The Vancouver International Film Festival (VIFF) is back for it’s 45th year between October 1-11, 2026, at theatres around the city. Driven by passion and curatorial excellence, VIFF encourages understanding of the world’s cultures through the art of cinema. VIFF’s spectacular roster includes some of the best cinema from around the globe, one-of-a-kind live performances, talks, industry sessions, and other unique events celebrating film and film culture.
Every fall, the magic of VIFF energizes the city of Vancouver with exceptional stories, insightful conversations, and endless opportunities to connect with the local film community. The love for film is all around, from the dedicated staff and volunteers, to the filmmakers and panelists, and the 100,000+ attendees that fill seats each year.
In preparation for the festival, here are the B.C. films screened at the festival this year. From impactful family dramas, to coming-of-age horror, riveting documentaries, and more, catch these twelve features and eight shorts this October at VIFF.
Feature Films:
Still from WHATCHA WANT (2026)
WHATCHA WANT (dir. Mina Shum)
Galas & Special Presentations
Transplanted from Hong Kong to Vancouver on a temporary visa, Yin Tse, a restless trophy wife, rises above her absentee husband’s infidelity by rekindling her passion for dancing. A chance encounter brings Yin under the wing of dance studio owner Penny, who helps her train for an audition at an elite dance program. But when Yin’s wealthy husband returns from Hong Kong, she is forced to choose between material comfort and the freedom to be herself.
Manifesting the rhythm and charm of Vancouver’s city streets, this earnest drama from acclaimed writer-director Mina Shum brings a zesty hip-hop flavour to her signature themes of self-discovery, personal liberation, and female solidarity in the Asian diaspora.
HOW WE STAND (dir. Marie Clements)
Showcase
The film follows three sisters through the long aftermath of the Native American Relocation Program that uprooted Indigenous families. Opening in 1950s Oklahoma, we’re introduced to a single mother and her three young daughters. Drawn by promises of opportunity and stability, the family moves to Los Angeles, but their ambitions never materialize, and a traumatic event separates the girls. Twenty years later the sisters have taken vastly different paths: Jessie is a clinic doctor; Miranda is an activist-turned-actor; and Janey is unraveling under the weight of a trauma she’s never been able to name.
The historical drama carries heavy weight, but Clements doesn’t play it straight — magical realism and a satirical streak run through the film, including a sharp Hollywood western send-up. Each sister’s experiences or racism and institutional violence are unique, yet the three threads are tied together by a shared history that continues to shape their lives, even decades after the separation.
IN ALASKA (dir. Jaap van Heusden, Vinnie Karetak)
Panorama program
Depressed and out of answers, Woody, a 17-year-old Inuk boy, leaves a note for his mother and sets out with his rifle to end his own life. When his attempt fails, he inadvertently fires a bullet into the nearby Trans-Alaska Pipeline, setting off a federal manhunt through the wilderness and over the border into Northern Canada. There, he finds a community and reconnects with the land and his mother’s Inuit roots. As FBI agent Tarheel closes in on Woody’s trail, she begins to understand the pain behind his actions.
With IN ALASKA, Dutch filmmaker Jaap van Heusden and Inuk artist Vinnie Karetak map the generational effects of colonial violence onto both character and landscape, allowing the land to reflect Woody’s inner struggles. Woody’s journey is arduous, and he never entirely escapes the darkness that follows him, but Leo Matthew Temela’s performance reveals a young man who may finally be learning what it means to be alive.
Still from FREAKS PART II (2026)
FREAKS PART II (dir. Zach Lipovsky, Adam Stein)
Altered States program
Mary and her daughter Chloe travel across the country on the run from the Abnormal Defence Force (ADF), a government agency intent on killing anyone with extraordinary powers. As the citizens around them are detained and inspected for traces of blood-red tears, Mary and her daughter hide in plain sight, seeking revenge on the ADF agent responsible for murdering Mary’s firstborn child.
Returning to the universe of their 2018 breakout hit, co-directors Zach Lipovsky and Adam Stein set FREAKS PART II several years after the events of the original, widening its scope to reveal a world gripped by constant fear. Striking a perfect balance between paranoid thriller and emotionally grounded family drama, Lipovsky and Stein deliver on both the clever plot twists and over-the-top gore they’re known for.
