The Dreamed Adventure

A lonely proofreader's isolated world begins to open through an unlikely friendship with a gentle physics teacher. Based on Mieko Kawakami's acclaimed novel, this luminous drama is a delicate meditation on loneliness, intimacy, and self-discovery.

School for Defectors is an intimate and quietly uplifting documentary that follows a group of 20 teenagers, children of North Korean defectors, as they adjust to life and education at Jangdaehyun School in Busan, South Korea.

This graceful, serene drama brings former sisters-in-law together in an exploration of art, sexuality, and psychology. There’s a complex backstory here, but not a hint of melodrama: writer-director Koji Fukada is a master of subtle revelation.

Image: © 2026 Nagi Notes Partners (Star SandsHassaku LabsWonderstruck) Survivance Momo Film Co.

Twenty-six months, 40,075 kilometres, 34 countries traversed in a wheelchair, and more than $26 million raised for accessibility initiatives… Man in Motion: The Rick Hansen Story documents the staggering accomplishments of an iconic athlete and activist.

Powerful and evocative, Ceremony follows the disappearance of the ooligan in Bella Coola, revealing a story of cultural survival, environmental stewardship, and the enduring relationship between the Nuxalk Nation and the land.

Fans of Lady Bird, meet Mouse. This intimate, grounded drama by Kelly O’Sullivan and Alex Thompson (Saint Frances) sees a shy teen form a complicated bond with her best friend’s mom after tragedy strikes in the summer before her senior year.

Image: © Nate Hurtsellers and Luke Dyra

Radu Jude adapts Octave Mirbeau’s classic (and much-filmed) novel in a uniquely Jude fashion, with our oppressed chambermaid prodded by her smug employers to star in a production of... Diary of a Chambermaid. This is a sly and subversive satire.

Using era-appropriate visuals, ironically deployed music, and copious archival footage, Matthew Rankin tells the story of Brian Mulroney’s rise to power. This is Canadian history as you’ve never seen it before — amusing and dismaying in equal measure.

VIFF mainstay Hong Sangsoo returns with the story of a daughter, her estranged mother, and the step-family she's never met. Hong's visual style is unadorned as ever — all the better to highlight the strangeness of human interaction.

After attending a workshop on pitching saccharine Hallmark movies, John Wilson tries to apply all the same best practices to his documentary about concrete. Frequently absurd and endlessly entertaining detours, asides, and digressions ensue.

A Bit of Light follows a doctor who plans to end his life following his arrest and the closure of his practice. The film ultimately asks what might reconnect a person to life when faith in institutions, work, and the future have been exhausted.

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

The Flight follows three Iranian-Canadian families seeking justice after Flight PS752 was shot down, offering a compassionate and forceful tribute to grief, resilience, and community advocacy.

Dao is a tribute to Afro-French life and custom, blending fiction and reality in its depiction of two rituals: a wedding in France and a mourning ceremony in Guinea-Bissau. Joyful and cathartic, this is a portrait of life in all its pain and beauty.

In Yugo Goes to America, millennials from Belgrade drive a Yugo — Yugoslavia’s notoriously unreliable vehicle — from New York to Los Angeles. Their freewheeling road trip traces the car’s volatile history alongside the breakup of Yugoslavia itself.

In Valeska Grisebach’s subtle, gripping crime drama, archaeologist Vesna (Yana Redeva) unearths more than she bargained for when she returns to the southern Bulgarian town of her youth, running afoul of local gangsters in the process.

Based on the graphic memoir by Vancouver artist Sarah Leavitt, Tangles is a stunning, hand-drawn animated feature about a cartoonist coming to terms with her mom’s early-onset Alzheimer’s diagnosis. Nominated for the Caméra d’Or at Cannes 2026.

A three-part documentary series that challenges stereotypes and authority while celebrating the resilience and resurgence of Indigenous female identity. Reclaim My Skin empowers Indigenous women and their allies with the knowledge of their true history.

Derya and Aziz, a theatre couple based in Ankara, are celebrating the premiere of their latest play when they find themselves targeted by state investigations. Their lives change practically overnight, they find their political convictions put to the test.

Image: © EllaKnorz ifProductions Alamode Film

After taping two of the greatest jazz records in a single day, legendary pianist Bill Evans (Anders Danielsen Lie) stops playing for the first time since childhood. This is the story of what happened next for this incredibly influential and gifted artist.

Image: © Shane O’Connor 2026 Cowtown Pictures, Hot Property

This drama explores the conflict between a son and his mentally ill mother, who unexpectedly shows up at his child’s christening party. Full of vivid performances and desperate catharses, The Guest takes us to the point of explosion and beyond.

Image: © Henrik Ohsten

The Story of Documentary Film – The 2000s enters a decade shaped by 9/11, war, fear, and politics. Through films such as The Cove and Grizzly Man, these chapters trace the documentary medium's encounter with modernity as it begins to unravel.

Image: © Iraq in Fragments, 2006, dir. James Longley, USA, Daylight Factory Typecast-Pictures

In The Story of Documentary Film – The 2010s & 2020s, Mark Cousins follows nonfiction into phones, GoPros, YouTube, TikTok, live streams, and feeds to look at bodily autonomy, surveillance, racism, borders, and truth after vérité.

Image: © Fire of Love, 2022, dir. Sara Dosa, Canada, USA, Sandbox Films, Cottage M, Intuitive Pictures, National Geographic Documentary Films

How We Stand follows three Indigenous sisters separated after their family relocates to Los Angeles under Native American Relocation Program in the 1950s. Twenty years later, they navigate identity, trauma, and very different lives.