Wrap-Up Of VIFF 2025

Jon The Blogcentric

The 44th annual Vancouver International Film Festival concluded on Sunday, October 12th. The day before Canadian Thanksgiving. There were more facilities and with that, more films. It’s a case where the VIFF is trying to revive itself to its post-COVID state, like most major events. This year’s VIFF was very impressive in making that effort.

This year’s VIFF does not yet have their attendance figures published but you can bet with more films, attendance was up. There were huge crowds for a lot of films and galas were sold out. Films in the Showcase series also received excellent attendance and many did sell out. Films with a lot of Oscar buzz or award winners from Cannes or Venice were also big hits. One of the most noticeable details was that there were sell-outs for many Canadian films. Especially for some films made by local artist. That is another goal of VIFF to promote the films made from local filmmakers.

Set-Up and Strike Adventures

For volunteer work, this was the first year I did the Set-Up And Strike work. It was quite the experience and it could get crazy at times. My first such shift was two days before the start. It involved bringing in supplies to the Granville Island theatre and then to the theatres of the International Village. The activity wasn’t too hard of impact but the International Village had the most supplies to load in.

My second shift took place the day before opening. This involved loading a truck full of items from the VanCity theatre and taking them to both the Alliance Francaise theatre and the SFU theatre. The Alliance Francaise wasn’t too much to load out, but it was a half-hour wait to start moving again. The SFU theatre was more complicated because the garage was secured, cellphone access wasn’t around in the garage and taking things out also meant assembling tents. Assembling tents outdoors in a limited area was a headache!

My third shift took place on the final day, Sunday the 12th. It started at 9pm and it involved taking supplies from theatres we brought in. First was the Rio, then SFU and then International Village. All had complications. For the Rio, we learned the truck we were given by the rental company had a lock from the last customer and we could not get it off! We had to wait for a new truck. After we finished at the Rio, we go to SFU and find the garage door locked just after we finished loading. It was a wait to get moving again! Then the traffic and crowd of people from the Shawn Mendes concert added time for us! Then we see the garage at International Village all locked up! That was another delay in loading stuff. Unloading at the end at VanCity was the easier part and we all left in good time: quarter to midnight!

My fourth and last shift had to be the easiest. It started at noon the day after the Festival ended and it involved returning rented festival supplies to film rental companies. The first trip unloading things from the supply trucks was for Sunbelt Rentals in Burnaby. That move wasn’t too hard as VIFF has a space for their rentals. It took only 40 minutes to unload and pack it all in. Even the big tents didn’t end up as complicated as we feared. The next trip was to Sparky’s Rentals in Vancouver. Finding it was harder than unloading things as Google maps didn’t do things right. The unloading didn’t take as much time as we thought and we ended at 1:40pm; twenty minutes ahead of time!

My Film Watching

With my first two volunteer shifts completed and the last two to take place on the final day and the day after, I used my free time to see as many films as I could. I saw two on opening Thursday (the 2nd) and both were Spanish-language. Actually the very first five days, I saw two films a day and it was quite tiring. Especially since I saw them at various cinemas. I saw most at the International Village, but I also saw some in that time at the Rio, the Playhouse, the Granville Island Stage and the SFU theatre. I like doing different theatres and trying to do it all is tiring. So tiring, I decided to skip film-watching for Tuesday the 7th. Besides I had already completed my yearly major VIFF goals.

On Wednesday the 8th, I saw a shorts segment at the International Village with a friend I had not seen in a long time just for the sake of meeting up. We had a lot of catching up! The next day, I wanted to see a Canadian film at the Cinematheque but it was all sold out! With a free day on Friday the 10th, I saw one film in the morning at the IV, returned to the Cinematheque and got in this time, and ended at the Playhouse. Saturday the 11th was a case I saw my first film at the Alliance Francaise theatre and ended at the Rio. The last film I saw was in the early evening of Sunday the 12th at the Granville Island Stage. In time to do the takedown at the various theatres!

Isn’t it something how I completed all my film reviews and my wrap-up blog all before the end of October? What can I say? While I was waiting for my new job to start in the middle of the month, I used my free time to do whatever blog typing that I could. Boy did it help me get my blogs all completed faster than I expected. Anyways it makes me relax for the rest of 2025. So for those that want me to list all the films I saw during VIFF 2025, here’s my list and the links to my reviews for you listed in the order I saw them and with the film’s nation(s):

2025 VIFF Award Winners

So you’re all now wondering who the Award Winners are? All six juried award categories from last year returned. Two categories for Canadian films expanded to include Indigenous filmmakers from all over. For Audience Awards, the number of awarded categories expanded from nine to eleven. I find it something I saw four feature-length films and one short film that won awards. Here are the award winners for VIFF 2025:

JURIED AWARD WINNERS

SUMMIT Award
for outstanding narrative feature by an established Canadian or Indigenous filmmaker:
-The Things You Kill (dir. Alireza Khatami)

HORIZON Award
for outstanding first or second feature by a Canadian filmmaker:
-Blue Heron (dir. Sophy Romvari)

TIDES Award
for outstanding documentary feature by a Canadian or Indigenous filmmaker:
–The Track (dir. Ryan Sidhoo)

ARBUTUS Award
for outstanding feature film production in BC:
–Blue Heron (dir. Sophy Romvari)

SHORT FORUM Award
open to all short films in the Short Forums
-No Skate (dir. Guil Sela)

VANGUARD Award
open to all feature films in VIFF’s Vanguard section
–Wind, Talk To Me (dir. Stefan Djordjevic)

AUDIENCE AWARDS

Special Presentations
-Kokuho (dir. Sang Il-lee)

Showcase
-In The Room (dir. Brishkay Ahmed)

Panorama
-Meadowlarks (dir. Tasha Hubbard)

Vanguard
-Gazelle (dirs. Nadir Saribacak and Samy Pioneer [Selman])

Northern Lights
-Akashi (dir. Mayumi Yoshida)

Insights
-Free Leonard Peltier (dirs. Jesse Short Bull and David France)

Spectrum
-Khartoum (dirs. Anas Saeed, Rawia Alhag, Ibrahim Snoopy, Timmea Mohamed Ahmed and Phil Cox)

Portraits
-The Essence Of Eva (dirs. Alex Fegan and Malcolm Willis)

Altered States
-****toys (dir. Annapurna Sriram)

Spotlight On Korea
-3670 (dir. Park Joon-ho)

Focus
-Bad Girl (dir. Varsha Bharath)

And that does it for another year at the Vancouver Film Festival. It offered a lot more this year and I enjoyed as much as I could. We’ll see what 2026 has to offer next October.

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