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Love film image; two people lying under a blanket talking

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VIFF 2025 Program: See It Now!

The wait is over! We are excited to share with you the stellar line-up for the 44th Vancouver International Film Festival, October 2 – 12. Over 170 films, 80 shorts, VIFF Live performances, Talks and special events will light up the screens and stages across Vancouver. Take a moment, explore the program and get ready to VIFF!

Now Playing

Love

Dir. Dag Johan Haugerud
119 min

This warm, thoughtful piece offers shrewd comic observations on modern dating as it trains a quizzical eye on the trysts of a female doctor, Marianne (Andrea Bræin Hovig), and her colleague, a gay male nurse, Tor (Tayo Cittadella Jacobsen).

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

No Bears

Dir. Jafar Panahi
106 min

Dissident Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi plays himself in this ingenious meta-fiction about the making of a film, and the unmaking of love story.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

Sex

Dir. Dag Johan Haugerud
125 min

Two chimney sweeps living in heterosexual marriages find their views on sexuality and gender challenged by a series of unexpected events. In a set of sharply scripted conversations, both men confront heretofore unexplored aspects of their identity.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

3 Faces

Dir. Jafar Panahi
100 min

Iranian filmmaker Panahi and actress Behnaz Jafari, both playing themselves, receive a video in which a distraught teenaged girl, whose acting dreams have been quashed appears to kill herself. Panahi and Jafari decide to investigate...

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

Dreams

Dir. Dag Johan Haugerud
110 min

The third installment in the Sex/Dreams/Love trilogy is another rich, absorbing tale. 17-year-old Johanne writes a confessional about her flirtation with a (female) teacher. But the writing is too good to stay private...

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre
Transit
Transit film image; woman leaning her head against a man's back

Transit

Dir. Christian Petzold
101 min

Trust the director of Phoenix and Barbara to re-imagine a WWII romantic intrigue into something unsettlingly contemporary. With occupying forces closing in, a German refugee (Franz Rogowski) assumes a dead writer's identity and flees to Marseille.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

Festival Preludes

Sept 1 – 25

Boost your festival experience with a refresher course on nine of the international auteurs whose work is making waves this year.

Mystery Train

Dir. Jim Jarmusch
110 min

Three oddball tales centered on a single seedy Memphis hotel, this may be the most accessible and purely enjoyable Jarmusch movie, a bittersweet evocation of crumbling Americana, haunted by the ghosts of rock n roll.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

Right Now, Wrong Then

Dir. Hong Sangsoo
121 min

A visiting filmmaker arrives a day early for a festival screening. He meets and courts a painter (Kim Minhee) and spends the evening with her. Halfway through, the movie starts over: Same people, same places, significantly different outcomes.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

On the Beach At Night Alone

Dir. Hong Sang-soo
101 min

Kim Minhee (The Handmaiden, Right Now, Wrong Then) plays Younghee, an actress reeling in the aftermath of an affair with a married film director (an echo of her relationship with Hong in real life.)

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

No Bears

Dir. Jafar Panahi
106 min

Dissident Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi plays himself in this ingenious meta-fiction about the making of a film, and the unmaking of love story.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

3 Faces

Dir. Jafar Panahi
100 min

Iranian filmmaker Panahi and actress Behnaz Jafari, both playing themselves, receive a video in which a distraught teenaged girl, whose acting dreams have been quashed appears to kill herself. Panahi and Jafari decide to investigate...

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

August Winds

Dir. Gabriel Mascaro
77 min

A film of quietly unfolding sensual pleasure: Shirley (Dandara de Morais), a gorgeous young woman, is in the countryside taking care of her aging grandmother when her diver boyfriend discovers a skull in the ocean. Then a corpse washes ashore...

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

Pantheon: The Greatest Films of All Time

Pantheon is a monthly series showcasing a selection of the “greatest movies of all time,” inspired by the mother of all film lists, the critics’ poll that has run once a decade in the UK’s Sight & Sound magazine since 1952.

Individual tickets $23

Explore Series

VIFF Live

Live performances that push the boundaries of traditional film programming, intersecting cinema culture with music, comedy, podcasting, and performance in unique, cinema-infused live shows.

Blue Horse Opera

Dir. Sergio Sollima
180 min

Rick Maddocks' visionary song cycle fuses indie, folk, classical music and dance, drawing inspiration from the climate emergency and the cinematic landscapes of spaghetti westerns. Followed by Sergio Sollima's The Big Gundown, starring Lee van Cleef.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

George Garzone Live

Dir. Tom Surgal
180 min

Saxophone giant George Garzone celebrates free jazz with the help of the explosive Jerry Steinhilber Trio. Their set will be followed by a screening of Tom Surgal's documentary, Fire Music, featuring John Coltrane, Ornette Coleman and Cecil Taylor.

Image: © Lee Tanner, The Jazz Image

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

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