THE BRYCE LEE STORY (dir. Arnold Lim)
Northern Lights program
Set on Vancouver Island in the 1990s, the film follows 13-year-old Bryce, a recent immigrant from China living with his uncle while his father remains behind. Making homemade action movies with his younger sister, Bryce dreams of becoming a filmmaker. But struggling to fit in and facing anti-Asian prejudice at school, he claims to be related to martial arts icon Bruce Lee. The lie captivates the Godard-obsessed leader of the school film club, propelling the kids into an ambitious martial arts production that triggers a chaotic series of events.
In his sophomore feature, Arnold Lim draws from his own upbringing in rural B.C. to confront the “model minority” myth with warmth, humour, and compassion. Grounded in a distinctly West Coast setting, THE BRYCE LEE STORY balances complex questions of identity and family with an infectious love of cinema.
RELAX, OPEN YOUR EYES (dir. David Ehrenreich)
Northern Lights program
Confronted with her husband’s declining health, Carrie Radomski dedicates herself to building Canada’s first cryonics facility, convinced that preserving the human body after death may one day allow families like hers to reunite. Alongside a close-knit group of scientists, entrepreneurs, and true believers, Carrie commits herself to a vision of the future that challenges conventional ideas about mortality, grief, and what it means to hope.
A rare glimpse into the world of cryonics, the documentary explores the people who devote themselves to such an extraordinary pursuit, revealing a community driven as much by love and optimism as by science. Through observational filmmaking and remarkable firsthand access, the film captures the emotional complexity of believing in a future that others dismiss, while inviting audiences to reflect on humanity’s enduring desire to overcome death.
Still from SEVENTEEN (2026)
SEVENTEEN (dir. Justin Ducharme)
Northern Lights program
Justin Ducharme’s film takes us into Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, where three Indigenous sex workers are having a rough day. Tamara belatedly realizes she has 10 hours to find her passport for a return to the US. She’s assisted in her efforts by good friend December, who is grieving her recently deceased father. Meanwhile, full-time student and part-time hustler Aiden loses most of his savings and has to rustle up cash as quickly as possible.
December, Tamara, and Aidan live in the shadow of colonialism, and their story is as political as it is intimate. SEVENTEEN is a work about solidarity in the face of oppression, and it alternates between moments of anger and affirmations of care. What Ducharme shows is that survival is as much a matter of love as it is one of will.
A SAFE DISTANCE (dir. Gloria Mercer)
Northern Lights program
When unfulfilled 35-year-old Alex turns down a proposal from her long-term boyfriend during a camping trip, he abandons her in the woods. Alone and injured, Alex is rescued by former lifeguard Kianna and her self-styled progressive partner Matt. As Alex warms up to the couple at their off-the-grid campsite, her curiosity unfurls into a sexual awakening. But when she starts to suspect her rescuers are responsible for a series of high-profile bank robberies, she finds herself dangerously entangled in their shifting power dynamics.
Set against the lush backdrop of B.C.’s forests, this feature-length expansion of director/editor Gloria Mercer’s feminist short of the same name weds the intrigue of a slow-burn crime drama with the tension of a psychosexual thriller. Lingering zooms and a mesmerizing score imbue the film with apprehension and longing, as the latent wilderness within our heroine blooms to a bloody climax.
Still from FIRST COMES LOVE: NAKABINGWIT (2026)
FIRST COMES LOVE: NAKABINGWIT (dir. Joella Cabalu)
Northern Lights program
With moments of levity and plenty of heart, this vibrant hybrid documentary follows women in the Filipino diaspora as they search for the language to discuss race with their white romantic partners. In Montreal, Veronica and Mathilde resolve their differences of opinion about ADHD lifestyle habits and Duterte’s war on drugs. In Vancouver, Rhea encourages her partner Eric to speak with their mixed-race children about embracing their culture and natural beauty. And in Toronto, Justine talks with her British partner Dominic about recognizing white privilege and racist encounters.
Couched in a rom-com-inspired narrative framing, filmmaker Joella Cabalu complements intimate interviews with reenactments of scenes from her own love life: her “meet cute” with her partner Luka and a poignant moment of disconnect in the early pandemic, among others.
RECLAIM MY SKIN (dir. Marie Clements)
Full Series | Showcase
Marie Clements’ RECLAIM MY SKIN takes a comprehensive look at Indigenous women’s history and traditional cultures where the authority of women, men, Two-Spirit, queer, non-binary, and transgender people maintained a harmonious balance. This three-part documentary series goes back in time to examine the arrival of the European patriarchy and uncovers the strategies used by foreign powers to attack matriarchal and Two-Spirit systems within Indigenous communities. RECLAIM MY SKIN considers how these patriarchal systems were set in place and how they still affect communities today.
