temperature of the times and dig into contemporary obsessions and concerns: race, gender, sexuality, and of course mental health.

 

Vancouver Asian Film Festival

CAN I GET A WITNESS? (dir. Ann Marie Fleming)
April 16 | Free Admission and Q&A with the director.

Vancouver Asian Film Festival and community partner Celluloid Social Club present Ann Marie Fleming’s thought-provoking new drama, CAN I GET A WITNESS?, which imagines a future in which we’ve eradicated humanity’s problems, with one catch: everyone must agree to die at age 50.

Victoria: Cinecenta

Located within UVic, Victoria’s cozy repertory cinema is celebrating Canadian Film Week from April 13-19 with screenings for PAYING FOR IT (dir. Sook-Yin Lee), HARD CORE LOGO (dir. Bruce Macdonald), RED ROOMS (dir. Pascale Plante), and SEVEN VEILS (dir. Atom Egoyan).

BURNS LAKE: BEACON THEATRE

Burns Lake’s Beacon Theatre reopened in 2010 as Canada’s second community-owned cinema. To celebrate CanFilmDay, Beacon Theatre is hosting free screenings of MR. DRESSUP: THE MAGIC OF MAKE-BELIEVE (dir. Robert McCallum) and IT FEEDS (dir. Chad Archibald).

KAMLOOPS FILM SOCIETY

The Kamloops Film Society (KFS) is the umbrella organization that operates the Paramount Theatre and the Twin Rivers Drive-In, as well as running four main events. For CanFilmDay, KFS is showing INCENDIES (dir. Denis Villeneuve) and GINGER SNAPS (dir. John Fawcett).