The Vancouver International Film Festival (VIFF) is an annual film festival held in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada for two weeks in late September and early October. The festival began in 1982 and is operated by the Greater Vancouver International Film Festival Society, a provincially registered non-profit and federally registered charitable organization.
Both in terms of admissions and number of films screened (152,000 and 386 respectively in 2011) VIFF is among the five largest film festivals in North America. The festival annually screens films from approximately 80 countries on 10 screens. The international line-up includes the pick of the world’s top film fests and many undiscovered gems.
Three main programming platforms make VIFF unique: The Festival screens the largest selection of East Asian films outside of that region, the Festival is one of the biggest showcases of Canadian film in the world and VIFF has one of the a largest nonfiction program outside of a Documentary Film Festival.
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."
The Festival also manages the year-round programming at the state-of-the-art Vancouver International Film Centre, Vancity Theatre and the Vancouver Film and Television Forum, a four-day conference supporting the Canadian film and television production industry.
Read more about Vancouver International Film Festival: Awards
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