A music documentary in the vein of Clements’ prior work, RECLAIM MY SKIN uses soulful music to weave together stories that span time and culture. It surveys history through an Indigenous lens to share perspectives that are wholly unique but resonate universally.
MAN IN MOTION: THE RICK HANSEN STORY (dir. Adrian Buitenhuis)
Showcase program
Twenty-six months, 34 counties, 40,075 kilometres traversed in a wheelchair, and more than $26 million generated for accessibility initiatives… Four decades later, the statistics surrounding Rick Hansen’s landmark fundraising and advocacy campaign remain staggering. And now, the accomplishments of one of B.C.’s greatest athletes and activists receive the big screen tribute that they’re due in an inspiring portrait.
Buitenhuis unearths a treasure trove off archival footage that encompasses everything from Hansen’s early exploits as an accomplished wheelchair athlete, to the most gruelling portions of his journey. His long-awaited Vancouver homecoming in 1987 is given new context courtesy of never-before-seen 35mm footage, and Hansen’s audio diaries are shared for the first time, offering fresh insights into his inner journey over the course of two transformative years.
Still from SEND THE RAIN (2026)
SEND THE RAIN (dir. Hayley Gray, Kaayla Whachell)
Northern Lights program
Erika, a young Okinawan-Canadian animator living in Vancouver, makes an unexpected road trip to rural B.C. when her stubborn Oba refuses to evacuate the family farm as wildfires close in. As Erika tries to convince her grandmother to leave, vignettes of vivid memories reveal Oba’s past — from her departure from Japan during the war, to the tumultuous childhood of Erika’s mother and the bittersweet reality of strawberry picking. Fielding urgent calls to evacuate from her sister Hanna, Erika must reckon with the complicated ties that bind her to the farm.
A tender, quietly funny portrait of a family negotiating history, responsibility, and the pull of home. Unfolding entirely in the B.C. interior, SEND THE RAIN finds its drama in the gap between knowing when to let go and when to stay.
TANGLES (dir. Leah Nelson)
Showcase program
Sarah is a queer magazine illustrator based on the West Coast, in Leah Nelson’s touching and darkly humorous animated film. Torn between worlds, Sarah is forced to put her budding relationship with her biker girlfriend Donimo on hold to tend to her ailing mother across the country. As her mom’s once vibrant and outspoken personality is eroded by early-onset Alzheimer’s, their big, eccentric family must find the courage to pick up the pieces.
A star-studded cast of actors and comedians lend their voices to this adaptation of Vancouverite cartoonist Sarah Leavitt’s graphic memoir of the same name. The film’s surrealist flourishes viscerally evoke the throes of anticipatory grief: from Sarah’s psychedelic panic at losing her mom in a Día de Muertos carnival crowd, to the dissociative sensation of drowning at the news of an Alzheimer’s diagnosis.
LIFELINE (dir. Ilhan Abdullahi)
Northern Lights program
When a Somali youth worker is assigned a high-stakes case, her professional responsibilities pull her back toward a community (and a past) she has worked to leave behind. As the boundaries between her work and personal life begin to blur, her story becomes an intimate exploration of belonging, responsibility, and what it means to reconnect with the people and places that have shaped us.
Drawing from director Ilhan Abdullahi’s longstanding work alongside refugee and Black communities in Vancouver, LIFELINE brings warmth, humour, and complexity to a story grounded in the Somali Canadian experience. Rooted in a distinctly local community while resonating far beyond it, it offers a thoughtful portrait of the ties that bind us to one another, and the complicated journey of finding a way back to a community once left behind.
Still from CEREMONY (2026)
CEREMONY (dir. Banchi Hanuse)
Showcase
Powerful and evocative, CEREMONY examines the disappearance of the ooligan in Bella Coola, revealing a story that reaches far beyond the river itself. For the Nuxalk Nation, the ooligan is more than a source of food — it is medicine, tradition, economy, and a living connection to generations of knowledge carried through land and water. As director Banchi Hanuse follows her community’s search for answers, the mystery of the vanishing fish becomes an exploration of cultural survival, environmental stewardship, and the enduring relationship between people and place.
