The 2017 Vancouver International Film Festival, the 36th event in the history of the Vancouver International Film Festival, was held from September 28 to October 13, 2017.^[1]

The festival's opening gala film was Mina Shum's Meditation Park, and its closing gala was Todd Haynes's Wonderstruck;^[2] during the festival, a special gala was also dedicated to Guy Maddin's film The Green Fog, with its score performed live in the theatre by the Kronos Quartet.^[3]

Awards

Award winners were announced on October 13.^[4]

Films

Special Presentations

• Borg vs McEnroe — Janus Metz Pedersen
• Breathe — Andy Serkis
• Call Me by Your Name — Luca Guadagnino
• A Fantastic Woman (Una mujer fantástica) — Sebastián Lelio
• The Florida Project — Sean Baker
• Happy End — Michael Haneke
• The Killing of a Sacred Deer — Yorgos Lanthimos
• Loving Vincent — Dorota Kobiela, Hugh Welchman
• Mountain — Jennifer Peedom
• The Square — Ruben Östlund
• Top of the Lake: China Girl — Jane Campion, Ariel Kleiman

Contemporary World Cinema

• 7 Minutes — Michele Placido
• At the End of the Tunnel — Rodrigo Grande
• Azar — Mohammad Hamzei
• Beauty and the Dogs — Kaouther Ben Hania
• The Bolshoi — Valery Todorovsky
• Casting — Nicolas Wackerbarth
• Cocote — Nelson Carlo de Los Santos Arias
• Columbus — Kogonada
• The Desert Bride — Cecilia Atán, Valeria Pivato
• Directions — Stephan Komandarev
• Disappearance — Boudewijn Koole
• The Divine Order — Petra Volpe
• The Dragon Defense — Natalia Santa
• Farewell (Abscheid von den Eltern) — Astrid Johanna Ofner
• Félicité — Alain Gomis
• Gabriel and the Mountain — Fellipe Gamarano Barbosa
• Garden Store: Family Friend — Jan Hřebejk
• God's Own Country — Francis Lee
• Golden Exits — Alex Ross Perry
• Good Manners (As Boas Maneiras) — Marco Dutra, Juliana Rojas
• Holy Air — Shady Srour
• Hotel Salvation (Mukti Bhawan) — Shubhashish Bhutiani
• Ice Mother (Bába z ledu) — Bohdan Sláma
• In the Fade — Fatih Akin
• The Insult — Ziad Doueiri
• The King's Choice (Kongens nei) — Erik Poppe
• Last Days in Havana (Últimos días en La Habana) — Fernando Pérez
• The Line — Peter Bebjak
• Lipstick Under My Burkha — Alankrita Shrivastava
• Loveless (Нелюбовь) — Andrey Zvyagintsev
• Lucky — John Carroll Lynch
• The Nest of the Turtledove (Гніздо горлиці) — Taras Tkachenko
• Newton — Amit V. Masurkar
• The Nile Hilton Incident — Tarik Saleh
• No Bed of Roses — Mostofa Sarwar Farooki
• No Date, No Signature (بدون تاریخ، بدون امضا) — Vahid Jalilvand
• On the Seventh Day (En el séptimo día) — Jim McKay
• The Other Side of Hope (Toivon tuolla puolen) — Aki Kaurismäki
• The Party — Sally Potter
• Los Perros — Marcela Said
• The Queen of Spain (La reina de España) — Fernando Trueba
• Reseba: The Dark Wind — Hussein Hassan
• Sami Blood (Sameblod) — Amanda Kernell
• Scary Mother (Sashishi Deda) — Ana Urushadze
• Sexy Durga — Sanal Kumar Sasidharan
• Son of Sofia (O gios tis Sofias) — Elina Psykou
• Sour Apples (Ekşi Elmalar) — Yılmaz Erdoğan
• Summer 1993 (Estiu 1993) — Carla Simón
• Swallows and Amazons — Philippa Lowthorpe
• Sweet Virginia — Jamie M. Dagg
• Tales of Mexico (La Habitación) — Natalia Beristáin, Carlos Bolado, Carlos Carrera, Ernesto Contreras, Daniel Giménez Cacho, Alfonso Pineda Ulloa, Alejandro Valle, Iván Ávila Dueñas
• Tehran Taboo (تهران تابو) — Ali Soozandeh
• Tenderness (La Tenerezza) — Gianni Amelio
• That Trip We Took with Dad (Die Reise mit Vater) — Anca Miruna Lăzărescu
• Thelma — Joachim Trier
• Thirst Street — Nathan Silver
• Tom of Finland — Dome Karukoski
• Vazante — Daniela Thomas
• Western — Valeska Grisebach
• Winter Brothers (Vinterbrødre) — Hlynur Pálmason
• The Wound (Inxeba) — John Trengove
• The Young Karl Marx — Raoul Peck

