Carrie Coon will be the first recipient of the Vancouver International Film Festival’s new Luminary Award in the acting category, honoring excellence and dedication to the art of moving image. The “White Lotus,” “The Gilded Age,” and “The Leftovers” star is set to take part in a wide-ranging conversation following the Oct. 4 presentation.
Coon also stars in “The Liberation,” which screens earlier that day at VIFF, playing a mother trying to escape the weight of her harrowing past, only to find solace in an all-women’s cult.
Beyond Coon’s appearance, VIFF’s Oct. 1-11 program will feature talks, panels and masterclasses bringing filmmakers, craftspeople, producers, programmers and other industry professionals to Vancouver. The festival will also present Luminary Awards to Markus Schleinzer (“Rose”) for directing excellence and Leah Nelson (“Tangles”) for screenwriting.
On Oct. 5, production designers Brandon Tonner-Connolly and Matt Hyland will discuss working together to build the surreal, immersive world of Jane Schoenbrun’s “Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma.”
The VIFF Talks series 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 conversation with composer and former Fox studio exec Robert Kraft.
This year’s masterclass programming has a distinctly international flavor.
The panel lineup, meanwhile, brings together figures from across the festival and distribution ecosystem.
“Curating Cinema in a Shifting Landscape” will feature Pamela Biénzobas, a programmer at the Locarno Film Festival, alongside VIFF documentary programmer Ruun Nuur and critic/programmer Saffron Maeve, for a discussion of how film curation is evolving.
The Vancouver-to-international trajectory will be the focus of “From Vancouver to the World: The Making of Tangles,” featuring director Leah Nelson alongside several members of the creative team behind the animated feature. Based on Vancouver artist Sarah Leavitt’s graphic memoir, “Tangles” was selected for Cannes the best first feature Caméra d’Or at Cannes and boasts a voice cast that includes Abbi Jacobson, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Bryan Cranston, and Seth Rogen.
Other panels will examine Indigenous filmmaking and narrative sovereignty, deal-making, documentary filmmaking beyond certainty, and the craft of comedy.
The festival will also showcase its Composer Filmmaker Accelerator, an initiative connecting emerging composers with filmmakers through mentorship and hands-on collaboration. It is curated by three-time Emmy-nominated composer Miriam Cutler, whose credits include “RBG,” “Love Gilda,” and “Lost in La Mancha.” The 2026 CFA showcase takes place Oct. 8.
