Calgary Film Festival lineup includes Cannes winners, soccer doc, Julia Roberts thriller and time travel comedy

Palm D'Or-winning It Was Just An Accident will be screened at the 2025 Calgary International Film Festival, which announced its lineup Wednesday.

The Calgary International Film Festival unveiled its complete 2025 lineup Wednesday, where it will feature everything from Cannes Film Festival-winning dramas to a documentary that offers audiences an inside look at Canadian women’s soccer to a time travel comedy to a cinematic love letter to beloved Canadian comic John Candy.

The 26th edition of the Calgary International Film Festival runs Sept. 18-28, when it closes with a screening of Sentimental Value, which won the Grand Prix award at the Cannes Film Festival.

For its Sept. 23 Centrepiece Gala at The Grand, there’s a screening of The Pitch, director Michele Hozer’s behind-the-scenes look at how Diana Matheson and a few other Canadian Olympic athletes set out to create a women’s professional soccer league, with Matheson and Canadian soccer icon Christine Sinclair both in attendance.

“We’re so excited to bring these Gala Presentations to The Grand and show off our new projectors,” said CIFF artistic director Brian Owens, in a release.

“The Grand is the second venue in Calgary to host a CIFF cinema projector and a key partner in our Constellation project to light up new cinemas in the city. The Pitch is such a great portrait of perseverance, and Diana Matheson is truly a hero for what she’s done for Canadian women’s soccer, and Sentimental Value is a surefire player in this year’s awards season. Renate Reinsve and Stellan Skarsgård exude such amazing chemistry."

After the Hunt is a psychological thriller directed by Oscar nominee Luca Guadagnino, starring Oscar-winner Julia Roberts and Andrew Garfield. It tells the story of a university professor (Roberts) whose emotional and professional life gets thrown into upheaval when a student levels an accusation against a colleague.

CIFF will also screen It Was Just An Accident, the Palm D’Or-winning film from Iranian director Jafar Panahi.

Nirvanna: The Band, The Show, The Movie, from Blackberry director Matt Johnson, is a time travel comedy adapted from Johnson’s web series that the Globe and Mail’s Barry Hertz said is “gonna make a whole lot of heads roll.”

Grow, from Scottish director John McPhail, is a family-friendly film produced by Calgary’s Orogen Entertainment. It had its international premiere in Edinburgh and McPhail will be in attendance for the Calgary screening.

John Candy: I Like Me from Colin Hanks, is a love letter to the Canadian comedy legend, The Mastermind is Oregon auteur Kelly Reichardt’s drama about a carpenter who becomes an art thief, and Nouvelle Vague is American indie icon Richard Linklater’s comedy-drama about the making of Jean-Luc Godard’s classic Breathless.

For comic-romantic relief, there’s The Baltimorons, about Cliff’s excellent Christmas Eve adventure with a cracked tooth and an emergency dentist named Didi.

For more about CIFF’s 2025 lineup, go here.