The 37th Annual Vancouver Queer Film Festival (VQFF) returns to screens September 11-21, in person and September 22-28 online. Vancouver’s second largest film festival has announced a lineup featuring 100 films from 25 countries centering 2SLGBTQIA+ creators and stories, including 12 world premieres, 6 international premieres, 7 North American premieres, and 21 Canadian premieres across 26 features and 74 short films. The Festival will also feature parties, performances, post-screening Q&A’s with filmmakers and special guests, and an exciting new slate of industry events.
Thursday September 11th, led by new Artistic Director Mary Galloway, the Festival will kick off with the Opening Presentation: Then. Now. Forever., a collection of 7 short films from across 2SLGBTQIA+ communities that celebrate queer past, present, and futures.
“Stories are medicine,” says Galloway. “This year’s program honours our past and makes space for the queer and trans voices rising now. It’s about who we are, how we got here, and where we are going.”
This year signals a pivotal shift in leadership with Galloway, a Cowichan filmmaker, at the helm as the festival’s first Indigenous and Indigiqueer Artistic Director. Under Galloway’s direction, VQFF shifts to an Indigenized vision that highlights Two Spirit and Indigiqueer stories and artists. The 2025 Festival artwork is designed by Vancouver-based Cowichan artist Charlene Johnny, blending traditional Coast Salish art with contemporary queer and Indigenous symbolism. Galloway introduces the new Matriarch of the Year Award (MOTY Award) honouring an Indigiqueer or Two Spirit (2S) Matriarchal leader in the film and television industry across Turtle Island who has made a significant impact on Indigenous and 2SLGBTQIA+ storytelling with a $5,000 cash prize. VQFF also proudly presents the hometown premiere of the Indigenous feature-length musical drama STARWALKER directed by Corey Payette, about an Indigiqueer Two Spirit call boy finding family and identity through drag. VQFF’s commitments to uplifting and championing Indigenous stories and voices are woven throughout the festival experience, which takes place on the unceded, ancestral lands of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh Nations.
Thursday September 18th, the 2025 Centrepiece Presentation: JUST KIDS is a timely and powerful documentary about three families living in states that have banned gender-affirming care. Directed by documentarian and journalist Gianna Toboni and featuring Jacklyn Toboni (The L Word: Generation Q), JUST KIDS exposes the inhumane politicization of trans healthcare and its devastating impacts on trans youth and their families.
Saturday September 20th the Festival’s Closing Presentation: FOUR MOTHERS from Darren Thornton, is a heartwarming and moving Irish comedy and the Winner of the Audience Award at the BFI London Film Festival, about a gay novelist who is saddled with the care of his friends’ eccentric, strong-willed mothers over Pride weekend.
Actor and activist Vico Ortiz (Our Flag Means Death, The Sex Lives of College Girls) will be in attendance throughout the festival, moderating several post-screening Q&A’s with filmmakers and special guests, as well as performing as their drag king persona.
This year’s Festival boasts an array of new Industry programs and initiatives, including the inaugural VQFF Pitch Competition. Special guests from the hit sapphic horror show Yellowjackets will feature in the panel “Eat You(r Heart) Out: Queer Horror with Yellowjackets”. VQFF will also offer 1:1 Industry Speed-Dating; panels with major Canadian film funding bodies (“Funding Your Project”) and Canada’s largest networks, broadcasters, and streaming platforms (“Selling Your Project”); and several industry networking socials. VQFF is once again offering a limited number of free all-access industry passes to equity-deserving and emerging 2SLGBTQIA+ filmmakers and students, as well as free ticketing for self-identified Indigenous folks.
VQFF partners with the Vancouver Latin American Film Festival (September 4-14, 2025) to co-present a queer Latine shorts program (“Through Our Kaleidoscope”) and the Opening Weekend Party: Fuego Fogo on September 13th.
Screening, in-person, September 11-21 and online, September 22-28, the 37th Annual Vancouver Queer Film Festival (VQFF) offers a bounty of features, shorts, screening, networking, panels and talk-backs too numerous to mention. Visit queerfilmfestival.ca to discover the full VQFF program, individual tickets are available on a sliding scale from $7-$21, Festival Passes and Digital Passes are all on sale now.
The 2025 Festival programme was curated by Artistic Director Mary Galloway; programmers Cole Forrest, Kathleen Mullen, Layla Cameron, and Syriah Bailey; VQFF Program Coordinator Maiya Dexel. The Future is Queer: Youth Programs at VQFF was curated with additional support from outgoing Education Director Gavin K Somers, Out In Schools Program Manager Danny Lybbert, and Chelsea Birk (Learning and Outreach Director at The Cinematheque).