VANCOUVER: Top prize winners from major world festivals are among the screening highlights at the 27th annual Vancouver International Film Festival, running Sept. 25 to Oct. 10.

In VIFF’s first programming announcement, festival director Alan Franey named numerous Cannes Film Festival favorites to the lineup, including: the Camera d’Or winner Hunger by U.K. filmmaker Steve McQueen; Three Monkeys, from Turkey’s Nuri Bilge Ceylan (best director prize); and the Un Certain Regard best film recipient Tulpan, a Russia/Kazakhstan/Germany/Switzerland/ Poland copro from Sergey Dvortsevoy. Next Floor by Quebec’s Denis Villeneuve, which won the top short film prize at Cannes, will also be screened.

Award-winning films from Sundance, Tribeca and Berlin are also among the 300-plus films from 60 countries heading to VIFF.

‘One of the things we can no longer take for granted is that if a film wins a major prize at an international festival that it will be shown in a local repertoire theater,’ says Franey. ‘In previous years, a film that won a prize at Berlin or Sundance might have been in theaters by the summer.’

As a result, VIFF’s role becomes even more important, he adds.

‘I don’t know if a lot of festivals are really considering these changes in the marketplace as much as they should be. We are an audience festival first and foremost, so our job is to ensure that audiences get to see the best films from around the world, not the most virgin films.’

The Vancouver festival has become internationally recognized for having one of the world’s largest showcases of nonfiction cinema at a general film festival. About one-third of the films at VIFF this year are international documentaries, totaling around 100.

Among the nonfiction highlights are Berlin prize-winner Be Like Others, an Iran/Canada/U.K./U.S. film about Iranian sexual politics from Tanaz Eshaghian. VIFF will also present Juraj Lehotsky’s Blind Loves (Slovakia), the winner of the CICAE Award from the Cannes Film Festival’s Directors’ Fortnight. The film combines animation and the real lives of four blind people who overcome their challenges to find love and life.

In 2007, VIFF introduced an environmental film series, Climate for Change, which continues this year under the new name The Ark: Elements and Animals, reflecting the themes explored in the documentary and fiction films chosen. Focuses are on the world’s most precious element, water, and the human-animal relationship.

Films in The Ark series include the world premiere of the U.S./Canada production, Blue Gold: World Water Wars by director Sam Bozzo and based on the book by Maude Barlow and Tony Clarke.

Other returning series at VIFF are: Dragons and Tigers, the largest annual exhibition of East Asian films outside of Asia; Spotlight on France, with films from new and veteran French directors; and Cinema of Our Time, an international program of features from more than 30 countries. Around 100 short and feature-length films from across Canada will be screened in Canadian Images.

Guests lined up for VIFF’s annual Film and Television Forum, a four-day industry event that includes seminars, master classes, pitching and coproduction meetings (Sept. 24-27), include Oscar-winning cinematographer Guillermo Navarro (Hellboy II: The Golden Army, Pan’s Labyrinth). Also hosting a master class is the writing/directing team of Anne Boden and Ryan Fleck (Half Nelson, Sugar).