VIFF 2026—the 45th Vancouver International Film Festival—runs Wednesday 1 October through Sunday 11 October 2026 across ten venues and thirteen screens in Vancouver. Festival Fast Facts list 256 films including 162 features and 91 shorts from 76 countries, with 143 premieres across world, international, North American, and Canadian tiers. Opening Night is Jesse Eisenberg’s The Debut; closing night is Martin McDonagh’s Wild Horse Nine. This ADVANCE Film guide locks dates, bookends, and scale before the opening-day spike—without twinning our live BFI London Film Festival piece (which also programmes The Debut as a later UK closing gala).
Festival dates and bookends
Item — Detail
Festival — 45th Vancouver International Film Festival (VIFF)
Dates — 1–11 October 2026
Opening — Jesse Eisenberg’s The Debut (Julianne Moore, Paul Giamatti)
Closing — Martin McDonagh’s Wild Horse Nine (John Malkovich, Sam Rockwell)
Scale — 256 films · 162 features · 91 shorts · 76 countries · ~4,800 submissions
Screens — 10 venues / 13 screens
Variety’s 1 September 2026 lineup story frames The Debut as an offbeat community-theatre comedy and Wild Horse Nine as a black comedy set before the 1973 Chilean coup. VIFF Opening Gala listings place the invitation gala at Vancouver Playhouse on 1 October, with public screens following.
Programme scale (Fast Facts)
Official Fast Facts break the slate as 111 narrative and 51 documentary features, plus episodics; shorts split 70 narrative / 21 documentary. Premiere tallies include 28 world, 14 international, 33 North American, and 68 Canadian premieres, with 39 Canadian features and a strong B.C. filmmaker cohort. Documentary volume—more than 50 nonfiction features in Variety’s reporting—positions VIFF as a major Canadian nonfiction platform.
Canadian premieres and themes
Programming director Curtis Woloschuk told Variety the slate leans into anxiety met with humanist care—family, community, city. Canadian premiere highlights named in that report include Cristian Mungiu’s Fjord, Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s All of a Sudden, Kore-eda Hirokazu’s Look Back, Lee Chang-dong’s Possible Love, Tony Gilroy’s Behemoth!, and titles such as Pedro Almodóvar’s Bitter Christmas and Peter Farrelly’s I Play Rocky. Northern Lights continues Indigenous and emerging Canadian showcases; Marie Clements’s Knowledge Network series Reclaim My Skin is flagged as a world-premiere episodic.
VIFF Live and Industry
VIFF Live pairs moving image with concert stages—Variety notes North American premiere of Jóhann Jóhannsson Cinematic Suites at the Chan Centre, Xiu Xiu’s Eraserhead reimagining, and an evening with Mark Mothersbaugh. The Institute for the Moving Image runs Industry and Amp Music in Media Summit programmes 3–8 October under the theme “Uncertainty as a Creative Force.”
People also ask: is The Debut only at VIFF?
No. The Debut also closes the 70th BFI London Film Festival (18 October at Royal Festival Hall) after opening VIFF on 1 October—same title, different festival calendars. Use each festival’s ticket system; do not assume one pass covers both cities.
Why ADVANCE now (spike ~1 October)
“VIFF 2026,” “Vancouver International Film Festival dates,” and “The Debut opening gala” queries surge in the final 48 hours before 1 October. A sourced Fast Facts + bookends guide ranks ahead of recycled lineup dumps and thin twin pieces that only repeat BFI’s later Closing Night note.
Related Sunday Profile Film releases
Deepen the Film releases cluster with our live BFI London Film Festival 2026 (https://www.thesundayprofile.com/bfi-london-film-festival-2026) (7–18 Oct; The Debut closes London) and Busan International Film Festival 2026 (https://www.thesundayprofile.com/busan-international-film-festival-2026) (6–15 Oct)—October festival-calendar neighbours without twinning this VIFF primary keyword.
Sources and caveats
1–11 Oct dates, 256/162/91/76 country counts, premiere breakdowns, venues/screens, submissions: VIFF 2026 Fast Facts PDF. Opening/closing titles, Woloschuk themes, Canadian premiere cluster, VIFF Live and Institute windows: Variety (1 Sep 2026). Gala timing: VIFF.org Opening Gala / The Debut pages. Daily grids and ticket inventory still move—recheck viff.org in the week of 1 October.