Victoria International Jewish Film Festival

11/13/2025

Do you miss us yet?
Here's the winning short from the 2025 60-second Shorts
competition!
director: Callen Manaoat
title: MAKE IT
theme: Courage

10/28/2025

What a way to end the 2025 VIJFF! Unbelievable audience. Unbelievable atmosphere. Unbelievable energy. Thank you to all the partners, volunteers, musicians, donors, and sponsors.
See you next year at the movies!
🎥Adam Nagy

10/24/2025

VIJFF 2025's over! Today Rabah to all who took part!
Check out the runner-up of the VIJFF's 60-second Shorts
competition! Director Jayashri Mukherjee's NEVER SAY GOOD BYE (A Calcutta Jewish Journey), re the theme of Identity.

10/17/2025

Ending the festival with some laughs is "Bad Shabbos", a look-who's-coming-to-dinner comedy of biblical proportions centred on the derailment, by an accidental death, of the Shabbat dinner that was to introduce David's Jewish family to his fiancé Meg's devoutly Catholic parents. Kyra Sedgwick and Cliff "Method Man" Smith lead a hilarious ensemble cast in this award-winner (Audience Award 2024 Tribeca Film Festival).

Check out the behind-the-scenes interview with director Daniel Robbins!
https://vijff.ca/news/bad-shabbos/

🗓️: Thursday / October 23, 2025
⏰: 6:30PM Doors
🎥: 7:15PM Film
🎶: Metro Quintet
🎟️: Free. Donations appreciated
📍: Vic Theatre

10/17/2025

There's romance and poignant rediscovery in the film "The Property". A grieving mother (played by comedy veteran Rivka Michaeli) travels back to Poland with her granddaughter to reclaim a family flat that was lost during the Holocaust. The journey, already emotional, takes on new meanings.

Read a behind-the-scenes interview with Rivka Michaeli!
https://vijff.ca/news/the-property/

🗓️: Wednesday / October 22, 2025
⏰: 1:30PM Doors
🎥: 2:00PM Film
🎟️: Free. Donations appreciated
📍: Vic Theatre

10/15/2025

Don't miss the powerful film, "Kidnapped: The Abduction of Edgardo Mortara". In 1858 Italy, a young Jewish boy is secretly baptized and forcibly taken from his home to be raised as a Catholic. His parents enlist the community to pressure the Vatican to return him home. Based on a true story.

🗓️: Tuesday / October 21, 2025
⏰: 6:30PM Doors / Music
🎥: 7:15PM Film
🎶: Taras Luka & Elliot Freedman
🎟️: Free. Donations appreciated
📍: Vic Theatre

10/13/2025

The VIJFF Shorts Program!
With films from Canada, Cuba, France, Uganda, and USA, the films together show the spectrum of Jewish life traditions from birth through growth to remembrance.
Featuring an enlightening introduction from Yaara Nouri about the Jewish communities in Africa.

🗓️: Monday / October 20, 2025
⏰: 6:30PM Doors / Music
🎥: 7:15PM Film
🎶: Dana Sipos
🎟️: Free. Donations appreciated
📍: Vic Theatre

10/12/2025

Super excited to be presenting “SWEDISHKAYT: YidLife Crisis in Stockholm”, featuring a very special on-stage appearance by Jamie ('chaimie’) Elman! In Stockholm, YidLife Crisis, the Canadian comedy duo of Eli Batalion & Jamie Elman, explore the incongruous quirky charm of Yiddish being an official language in Sweden and of the Jewish zeitgeist there!

🗓️: Sunday / October 19, 2025
⏰: 4:15PM Doors / Music
🎥: 5:00PM Film
🎶: Avram McCagherty Trio
🎟️: Free. Donations appreciated
📍: Vic Theatre (808 Douglas St.)

10/10/2025

The VIJFF proudly presents "Sabbath Queen", followed by a special discussion and performance by Victoria’s drag king extraordinaire, Dublin Tendre! Filmed over 21 years, the film follows Rabbi Amichai Lau-Lavie, who rejects his destiny to be an Orthodox rabbi and becomes a drag queen rebel and the founder of Lab/Shul—an everybody-friendly, God-optional, artist-driven, pop-up experimental congregation.

🗓️: Sunday / October 19, 2025
⏰: 12:15PM Doors
🎥: 12:45PM Film
🎭: Dublin Tendre

10/10/2025

Don't miss the VIJFF opening night film event featuring, “Once Upon My Mother”, a big-hearted, true story of the inspiring life trajectory of Roland, the youngest son of a Franco-Moroccan Jewish mother. An epic with motherly influences, uniquely endearing & infuriating, yet universal in being so.

🗓️: Saturday / October 18, 2025
⏰: 7:00PM Doors / Music
🎥: 7:45PM Film
🎶: Eryn Sharpe Trio

09/25/2025

Have you checked out the new VIJFF blog yet? Our first post is a behind-the-scenes interview with Roland Perez, writer and subject of the 2025 opening night film, "Once Upon My Mother"!

Speaking from Paris, author, lawyer and grandpère to newborn grandson Aleph, Roland Perez is exuberant. He’s describing the “crazy adventure” of how the film, Once Upon My Mother based upon his life story, came to fruition. Once Upon My Mother is the opening film at the Victoria International...

07/22/2025

Festival preview. Experience captivating cultural cinema.
October 18-23, 2025!
* 7 film events
* pre-show music
* delicious local snacks (nosh)
* special guests
* exclusive hotel rate at Chateau Victoria
* 60 secs shorts competition
* behind the scenes interviews
Stay tuned for more details...