Spotlight on France

• Ava — Léa Mysius
• BPM (Beats per Minute) — Robin Campillo
• Dalida — Lisa Azuelos
• Django — Étienne Comar
• Faces Places — Agnès Varda, JR
• Ismael's Ghosts (Les Fantômes d'Ismaël) — Arnaud Desplechin
• Milla — Valérie Massadian
• A Season in France (Une Saison en France) — Mahamat Saleh Haroun
• The Valley of the Wolves (La Vallée des loups) — Jean-Michel Bertrand
• The Workshop (L'Atelier) — Laurent Cantet

Documentaries

• 24 Frames (۲۴ فریم) — Abbas Kiarostami
• AlphaGo — Greg Kohs
• Armed with Faith — Asad Faruqi, Geeta Gandbhir
• Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story — Alexandra Dean
• Caniba — Véréna Paravel, Lucien Castaing-Taylor
• Did You Wonder Who Fired the Gun? — Travis Wilkerson
• Dina — Daniel Sickles, Antonio Santini
• Dirtbag: The Legend of Fred Beckey — Dave O'Leske
• The Farthest — Emer Reynolds
• Good Luck — Ben Russell
• Machines — Rahul Jain
• Maineland — Miao Wang
• A Marriage Story (Strnadovi) — Helena Třeštíková
• Searching for a New Science — David Malone
• Untitled — Michael Glawogger, Monika Willi
• West of the Jordan River — Amos Gitai

True North

• Black Cop — Cory Bowles
• Eye on Juliet — Kim Nguyen
• Fail to Appear — Antoine Bourges
• Fake Tattoos (Les faux tatouages) — Pascal Plante
• Forest Movie — Matthew Taylor Blais
• In the Waves — Jacquelyn Mills
• Infiltration (Le problème d’infiltration) — Robert Morin
• Like a Pebble in the Boot (Comme un caillou dans la botte) — Hélène Choquette
• Maison du Bonheur — Sofia Bohdanowicz
• Mass for Shut-Ins — Winston DeGiobbi
• Our People Will Be Healed — Alanis Obomsawin
• Prototype — Blake Williams
• Rebels on Pointe — Bobbi Jo Hart
• A Skin So Soft (Ta peau si lisse) — Denis Côté
• Still Night, Still Light (Mes nuits feront écho) — Sophie Goyette
• Suck It Up — Jordan Canning
• Unarmed Verses — Charles Officer
• Worst Case, We Get Married (Et on pire, on se mariera) — Léa Pool
• You're Soaking in It — Scott Harper

Gateway

• 2 Cool 2 Be 4gotten — Petersen Vargas
• Anarchist from Colony — Lee Joon-ik
• Angkor Awakens — Robert H. Lieberman
• Bad Genius — Nattawut Poonpiriya
• A Beautiful Star — Daihachi Yoshida
• Becoming Who I Was — Moon Chang-yong, Jeon Jin
• Burma Storybook — Petr Lom
• Claire's Camera — Hong Sang-soo
• Close-Knit — Naoko Ogigami
• The Departure — Lana Wilson
• Dragonfly Eyes — Xu Bing
• The First Lap — Kim Dae-hwan
• A Fish Out of Water — Lai Kuo-An
• The Foolish Bird — Huang Ji, Ryuji Otsuka
• The Great Buddha+ — Huang Ji, Ryuji Otsuka
• Gukoroku: Traces of Sin — Kei Ishikawa
• Have a Nice Day — Liu Jian
• The Hidden Sword — Xu Haofeng
• Honeygiver Among the Dogs — Dechen Roder
• I've Got the Blues — Angie Chen
• In Time to Come — Tan Pin Pin
• King of Peking — Sam Voutas
• The Last Roar of a Mother Bear — Doug Chan
• Marlina the Murderer in Four Acts — Mouly Surya
• Motherland — Ramona S. Diaz
• Okja — Bong Joon-ho
• Paradox — Wilson Yip
• Sweating the Small Stuff — Ryutaro Ninomiya

