Vancouver International Film Festival Sets Record With 182,000 Attendees

The Vancouver International Film Festival closed its 44th edition Sunday evening with record attendance of 182,000 across 16 days and 300 films, cementing its status as one of North America's most important film events.

The Dragons & Tigers Award for best film went to Sung-a Yoon's "The Quiet Season," a South Korean family drama that has since been acquired by Netflix for a reported $6.8 million — the largest VIFF Dragons & Tigers acquisition in the festival's history.

The festival's centrepiece event, a career tribute to Canadian director Atom Egoyan, drew standing ovations at the Vancouver Playhouse across three sold-out screenings and a conversation moderated by filmmaker Mina Shum.

"What VIFF does better than almost any festival I know is create genuine discovery," said jury president Claire Denis, the French filmmaker who presided over this year's main competition. "You feel the audience learning something new about cinema here. That is rare."

VIFF artistic director Kyle Fostner announced that the 2027 edition will expand to include a new interactive media strand focused on virtual reality and AI-generated cinema, responding to a surge in submissions from digital artists.