Program A-Z

Winner of the highly coveted Sundance Grand Jury Prize for Documentary, Nuisance Bear follows a polar bear through Churchill, Manitoba, where the town profits from bears as spectacle while treating their arrival as a problem.

Once Upon a Time in Harlem splices together footage shot by William Greaves in 1972 of a group of Harlem Renaissance luminaries in conversation at Duke Ellington’s townhouse. The film is a living archive of memory, disagreement, style, and Black genius.

VIFF is honoured to open the festival with this special by-invitation screening of Jesse Eisenberg's The Debut. When meek Mona (Julianne Moore) lands a part in a musical, she fully inhabits her character, but grows increasingly untethered from reality.

Part of the first wave of Japanese immigrants to the United States, Frank Matsura's photographs in Okanogan County created a regional legacy that endures a century later. Our Mr. Matsura is a joyful celebration of life revealed through photography.

An engineer and his brother fall prey to a dangerous mob scheme in 1986 Queens. James Gray’s Paper Tiger is a tense crime drama about family, loyalty, and the price of ambition. Starring Adam Driver, Miles Teller, and Scarlett Johansson.

Three undocumented men from different backgrounds navigate Paris's luminous metropolis in this stirring drama of dislocation. Gorgeously composed and often humorous, Paris Paris questions what it means to truly belong.

Lonely, isolated, and haunted by the possibility her cat has been replaced with a replica, Maisie’s closest confidant is an AI chatbot. Pocket Mirror is a striking distillation of modern alienation with wry humour and underlying suspense.

Lee Chang-dong’s first film since Burning (2018) is a sardonic, slow-burning satire about two couples: a documentary filmmaker married to a wealthy businessman, and a working-class family struggling to make ends meet after the husband has been laid off.

When a young German prosecutor of Korean origin is attacked, she suspects a racist conspiracy and pursues the truth in defiance of her superiors. Prosecution is a film for our moment: a thriller that confronts the far-right head-on.

An academic is pitted against her stepfather in a moral crisis over the care of her mother, who lives with dementia. Winner of the Silver Bear Jury Prize and Silver Bear for Best Supporting Performance at the 2026 Berlinale.

Image: © Seafaring

Featuring a scintillating soundtrack of tunes going back to the ‘70s, RADIOHEART is a heartwarming celebration of one of the greatest radio DJs, Kevin Cole, whose musical tastes and influence are still reverberating across the world’s soundwaves.

Rebecca Horn's extraordinary biography is interwoven with her surreal oeuvre. An essential document of one of the 20th century's most influential artists, Rebecca Horn – The Secret Life of Things celebrates the unsung legacy of a pioneering visionary.

Image: © Rebecca Horn