Combining testimony, striking watercolour animation, and rare archival material, Ceremony honours Indigenous ways of knowing while reclaiming histories often absent from colonial records. As the film flows between ceremony and activism, it celebrates the resilience of a Nation determined to protect its lands, waters, languages, and traditions.
GASMASK (dir. Harry Cepka)
Altered States program
Fifteen years after the fall of civilization, the last remnants of humanity are left to survive in a world without electricity. When a solar-powered generator opens up new frontiers for discovery, our narrator starts recording his memories using an old phone, and a group of artists — a musician, a storyteller, and a dancer — utilize the electricity to bring their creative impulses to life. Suddenly, members of a generation shaped by the apocalypse are able to scavenge through old smartphones like relics of a vanished civilization, discovering pictures of cats and fragments of forgotten music from a world they never knew.
A humorous meditation on memory, ritual, and art in the aftermath of the apocalypse, captured in stark black and white photography that recalls Chris Marker’s LA JETÉE. Both enigmatic and surprisingly moving, GASMASK explores what remains of culture following technological collapse, imagining what cinema might look like after cinema itself has gone extinct.
THE FLIGHT (dir. Soran Mardookhi)
Showcase program
On January 8, 2020, Flight PS752 was intentionally shot down by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps shortly after takeoff from Tehran. All 176 people on board were killed, including many Iranian Canadians, the largest loss of Canadian lives in an aviation disaster in 35 years. THE FLIGHT examines the aftermath, following three families across Canada who lost loved ones and documenting their fight for justice alongside lawyers and other affected families.
Necessary and quietly devastating, the film goes beyond the tragedy itself to illuminate the Iranian-Canadian community’s quest for accountability against the Islamic Republic’s impunity. Holding both emotional and political weight, the film documents those at its centre as they move from grief into determined advocacy, seeking accountability while preserving the memory of those they lost.
Short Films:
BUDDIES (dir. Fraser Wolfe)
VIFF Short Forum
Boundaries shift as two teen friends spend a ski weekend together.
PACIFIC SPIRIT (dir. Antoine Bourges)
VIFF Short Forum
Two university students walk through a forest to complete a photography assignment.
A DREAM POINTING TO AADCHIT (dir. Ghinwa Yassine)
MODES
Haunted by a recurring dream of her grandfather turning the soil of her childhood home, director Ghinwa Yassine heads back to Aadchit, a small village in the south of Lebanon, to find her memories changed by the war. The short film evokes a personal and poignant perspective of the sacred responsibility we have to the land and bears witness to the devastating impact of foreign state violence.
BAGMAN (dir. Connor Gaston, Vaughn Gaston)
Short Forum 1: The Scarier One
A researcher monitoring wildlife cameras notices a mysterious garbage bag in a forest clearing. Her supervisor goes to investigate, and opens the bag to find…
Still from SITTING BIRD (2026)
SITTING BIRD (dir. Athena Han)
Short Forum 2: Anthropomaxx
Stay-at-home dad Ming struggles with a growing sense of inadequacy.
HALF A DECADE OF PROJECTING (dir. Jana Rankov)
Short Forum 3: Workers of the World
A behind-the-scenes look at going to the movies, from the projection booth.
TAKE CARE (dir. Faith Sparrow-Crawford, Scarlett Sparrow-Felix)
Short Forum 4: Immanence: A Life
In the days following the death of her grandmother, Hope witnesses her mother and uncle clash over cultural protocols surrounding the burial, while processing her own grief.
SOFT TRANSMISSION (dir. Sara Wylie)
MODES 3
Partly eco-processed 8mm celluloid and tarot become a visual fascia, binding family through shared illness and mystic healing.
ENDLESS SUNLIGHT (dir. Tyson Houseman)
VIFF Short Forum
A conversation between kokum Penny Roan and Jennifer Houseman reveals the story of how Penny’s great uncle burned down a residential school.
LETTERS FROM TIBET (dir. Kunsang Kyirong)
VIFF Short Forum
How does one think of Tibet? Kyirong investigates the construction of its identity through colonial and cinematic history.
VIFF Live:
MUTEK x VIFF Live: with Vancouver artist MIIIA.
Kelly Moran: with Vancouver electronic musician and composer Bahar Khazei in opening.
The KLF: 23 Seconds to Eternity: with a special AV opening performance by Vancouver electronic experimentalists CHXMERAS.
The full programing for the 2026 festival is available on the VIFF website. Tickets are now available for purchase.
Cover image: TANGLES (dir. Leah Nelson)
