What to Watch at the Calgary International Film Festival 2026
Bif Naked at the World Premiere of the documentary Bif Naked at the Calgary International FIlm Festival 2025.
Photo credit: Shannon Johnson.
The Calgary International Film Festival (CIFF) is returning with another fantastic slate of films for movie-lovers. Over the course of the eleven day festival, CIFF will screen over 200 films across a wide variety of venues including Contemporary Calgary, Globe Cinema, The GRAND and the faithful Scotiabank Theatre Chinook, bringing the entire city into the festival spirit.
From documentaries on cult classics, to Cannes-winning premieres, and new features from returning festival favourites. REVERIE has your watchlist recommendations below.
BEST SUMMER EVER
Have you ever wanted to relive your “best summer ever?” Maybe this is a summer you spent with your friends during a formative time, in your teens or early twenties, that you can only remember in memory fragments, but it brings you warm feelings every time you flashback to that time. What if I were to tell you there was a box of video tapes that you forgot you recorded from that same summer and you actually can relive it? This is what happened to director Tamra Davis, when she had to evacuate from her home during the 2025 Palisades Fires, and stumbled on this box of video tapes she personally recorded over a one month period during the 1995 Summersault tour in Australia, headlined by the Beastie Boys, Sonic Youth, Foo Fighters, Beck, Pavement, Rancid, Bikini Kill and The Amps.
The Best Summer is an essential film that reminds you of the possibilities and power of documentary filmmaking. I know for myself, after I finished watching it, I reflected back on my own “best summers ever” and reminisced about those times when we all had no cares in the world, which is a nice state of mind to be in. — Ben Goodman
REVERIE is proud to be the community partner for the Canadian Premiere of The Best Summer, alongside Sled Island.
WE ARE THE SHAGGS
After essentially creating the documentary comedy form for television with The Larry Sanders Show and The Office (two series that he directed the pilots for and helped shape the tone of those series which would influence everything in its wake), it’s about time Ken Kwapis has finally made a documentary of his own and it’s for a story that is stranger than any fictional story could ever hope to be. With We Are The Shaggs, Kwapis spotlights Fremont New Hampshire’s The Shaggs, a cult band that is full of myth and lore and humanizes their story in a beautiful way.
It’s a film that is as much about the personal lives of the Wiggin family (Dot, Betty, Helen Wiggin and father/manager Austin) as it is about breaking down music theory, and finding out the difference between what is “bad” and what is “good.” Getting into similar “what is bad art/what is good art?” questions that Ed Wood got, known for making “the worst film of all-time” in Glen or Glenda just as some music critics called The Shaggs’ album Philosophy of the World “the worst album of all-time” for similar reasons, We Are The Shaggs is a funny, beautifully sincere ode to human creativity. — Ben Goodman
CLUB KID
After receiving rave reviews from both Cannes and the Toronto International Film Festival, Club Kid should jump to the top of your watchlist. Fans of Rachel Sennott’s new show I Love LA won’t want to miss Jordan Firstman’s (I Love LA’s Charlie) directorial debut, which stars Firstman as Peter, a party promoter whose life is interrupted by the unexpected arrival of his 10-year-old son. From the trailer alone, which opens with a piano rendition of Ethel Cain’s “Thoroughfare,” prepare yourself for plenty of heartbreak in this uncoventional found family tale. — Kenn Enns
ANCHORS AWEIGH
It has been so gratifying to witness Matt Barats get more and more recognition with each passing year. I was first introduced to his work with his 2023 comedic documentary Cash Cow (which he directed, wrote and starred in) when it screened as part of the Calgary Underground Film Festival (CUFF), which was followed by his collaborative project with Anthony Oberbeck and Graham Mason Reveries: The Mind Prison world premiering as part of the 2025 edition of CUFF.
Just in 2026 alone it’s been a good year for us Matt Barats Heads, as he has delivered standout performances in Never Change! and 2026 CUFF selection The Scout (for which I wrote in my review for Reverie that Barats was the film’s MVP).
Matt Barats is back for this year’s Calgary International Film Festival with another comedic documentary that he wrote/directed/stars in titled Anchors Aweigh, which like Cash Cow, promises to be a comedy that uses the documentary form in a funny character-driven way, as we witness Barats’ character spiral on film (in Anchors Aweigh, it’s after his “much younger and more successful blonde girlfriend” breaks up with him which forces him to rent a sailboat and makes him evaluate the decisions that led up to this point). The film is produced by Tim & Eric’s Abso Lutely Productions, as well producer Allie Viti (who frequently works with another comedic documentary great, John Wilson), in addition to being made by Brooklyn-based indie film company Cartuna who made Barats’ Reveries: The Mind Prison, which gives you an idea of the sensibility of the film even if you are not familiar with Barats’ work. The film is making its Alberta premiere on Saturday September 26th at 9 p.m. at the Globe Cinema, the same slot that last year’s CIFF sensation Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie made its own Alberta Premiere at (another thing the two films share? They are both a part of the 2026 TIFF Midnight Madness line-up). As someone who attended that Nirvanna CIFF screening last year at the Globe, I can say that there isn’t a better feeling than watching an exciting new comedy with a packed festival crowd, so do not miss your chance in seeing Anchors Aweigh! — Ben Goodman
THE DEBUT
My most anticipated film of the festival this year is Jesse Eisenberg’s feature The Debut which has attempted to keep its musical underpinnings under wraps, though for one, am incredibly excited for a film featuring original songs written by Eisenberg. Julianne Moore is already receiving Oscar buzz for her performance as Mona Friedman as she navigates her community theatre program run by Paul Giamatti. You’ll also be able to catch The Debut at CIFF months before its theatrical release this December! — Kenn Enns
YOU HAD TO BE THERE: HOW THE TORONTO GODSPELL IGNITED THE COMEDY REVOLUTION, SPREAD LOVE & OVERALLS, AND CREATED A COMMUNITY THAT CHANGED THE WORLD (IN A CANADIAN KIND OF WAY)
We have long known that Canadians are the funniest and most talented people on the planet, but did you know that a 1972 production of the Stephen Schwartz/John-Michael Tebelak show Godspell in Toronto were the first professional jobs for a lot of the all-time comedic greats? That is what director Nick Davis explores in his wonderful new documentary You Had To Be There: How the Toronto Godspell Ignited the Comedy Revolution, Spread Love & Overalls, and Created a Community That Changed the World (In a Canadian Kind of Way). The film is a life-long dream for comedy nerds, to finally understand what it was about this production of Godspell that formed the nucleus that would later bring the Second City theatre to Toronto, inspire Lorne Michaels (a Canadian himself) to hire Gilda Radner to join his new show Saturday Night Live, and also form the bedrock that would later become SCTV, arguably the greatest sketch comedy show to ever exist. — Ben Goodman
The Calgary International Film Festival runs from September 24 to October 4, 2026. Ticket bundles and passes are on sale now at ciffcalgary.ca.