Carrie Coon would be the first recipient of the Vancouver Worldwide Movie Pageant’s new Luminary Award within the appearing class, honoring excellence and dedication to the artwork of shifting picture. The “White Lotus,” “The Gilded Age,” and “The Leftovers” star is about to participate in a wide-ranging dialog following the Oct. 4 presentation.
Coon additionally stars in “The Liberation,” which screens earlier that day at VIFF, enjoying a mom making an attempt to flee the burden of her harrowing previous, solely to search out solace in an all-women’s cult.
Past Coon’s look, VIFF’s Oct. 1-11 program will characteristic talks, panels and masterclasses bringing filmmakers, craftspeople, producers, programmers and different business professionals to Vancouver. The competition will even current Luminary Awards to Markus Schleinzer (“Rose”) for guiding excellence and Leah Nelson (“Tangles”) for screenwriting.
The competition’s VIFF Talks sequence kicks off Oct. 3 with editor Matthew Hannam, whose current credit embrace Halina Reijn’s “Babygirl” and Noah Baumbach’s “White Noise.” Hannam, who will likely be discussing his collaborative strategy, started his profession as an assistant editor in Winnipeg, working with Canadian auteurs like Man Maddin.
Producer Haley Johnson will focus on the making of “Obsession,” the independently produced movie made on a shoestring funds that went on to gross over $500 million worldwide. The Oct. 4 dialog will concentrate on the movie’s manufacturing and subsequent trajectory, together with a studio bidding conflict following its Toronto premiere.
On Oct. 5, manufacturing designers Brandon Tonner-Connolly and Matt Hyland will focus on working collectively to construct the surreal, immersive world of Jane Schoenbrun’s “Teenage Intercourse and Loss of life at Camp Miasma.”
The VIFF Talks sequence concludes Oct. 7 with Mark Mothersbaugh, DEVO co-founder and composer behind Wes Anderson’s “Rushmore,” “The Royal Tenenbaums” and “The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou,” amongst others. He’ll be in dialog with composer and former Fox studio exec Robert Kraft.
This yr’s masterclass programming has a distinctly worldwide taste.
Company embrace Latvian producer, author and director Matīss Kaža, who co-wrote and produced Gints Zilbalodis’ “Circulate,” which gained the Academy Award for animated characteristic final yr. Chilean producer Giancarlo Nasi, whose credit embrace “The Mysterious Gaze of the Flamingo,” winner of the Grand Prix at Cannes’ Un Sure Regard n 2025, will lead a session on worldwide co-productions.
Berlin-based movie editor Evelyn Rack — behind the Cannes Jury Prize winner and Germany’s Oscars submission, “Sound of Falling” — will lead “Enhancing as Discovery: Narrative, Intuition, and the Unpredictable.” And Barcelona-born, Berlin-based viewers designer Isona Admetlla will discover viewers technique and inventive distribution.
The panel lineup, in the meantime, brings collectively figures from throughout the competition and distribution ecosystem.
“Curating Cinema in a Shifting Panorama” will characteristic Pamela Biénzobas, a programmer on the Locarno Movie Pageant, alongside VIFF documentary programmer Ruun Nuur and critic/programmer Saffron Maeve, for a dialogue of how movie curation is evolving.
“From Pageant to Market: Meet the Choice Makers” will convey collectively Michael Robson of Elevation Footage, Max Collister of Mubi Canada and Richelle Charkot of Sport Principle Movies to debate the trail from competition publicity to distribution and audiences.
The Vancouver-to-international trajectory would be the focus of “From Vancouver to the World: The Making of Tangles,” that includes director Leah Nelson alongside a number of members of the inventive staff behind the animated characteristic. Based mostly on Vancouver artist Sarah Leavitt’s graphic memoir, “Tangles” was chosen for Cannes the perfect first characteristic Caméra d’Or at Cannes and boasts a voice solid that features Abbi Jacobson, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Bryan Cranston, and Seth Rogen.
Different panels will look at Indigenous filmmaking and narrative sovereignty, deal-making, documentary filmmaking past certainty, and the craft of comedy.
The competition will even showcase its Composer Filmmaker Accelerator, an initiative connecting rising composers with filmmakers by mentorship and hands-on collaboration. It’s curated by three-time Emmy-nominated composer Miriam Cutler, whose credit embrace “RBG,” “Love Gilda,” and “Misplaced in La Mancha.” The 2026 CFA showcase takes place Oct. 8.
Among the many filmmakers and business figures additionally anticipated at VIFF are Canadian icon Rick Hansen, actor and “Faculty for Defectors” producer Daniel Dae Kim, and Canadian administrators Matthew Rankin (“Women and Gents, Brian Mulroney”), Marie Clements (“How We Stand,” “Reclaim My Pores and skin”) and Zach Lipovsky (“Freaks Half II”).
