VIFF 2026 | Mahershala Ali Worships 'Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother'

"Is this your secret weapon?"

Orion Pictures

VIFF 2026—From the ashes of the never-made Blade reboot comes Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother, a religious hitman drama by Pakistani-American filmmaker Bassam Tariq and starring two-time Academy Award-winning actor Mahershala Ali, made after their long-in-development Marvel vampire film fell apart. It's a strange but searing crusade of faith and violence wrapped in a mission of Muslim fatherhood.

VIFF 2026 | 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.

VIFF 2026 | Jordan Firstman Looks After the Heartwarming 'Club Kid'

"Did you ever lose ten years?"

A24 / Elevation Pictures

VIFF 2026—Long Island native and gay comedian Jordan Firstman makes his impressive directorial debut in the surprisingly touching adult queer comedy, Club Kid. Essentially a riff on the basic premise of the Adam Sandler comedy, Big Daddy, Firstman's Peter is a hedonistic party promoter who learns he has an adorable ten-year-old son (Reggie Absolom) he never knew about when they are unceremoniously dropped on his New York City doorstep.

VIFF 2026 | Julianne Moore Stages 'The Debut' Named Mona

"You got the part!"

A24 / Elevation Pictures

VIFF 2026—Actor/filmmaker Jesse Eisenberg writes and directs The Debut, starring Julianne Moore and Paul Giamatti as a meek New Jersey housewife and powerhouse community theatre director, in a blistering musical comedy, The Debut, which bears more than a few passing similarities to the famed The Simpsons episode, "A Streetcar Named Marge."

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 | Aaron Sorkin Disrupts 'The Social Reckoning'

"Connecting people is a virtous mission."

Sony Pictures / Escape Artists

Academy Award-winning The Social Network screenwriter Aaron Sorkin directs the largely unrelated Facebook drama follow-up, The Social Reckoning, based on The Wall Street Journal's 2021 investigation series, "The Facebook Files," exposing the social media giant's horrible manipulation of misinformation for its own profit.

VIFF 2026 | Sebastian Stan and Renate Reinsve Discipline 'Fjord'

"When violence is involved, they take it very seriously."

Neon / Elevation Pictures

VIFF 2026—Romanian auteur Cristian Mungiu directs Fjord, a blistering Norwegian family legal drama starring Sebastian Stan and Renate Reinsve as conservative parents of five who move from Romania to her native (much more left-leaning) Norway, clashing with their more liberal newfound village community. The Palme d'Or winner revels in its divisive skewering of both close-minded fundamentalist Christian values and judgmental progressive liberal ideals.

REEL | Staging 'Digger' – Tom Cruise Digs Deep and Deeper

"Digger's gonna dig us out!"

Warner Bros. Pictures / Legendary Pictures

Aging movie star Tom Cruise, nearly unrecognizable in a smattering of old-age prosthetics and heavy makeup, alongside pretentious Mexican auteur Alejandro González Iñárritu, collaborate for the big-budget satirical black comedy Digger. As a metatextual political farce in the mould of Dr. Strangelove, its murky and messy commentary on our contemporary global climate change crisis feels mild at best and severely misguided at worst.

GENRE | Ready, Set, 'Go' – Riding the Late-'90s Hyperlink Cinema Wave

"Pardon me if I'm not in a holly jolly mood right now!"

Sony Pictures / Arrow Video

During the tail end of the 1990s American independent film movement, director Doug Liman's sophomore 1999 feature, Go, rode the wave of the hyperlink cinema trend sparked by the popular influence and acclaim of Pulp Fiction (see also Magnolia, released the same year as Go). Somewhat forgotten and dwarfed by the phenomenon of The Matrix, Go was still a mild success at the box office that slowly grew into an alternative Christmas cult classic on DVD.