VIFF 2026 | Cinematic Hope – Ryûsuke Hamaguchi Reacts 'All of a Sudden'

"It would be wonderful if the impossible was possible."

Neon / Elevation Pictures

VIFF 2026—Celebrated Japanese auteur Ryûsuke Hamaguchi makes his French-language debut in the monumentally affecting care home dramedy, All of a Sudden (aka Soudain or Suddenly Feeling Unwell). Woven with thoughtful critiques and dissections of late-stage capitalism, the process of experimental theatre, caring for the elderly, and, of course, smoking cigarettes, the French-Japanese film is a moving treatise on treating everyone with the care and attention they deserve in a consumer-driven society.

WANDER | 'Asian Comics' x Chinese Canadian Museum x Chinatown

Chinatown—(October 6, 2026) From the Barbican Centre in London and curated by renowned comics historian Paul Garvett comes the Canadian premiere of the featured Asian Comics: Evolution of an Art Form touring exhibition on display at the Chinese Canadian Museum. Browse more than four hundred original pieces of timeless artwork, rare publications, and diverse multimedia works from across twenty regions of the Asian continent (most recently seen at Seattle's Museum of Pop Culture).

REEL | 'Primetime' – Robert Pattinson Catches the Real Predator

"You see how this looks, right?"

A24 / Elevation Pictures

Acclaimed documentary filmmaker Lance Oppenheim, known for his artful explorations of strange American subcultures, makes his narrative feature debut by directing Primetime, stylishly dramatizing the real-life controversy surrounding the eventual downfall of the wildly popular but highly problematic mid-2000s Dateline NBC news program To Catch a Predator, as reported on by journalist Luke Dittrich's 2007 Esquire article, "Tonight on Dateline This Man Will Die."

VIFF 2026 | 10 Most Anticipated Films (You Should See)

"VIFF is quickly becoming the archetype of the modern film festival."

Image | Zak Design Studio

VIFF 2026—(August 26, 2026) Fall film festival season is on the horizon. Rejoice, as our city's eleven-day arthouse filmmaking showcase, the 45th edition of the Vancouver International Film Festival, is just around the corner next month. Plan accordingly for VIFF's yearly output of mixed-media entertainment programming, anchored by hundreds of Canadian and global films, screened across the city in celebration of contemporary cinema.

GENRE | Na Hong-jin Never Loses 'Hope' x TIFF 2026

"Bring forth true fate."

Neon / Elevation Pictures

South Korean genre director Na Hong-jin's new sci-fi alien action thriller, Hope, boasts the highest budget ever for a film from the East Asian nation, while featuring some of the worst CGI in a major release in years. It's hard to describe how electric the first hour is as audiences are dropped into the eponymous harbour town, chasing monsters before the poorly rendered creatures are revealed.

REEL | 'Tony' (the Chef the Book the Movie) Tracks A Young Bourdain

"But I like you. You're the sin eater."

A24 / Amazon MGM Studios

Toronto native Matt Johnson directs Dominic Sessa as the beloved chef, bestselling author, and travel host Anthony Bourdain in Tony, based on his formative experiences working at a Cape Cod seafood restaurant during the summer of 1975. As outlined in the memorable early chapters of his 2000 memoir Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly, the film tracks the angry young cook longing to become a real "writer" (whatever that means) without having written anything or really experienced life at all at age nineteen.

REEL | Seth Rogen and Olivia Wilde Throw 'The Invite' x SIFF 2026

"We love a contentious environment!"

A24 / VVS Films

Actress/filmmaker Olivia Wilde directs and stars alongside Seth Rogen, Penélope Cruz, and Edward Norton in the comedic chamber-piece, The Invite, involving two middle-aged San Francisco couples and neighbours at a contentiously impromptu dinner party gone wrong. Adapted from the Spanish-language comedy, The People Upstairs (aka Sentimental), the stage-like production exploits our conceptions of contemporary romantic and sexual relationships.

REEL | Top 10 Films of 2026 So Far

"I put the not in astronaut!"

Amazon MGM Studios / Lord Miller Productions

Click on each film title to read its corresponding review:

1) Project Hail Mary ¹ (dirs. Phil Lord & Christopher Miller)

2) The Drama ² (dir. Kristoffer Borgli)

3) Mile End Kicks ³ * (dir. Chandler Levack)

4) Obsession (dir. Curry Barker)

5) Blue Heron * (dir. Sophy Romvari)

GATHER | Web Summit Vancouver 2026 x Global Tech Conference

"We meet at a critical moment in the history of technology."

Physician/author Dr. Gabor Maté and Twitch political streamer Hasan Piker

Waterfront—(May 11 to 14, 2026) For the second year, Web Summit Vancouver's annual multi-day global conference, known as the "Olympics of Tech," gathered 20,235 attendees (up from 15,727 in 2025) spread across three levels of the Vancouver Convention Centre, once again hosted by the titular Dublin-based technology events company.

GENRE | 'Backrooms' Finds A Psychological Horror Detour

"It's every place that ever was."

A24 / Elevation Pictures

Talented twenty-year-old YouTuber and visual effects artist Kane "Pixels" Parsons turns his nightmarish 22-episode found-footage creepypasta web series into a fully-fledged psychological horror feature. Filmed in Vancouver, Backrooms' basic premise revolves around a mysteriously elaborate but oddly abandoned series of secret interdimensional "backroom" liminal spaces found beneath a suburban discount furniture warehouse showroom located in a generic strip mall somewhere in 1990s middle America.

GENRE | 'Obsession' Makes One Wish Willow x SIFF 2026

"It's weird how you two are dating all of a sudden."

