VIFF2026 – Girl Who Would be KING on Life, Style and INSPIRATION.

VIFF 2026: Nuisance Bear

There are very few places left in the world where you can experience wild animals in their true, uninterrupted environments. We think of African safaris, trekking to see gorillas in Eastern Africa, exploring The Galápagos Islands, or viewing massive penguin colonies in Antarctica.

Photo courtesy of Vancouver International Film Festival

Right alongside those bucket-list destinations is polar bear watching in Churchill, Manitoba – the self-proclaimed “Polar Bear Capital of the World”.

But the feature documentary Nuisance Bear turns that entire tourism spectacle on its head. Expanding on their acclaimed 2021 short film, Canadian filmmakers Gabriela Osio Vanden and Jack Weisman track the polar bear population as it intersects with both high-rolling tourists and the Inuit community of Arviat. The film shows how these amazing, apex predators are increasingly encroaching on human habitat, coming dangerously close to town lines.

Through their lenses, we track a polar bear navigating a chaotic gauntlet of tourists, trucks, sirens, traps, wildlife officers, hunters, and forced relocation. The journey is given profound weight and depth through guidance and narration from the late Inuit elder Mike Tunalaaq Gibbons.

In 2018, Gibbons’ son, Aaron, was tragically killed by a polar bear while protecting his children. Though speaking about the predators became deeply difficult for the elder, his reflections in the film offer a moving reminder that the fault does not lie with the bear, but with a fractured ecosystem.

At this stage in time, watching this documentary is probably the closest I’ll ever personally come to seeing polar bears in the wild – and honestly, I’m okay with that.

Tour operators in Churchill use custom-built, massively oversized vehicles known globally as Tundra Buggies or Arctic Crawlers. Built with massive, five-foot-tall rubber tires to safely traverse the fragile subarctic terrain when the bears gather along the coast of Hudson Bay every October and November, these vehicles are the only way to see them. It’s not an intimate operation, it’s a heavily managed interaction.

As the VIFF program guide beautifully summarizes:

Winner of the highly coveted Sundance Grand Jury Prize for Documentary, this is a formally daring work about spectacle, survival, and the violence hidden inside the word ‘nuisance’.

We’re left contemplating what happens when the mascot becomes a problem?”

The festival has now come to a close, but you can check out the VIFF movie lineup all year long here:

https://viff.org

Film Reviews

VIFF 2026: “Whatcha Want”

I went to see Mina Shum’s latest feature film, Whatcha Want, mostly because she is an acclaimed local writer-director (Meditation Park, VIFF 2017) and the film was shot right here in Vancouver and Victoria. I had a feeling it would be good, and I was absolutely right!

The best way to describe it is a high-energy mix of Crazy Rich Asians meets Flashdance. But overall, it’s a joyful movie of liberation.

Beneath the dazzling surface, the story has many layers. It brings poignant Asian cultural awareness to the forefront through the main character, Yin Tse (played beautifully by Bridgerton’s Isabella Wei). Yin comes to Vancouver from Hong Kong on a temporary visa as a new “trophy wife,” dealing with an isolating marriage and an absentee husband who is back home handling business… and a bit of unfaithful “monkey business” on the side.

Yin’s only friend in Vancouver is a slightly older woman in the exact same boat. She has grown used to her husband’s constant absence and views the luxury lifestyle it provides as a necessary tradeoff. Whether that tradeoff is good or bad depends entirely on how you look at it, but it appears to be the accepted norm for many women in this circle. It requires giving up a part of yourself to please someone else – something I think most of us have done at some point in our lives. As Yin’s mother perfectly puts it in the film: “I always liked mushrooms – but your dad hated them, so I never ate them again.”

One day, feeling lonely and looking out over her balcony, Yin notices a vibrant group of dancers practicing in the building next door. Intrigued, she wanders over to find connection by rekindling her childhood passion for dance. The dynamic blend of hip-hop, breakdancing, and acrobatics is mesmerizing (in fact, one of the dancers in the cast is a real-life Canadian Olympic champion from the Paris games!).

A chance encounter brings Yin under the wing of dance studio owner Penny (Helen Dang), who helps her train for an elite audition. But when her wealthy husband (Hugh Tran) returns from Hong Kong, Yin is forced to make a definitive choice: stick with material comfort, or claim the freedom to be herself.

Anchored by screen legends Ming-Na Wen (Mulan) and Tzi Ma (The Farewell), who help provide comic relief, this film tackles heavy themes of isolation and marital expectations within the Asian diaspora while the incredibly charismatic cast of dancers keeps the energy electric.

Ultimately, Whatcha Want is a beautiful tribute to the joy of self-expression through movement. It leaves you reflecting on a profound question: What are you truly willing to give up for a lifestyle, or for someone else? It is an earnest, joyful ride that will have your heart doing backflips.

For more VIFF please visit:

https://viff.org

Film Reviews

VIFF 2026: Lady

The main reason I chose this movie was not so much for the story, but because it was filmed in Lagos, Nigeria.

However, the story itself turned out to be quite pulsating – following a group of women doing what they must to survive in a chaotic landscape, and one young woman in particular whose dream is to escape to a place that offers more freedom, away from the noise, business, and relentless traffic.

Directed by Olive Nwosu, Lady is a vibrant feature debut that follows Ujah (Jessica Gabriel), a struggling female taxi driver in Lagos. She takes on a side job chauffeuring a group of sex workers, including her estranged childhood best friend who returns after a five-year absence – through the city’s nocturnal underworld.

This movie grabbed my attention because my late husband spent years, off and on, travelling to Lagos to do telecommunications feasibility for cell phone systems. No matter where you go in the world, rich or poor, everyone now has a cell phone. It’s the one common denominator for all of us.

Overall, I found the story frustrating and heartbreaking. The hardships some of these women face just to make ends meet are daunting, to say the least, but I deeply admired the lead character’s dignity and sense of self. The film leaves you restless, heartbroken, and intensely aware of the vast miles between comfortable detachment and daily survival.

My husband always talked about Lagos as a city of endless static and relentless momentum – a place that moves too fast to look back. Olive Nwosu’s camera manages to slow it down just enough to see the human beings caught in the current. I left the theater wishing life were kinder to Ujah and her friends, deeply grateful that a film had given a vivid voice to a landscape I only ever knew through secondhand stories.

Lady isn’t an easy ride, but like the brave women in the front seat, it refuses to be looked past.

For more VIFF please visit:

https://viff.org/