Sea to Sky

• Adventures in Public School — Kyle Rideout
• cə̓snaʔəm, the city before the city — Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers
• Dead Shack — Peter Ricq
• Entanglement — Jason James
• Gregoire — Cody Bown
• Hollow in the Land — Scooter Corkle
• Indian Horse — Stephen Campanelli
• Luk'Luk'I — Wayne Wapeemukwa
• Meet Beau Dick: Maker of Monsters — LaTiesha Fazakas, Natalia Tudge
• Never Steady, Never Still — Kathleen Hepburn
• On Putin's Blacklist — Boris Ivanov
• Once There Was a Winter — Ana Valine
• Shut Up and Say Something — Melanie Wood

Impact

• ACORN and the Firestorm — Reuben Atlas, Sam Pollard
• Blue — Karina Holden
• Evolution of Organic — Mark Kitchell
• Frank Serpico — Antonino D'Ambrosio
• Hondros — Greg Campbell
• Human Flow — Ai Weiwei
• Keep Talking — Karen Lynn Weinberg
• The Trial: The State of Russia vs Oleg Sentsov — Askold Kurov
• The Venerable W — Barbet Schroeder
• A Yangtze Landscape — Chang Jiang

M/A/D

• Beuys: Art as a Weapon — Andres Veiel
• Big Time — Kaspar Astrup Schröder
• Bosch: The Garden of Dreams (El Bosco, el jardin de los sueños) — José Luis López Linares
• Bunch of Kunst — Christine Franz
• Chaplin in Bali: Journey to the East — Raphaël Millet
• Chavela — Catherine Gund, Daresha Kyi
• Clive Davis: The Soundtrack of Our Lives — Chris Perkel
• David Hockney at the Royal Academy of Arts — Phil Grabsky
• Leaning Into the Wind: Andy Goldsworthy — Thomas Riedelsheimer
• Louise Lecavalier in Motion — Raymond St-Jean
• Planeta Petrila — Andrei Dascalescu
• Schumann's Bar Talks — Marieke Schroeder
• Shadowman — Oren Jacoby
• Song of Granite — Pat Collins
• Streetscapes (Dialogue) — Heinz Emigholz
• Where You're Meant to Be — Paul Fegan

Altered States

• Animals (Tiere) — Greg Zglinski
• Bad Day for the Cut — Chris Baugh
• Bitch — Marianna Palka
• The Crescent — Seth A. Smith
• The Endless — Justin Benson, Aaron Moorhead
• Friendly Beast (O Animal Cordial) — Gabriela Amaral Almeida
• Housewife — Can Evrenol
• Lowlife — Ryan Prows
• Tiger Girl — Jakob Lass
• Tragedy Girls — Tyler MacIntyre

Canadian Short Films

• Alice Ayalik — Reel Youth
• Anne Doll — Levi Marshall
• Bickford Park — Linsey Stewart, Dane Clark
• Bird — Molly Parker
• Birdlime — Evan Derushie
• Bunbun Blast — Drake Tuura
• Cherry Cola — Joseph Amenta
• Crème de menthe — Jean-Marc E. Roy, Philippe David Gagné
• The Crying Conch — Vincent Toi
• Do We Leave This Here — Julia Hutchings
• Etymology — Faith Paré
• Fence — Alexis Fortier Gauthier
• Flood — Amanda Strong
• From Here To — Darynn Bednarczyk
• Full Moon Party — Gabriel Adelman
• The Glow Is Gone — Ryan Ermacora
• Go Play Outside — Adib Alkhalidey
• The Good Fight — Mintie Pardoe
• Grandmother (ʔEtsu) — Trevor Mack
• His Name Is Willy — Liz Cairns
• Idizwadidiz — Isiah Medina
• It Just Might Be True — Evan McDermot, Samantha Campbell
• The Knits — Lisa Birke
• Let Your Heart Be Light — Deragh Campbell, Sophy Romvari
• Life Goes On: John Dub — Moe Yang
• Lights Beneath My Feet — Laz
• Lira's Forest — Connor Jessup
• Lost Paradise Lost — Yan Giroux
• Lower Plenty Garden Views — Adrian St. Louis
• Manivald — Chintis Lundgren
• The Martyr — Devan Scott, Will Ross
• Memory of the Peace — Jennifer Chiu, Jean Parsons
• Milk — Heather Young
• The Mountain of SGaana — Christopher Auchter
• La Pesca — Pablo Alvarez-Mesa, Fernando López Escrivá
• Refugee Rescue — Richard Yang
• Rupture — Yassmina Karajah
• Scaffold — Kazik Radwanski
• Scratchy — Marv Newland
• Sea Monster — Daniel Rocque, Kassandra Tomczyk
• Shadow Nettes — Phillip Barker
• Slap Happy — Madeleine Sims-Fewer, Dusty Mancinelli
• The Tesla World Light — Matthew Rankin
• There Lived the Colliers — Nelson MacDonald
• Thug — Daniel Boos
• Voices of Kidnapping — Ryan McKenna
• When Food Goes Bad — Ben Sprenger
• Where Do Cats Go After 9 Lives? — Marion Duhaime
• A Woman on the Telephone: Carol — Erica Généreux Smith

