Nov 5 – Nov 15, 2026
Vancouver Asian Film Festival 2026
VAFF lists its 30th festival November 5–15, 2026. A launch date of September 24 is already past. Venues, titles, and tickets are not posted. The dedicated festival page is still thin.
The Vancouver Asian Film Festival lists VAFF30 for November 5–15, 2026. The homepage also dated a launch to September 24, 2026. That launch day is already behind us. Titles, venues, pass prices, and day-by-day screens are still not on the public festival pages.
VAFF dates itself from a 1995 founding and a 1997 debut. The about page calls it Canada's longest-running Asian film festival and the largest racialized film event in Western Canada. Every November it frames a hybrid hub: in-person Vancouver screenings plus a Canada-wide online stretch. Do not invent this year's theater list from an older edition.
Year-round work sits around the November core. Mighty Asian Moviemaking Marathon, better known as MAMM, is the short-film launchpad, with a 2026 gala already named on the site menu. VAFF Industry and the Film Fund point filmmakers toward talks and support. Elimin8Hate is the advocacy arm. AIM covers Asians in media, music, and movies. Those programs explain why the org stays busy when the festival page is still a stub.
The dedicated film-festival URL is live but thin. It leans on volunteering and past-poster nostalgia more than a 2026 grid. Footer and archive art still carry older years. Treat leftover 2024 copy as site debt, not a schedule. An older open-call note described hybrid days on-site plus a Canada-wide online stretch. Keep that as shape, not as this year's theater map.
Season of Japan at Nikkei National Museum is already finished by early November. RED FM Diwali Dhamaka lands November 7 at Surrey Civic Plaza, inside this window. VAFF is the film half of early November if you want screens instead of a plaza stage.
Sibling festivals on our calendar, from Toronto Chinese Canadian to Silicon Valley Asian Pacific, already show how fall diaspora film weeks publish venue grids later than the date block. Vancouver readers who already follow VAFF know that rhythm.
Who this is for: Lower Mainland viewers who can hold a calendar block and wait for venues. Skip it if you need a Saturday address and a ticket total tonight.
Email the festival through vaff.org if you are volunteering. The site asks for that help in the same breath as the November dates. Programming and submissions contacts sit on the festival pages when you need them. Loyalty membership and sponsor pages are also live if you already support the org year-round.
Our take: put November 5–15 on the calendar. Buy nothing until a venue and a pass price appear. The 30th year is the story. The stub page is not a schedule.
When: November 5–15, 2026 (venues and tickets TBA)
Where: Vancouver (sites not posted)
Dates on vaff.org.
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