Focus Features / Blumhouse Productions

Profilic 25-year-old That's A Bad Idea YouTuber Curry Barker, hailing from Mobile, Alabama, makes his proper theatrical feature debut as an independent filmmaker with a deceptively simple yet twisted supernatural horror romance, Obsession. Essentially a "be careful what you wish for," monkey's paw-type parable, insecure music shop employee Bear (Michael Johnston) wishes for his co-worker and childhood friend (Inde Navarrette) to fall madly in love with him. You get the idea where this is going. Her unnatural love turns into a violent, well, "obsession," rather quickly. Terror ensues.

REEL | 'Miami Vice' at 20 – Revisiting the Misunderstood Neo-Noir

"Let's take it to the limit one more time."

Universal Pictures / Forward Pass

Ahead of the upcoming twentieth anniversary of its theatrical release, another reappraisal of methodical filmmaker Michael Mann's initially critically misunderstood but now reappreciated action neo-noir, Miami Vice, is clearly warranted. Based on the iconic 1984-89 NBC undercover cop drama series that he produced but was created by veteran television writer Anthony Yerkovich, the 2006 blockbuster film adaptation flopped hard at the global box office.

SCENE | Mitch and Murray and Kelli Ogmundson Do No 'Harm'

"Must be all the scissoring!"

Photo credit | Shimon Karmel

Fairview Slopes—Starring the appealing former Animal Control actress Kelli Ogmundson, Mitch and Murray Productions stages the North American premiere of British playwright Phoebe Eclair-Powell's gripping but deeply unsettling one-woman play. Harm is a powerful solo performance that requires the proper stamina and emotional range to truly express our toxic culture of digital discomfort and warped social realities through a single person's experiences.

REEL | Busting 'Ghost World' at 25 – A Sad Alt-Comic Book Brought to Life

"You guys up for some reggae tonight?"

United Artists / Granada Film

Before the twenty-fifth anniversary of its theatrical release, it's a fine time to revisit the first-ever film based on a graphic novel to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. In 2001, Ghost World translated famed Eightball cartoonist Daniel Clowes' offbeat yet grounded, cult classic alt-comic book (1989-2003) of the same name into live-action, offering a wholly bleak yet highly comedic slice of life, not dissimilar to American Splendor.

SPOTLIGHT | Maddy Kelly Live x Just For Laughs x Fox Cabaret

"Consent is not a big part of tickling, historically."

His Parents Never Taught Him

Mount Pleasant—(February 18, 2026) Vancouver's very own Maddy Kelly, the now New York City-transplanted stand-up comedian, came back to town for another reliably sharp stage performance. Her latest set of jokes mostly delighted the familiar hometown crowd inside the Fox Cabaret music venue located at the nexus of Main Street and Kingsway as part of the city's annual eleven-day Just for Laughs Vancouver comedy festival.

REEL | Top 10 Films of 2025

"No fear. Just like Tom f*cking Cruise!"

Warner Bros. Pictures / Ghoulardi Film Company

Click on each film title to read its corresponding review:

1) One Battle After Another ¹ (dir. Paul Thomas Anderson)

2) Sentimental Value ² * (Affeksjonsverdi, dir. Joachim Trier)

3) Sinners ³ (dir. Ryan Coogler)

4) Marty Supreme (dir. Josh Safdie)

5) Train Dreams * (dir. Clint Bentley)

CABLE | Wong Kar-wai Colours 'Blossoms Shanghai'

"Neon signs glowed like a sea of flowers."

Jet Tone Films / Tencent Pictures

Blossoms Shanghai, Chinese auteur Wong Kar-wai's first television drama series, broadly romanticizes 1990s Shanghai in the lushly complementary vein of what his cinematic masterpiece, In the Mood for Love, did for 1960s Hong Kong, but only on the small screen. Created and directed by Wong, scripted by Qin Wen, and based on author Jin Yucheng's award-winning 2013 novel, Blossoms, it tells a vaguely historical yarn of late twentieth-century Eastern capitalism wrapped in melodramatic intrigue.

SCENE | 'West Van Story' Sweeps the Spirit of 'East Van Panto'

"You're just jealous, because I was an early developer."

Dawn Petten, Tresha Thamilchelvan, Izel de Lara & Ivy Charlies / Photo credit | Emily Cooper

Commercial Drive—One of my favourite annual traditions of leftist satirical musical propaganda (complimentary), East Van Panto, is back for another year of shared theatrical joy. Theatre Replacement's latest holiday stage production, presented by The Cultch, returned to the York Theatre for its lucky thirteenth edition of love, laughter, and low-income housing.

VIFF 2025 | 'Mile End Kicks' Relives the Age of Indie Sleaze

"I can't date two guys in the same band."

Vancouver International Film Festival

VIFF 2025—Toronto-born entertainment writer turned filmmaker Chandler Levack continues to mine her own youthful personal experiences as she revisits the indie sleaze music scene (circa 2011) in her winning sophomore film, Mile End Kicks. Starring Euphoria actress Barbie Ferreira as a young music critic from Ontario who moves to Montreal's vibrant Mile End neighbourhood of artists to write a book about Alanis Morissette before becoming sidetracked after falling for a struggling indie rock band.

VIFF 2025 | Park Chan-wook Refuses to Make 'No Other Choice'

"There's nothing I won't do."

Vancouver International Film Festival

VIFF 2025—No Other Choice (aka Eojjeolsugaeopda), acclaimed South Korean auteur Park Chan-wook's sharp economic thriller satire, uses the threat of murder as an amusing metaphor for how capitalist structures pit workers against each other. It's a stark but absurdist conception of a desperate future where the suburban family's dreams of an idyllic everyday existence are quickly fading away.