International Short Films

• 100 Second Red Light — Navid Zare
• Afterglow — Akira Kamiki
• American Psychosis — Amanda Zackem
• The Animal — Atasay Koç
• Backstory — Joschka Laukeninks
• Ballooinator — Joshua Siegel
• Bullroarer — Francesco Saviano
• C.O.D. — Onur Dogan
• Canton Novelty — Fang Lu
• Chasing Stars — Markus Eichenberger
• Damn Bro! — Travis Frick
• Divide — Rabbia Arshad, Alysha Siddigi, Jamil Ur Rehman
• Don't Be Afraid of the Light — Jason A. Rostovsky
• The Fashion Show — Lucy Lumsden
• Flag — Matan Ben Moreh
• Forever Now — Kristian Haskjold
• Game — Jeannie Donohoe
• The Good Girls — Clara Roquet
• High Moon — David Zhu
• Home, Sweet Home — Carlos Polo
• Hsiang Yi — Wu Zi En
• Hunger — Alejandro Montalvo
• I Love You Forever Now — Youyang Yu
• Images of Nowhere — Rubén Guzmán
• Invisible Line — Shahnawaz Chachar, Sourath Behan, Danial Shah
• The Kodachrome Elegies — Jay Rosenblatt
• Land of Happy Dreams — Josh Auter
• The Language of Ball — Ramon Rodriguez
• Life Is Lifeless — Hawar Rahimi
• Lunar Dial — Gao Yuan
• Marlon — Jessica Palud
• Maxwell's Demon — Marcos Vaz
• Munchies — Sinéad Stoddart
• Nobody Likes You — Mark Sean Haynes, Kelly Wydryk
• Outlines — Ellie Rogers
• Overlove — Lucas Helth
• Promise — Neville Pierce
• Rhythm of Being — Giada Ghiringhelli
• Royal Fool — Saba Karseladze
• Say No to Early Sex — Alusine Kamara, Susan Kargbo, Ibrahim Kamara, Mariama Kargbo
• Shepherd's Purse — Dong Hao
• Sissyman — Joshua Atesh Little
• Sisters — Toni Kamula
• Talking Too Loud — Abel Rubinstein, Georgia Milton
• There Was a Man, a Girl and a Rocket — Terence Chim
• 7ún3l — Klych López
• TV in the Fish Tail — Iesh Thapar
• Walk of Shame — Maisie Buck
• Walt & Me — Yaz Canli
• Wardrobe — Pranav Bhasin
• Wave — Benjamin Cleary, T.J. O'Grady Peyton
• We Belong — Jeremy Herron
• Who Is in Charge Here? — Studio Da
• Yes, God, Yes — Karen Maine

Modes

• 489 Years — Hayoun Kwon
• Batrachian's Ballad — Leonor Teles
• Charged Landscapes — Sara Naomi Goodman
• Find Fix Finish — Sylvain Cruiziat, Mila Zhluktenko
• Green Screen Gringo — Douwe Dijkstra
• Jardins d'été — Quayola
• Martin Cries — Jonathan Vinel
• A Photo of Me — Dennis Tupicoff
• Roadside Attraction — Iveta Lucas, Patrick Bresnan
• Strange Says the Angel — Shalimar Preuss
• Studies on the Ecology of Drama — Eija-Liisa Ahtila
• A Tall Tale — Maya Schweizer
• Tashlikh (Cast Off) — Yael Bartana