Bitter Christmas: VIFF 2026
The Vancouver International Film Festival returns for their 45th year this October 1-11 for another curated season celebrating the best in independent, Canadian, documentary, and international shorts and features.
Christmas comes early this year, in the form of Pedro Almodóvarr’s latest confection, a sly comedy about the perils of autofiction. It boasts not one but two Almodóvarian alter-egos in Barbara Lennie and Leonardo Sbaraglia as acclaimed but currently uninspired filmmakers who turn to the messier lives of their assistants and friends for story material (much to their chagrin). Bitter Christmas displays the control and authority that we have long since become accustomed to from this master of cinema: narrative sleight of hand, a dazzling colour palette that leaps from the screen, rich performances that span the spectrum from tragedy to farce and all stops in between.
In the circumstances, to reveal more of the plot(s) would risk spoiling some delicious surprises, so let’s just say that this is generally in a lighter mode than the equally self-reflexive Pain and Glory; it’s a mischievously meta mea culpa from a modernist simultaneously transfixed and transported by the image of cinema as an infinitely suggestive hall of mirrors.
Sunday, October 4
Doors 9:00 pm | Film 9:30 pm *Start time subject to change. Please arrive on time.
Tickets HERE
VIFF thanks the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations for their continued stewardship of the unceded and occupied land on which our work takes place. As an organization founded and predominantly directed by settlers and immigrants, we understand our responsibility to seek out and build authentic relationships with Indigenous communities, and to allow this ongoing dialogue to influence our practices. As part of this process, we remain committed to collaborating with and supporting Indigenous artists, filmmakers, curators, and audiences.
