Following the wrap-up of its 2025 edition on Oct. 12, the Vancouver International Film Festival (VIFF) unveiled the winners of its audience awards on Friday (Oct. 17), with three Canadian films crowned across the festival’s 11 feature-film categories.

Brishkay Ahmed’s documentary In the Room beat out new works by several internationally renowned filmmakers — including Richard Linklater, Paolo Sorrentino, Christian Petzold, Raoul Peck and more — to claim the audience prize for VIFF’s international Showcase section.

The National Film Board of Canada (NFB) production is a personal essay film in which Ahmed explores her own journey as an Afghan expat while reflecting on the resilience and heroism of Afghan women through interviews with a range of other participants. Teri Snelgrove serves as producer on the film, with Shirley Vercruysse executive-producing for the NFB.

Tasha Hubbard’s Meadowlarks won the audience award for VIFF’s multinational Panorama section. Based on Hubbard’s 2017 documentary Birth of a Family, the drama follows four Cree siblings who reunite 50 years after being separated in the Sixties Scoop.

The film is produced by Tyler Hagan for Experimental Forest Films and Julia Rosenberg for January Media, with Betty Ann Adam serving as executive producer. Mongrel Media is handling distribution.

Rounding out the Canadian winners was Mayumi Yoshida’s Akashi, which took the audience award in VIFF’s Northern Lights section dedicated to Canadian and Indigenous filmmakers. Writer and director Yoshida also stars in the autofictional feature, as a visual artist who returns to Tokyo after 10 years in Vancouver to attend the funeral of her beloved grandmother.

Recent Playback 10 to Watch pick Nach Dudsdeemaytha serves as a producer on the film for Musubi Arts, alongside Hagan for Experimental Forest Films. The duo are also credited as EPs along with Yoshida, Julie Waters, Evan Dyal, Mallory Schwartz, Kathleen Hepburn and Justin Ambrosino.

The audience prizes follow the presentation of the juried awards for VIFF’s 2025 edition on Oct. 8, which saw Alireza Khatami’s The Things You Kill, Sophy Romvari’s Blue Heron and Ryan Sidhoo’s The Track declared the winners in the Canadian competition categories.

Image courtesy of VIFF