Both in terms of admissions and number of films screened (149,135 and 379 respectively in 2009) VIFF is among the five largest film festivals in North America. We screen films from 75 countries on 10 screens. The international line-up includes, in addition to many undiscovered gems, the pick of the world's top film fests.

Three main programming platforms make our festival unique: we screen the largest selection of East Asian films outside of that region, we are one of the biggest showcases of Canadian film in the world and we have a large and important nonfiction program (42 percent of feature films last year were docs).

Attracting a large, attentive and enthusiastic audience of film lovers, the festival remains accessible, friendly and culturally diverse. As the critics say, VIFF is very much a festival "designed for the benefit of people who love films and people who make them."

Fact Sheet

Download our fact sheet. The revised fact sheet will be issued just before festival.

Purpose

Founded in 1982, the festival's mandate is to encourage the understanding of other nations through the art of cinema, to foster the art of cinema, to facilitate the meeting in British Columbia of cinema professionals from around the world, and to stimulate the motion picture industry in British Columbia and Canada.