FILM PROGRAMS
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 18th
TIFF LIGHTBOX
350 King Street West, Toronto, ON M5V 3X5
*Premiere Status*
World Premiere (WP), North American Premiere (NAP), Canadian Premiere (CP), Ontario Premiere (OP, Toronto Premiere (TP).
9:00 AM
INTERNATIONAL SHORT DOCUMENTARIES
Women On the Verge
PROGRAM: 2H. Followed by audience Q & A.
Moderated by KJ Carter, Documentary Program Curator.
Darlinghurst Eats Its Young
Directed by Madeleine Preston & Anthony Bautovich
Based on a box of photographs left to Madeleine after her best friend Maggie died by suicide, this is a moving account of a group of friends, artists and musicians living in Darlinghurst (Sydney) in the early 1980s.
(CP, 2024, Foreign Short Documentary, 0:16:14, Australia)
Who are you?
Who am I?
Directed by Frédérique Picard
A young Indigenous woman is preparing to leave her community. This departure makes her reflect on her identity: as she moves into adulthood, she feels as much a stranger in her village as in her new town.
(TP, 2024, Short Documentary, 0:04:30, Canada)
Seeking Dreams
Directed by Li Heidi
Natives of the Safari, Maasai tribes live on their cattle and see a surrounding world changing. Tisa, the oldest child of the family dreams of becoming a doctor and helping others but school is too far away from her Maasai home.
(WP, 2024, Foreign Short Documentary, 0:15:03, Tanzania/United States)
12:00 PM
FOREIGN DOCUMENTARY
FEATURE
PROGRAM: 2H. Followed by audience Q & A.
Moderated by Naomi McCormack, Program Committee.
SHORT
This Is Not A Ghost Story
Directed by Valerie Buhagiar
A cinematic "bio-fairytale" exploring haunting events from the director’s life, interwoven with ghost sightings. As a Maltese immigrant, she recounts lingering struggles and experiences that span from childhood to the present day, sharing moments that shocked, froze, and pulled her backward in time.
(WP, 2025, Experimental/Bio-epic, 0:20:11, Canada)
FEATURE
Night and Fog in Kurdistan
Directed by Shilan Saadi
The powerful story of seven Yezidi teenagers who survived the 2014 ISIS genocide. The film follows their five-year migration journey from refugee camps in Turkey to relocation in Europe. Weaving their stories of displacement, resilience, and the lasting impact of genocide.
(CP, 2024, Foreign Short Documentary, 1:25:00, Iran)
Audience Q & A to follow.
3:00 PM
INTERNATIONAL SHORTS
Family Matters
PROGRAM: 2H 30M. Followed by audience Q & A.
Moderated by Naomi McCormack, Program Committee.
Dressed to the Nines
Directed by Madeleine Shenai & Ivana Mazza-Coates
Luke goes on a journey of self-discovery in his mum's bedroom. Trying on dresses, perfume and make-up, he loses himself to the connection. Ron, his unsuspecting dad, catches him and tensions in the house reach boiling point.
(CP, 2025, Drama, 0:06:03, United Kingdom)
Driving Lesson
Directed by Gillian Gordon
A 12-year-old must learn to drive while also navigating the worst instructor ever... her inebriated father. An empowering coming-of-age story imbued with 1990s nostalgia..
(WP, 2025, Drama, 0:17:05, Canada)
The Curtain
Directed by Leslie Ann Coles
Mother-daughter tensions bind one generation to the next in a seedy motel room where love, sex and a wish for redemption lurk beyond the curtain when Beatrice, 50, is confronted with her own mortality. Beatrice revisits an old haunt from her childhood to reconcile herself with those she loves, evoking the memory of her mother following a mastectomy.
(2023, Drama, 0:15:11, Canada)
Sweetwater
Directed by Lydia Venema
Against the backdrop of the Gay Liberation Movement of the 1970s, a pastor’s daughter begins a high-stakes clandestine relationship with another girl, a rebellious outcast, while working in their small town’s flower shop during the summer before going off to college.
(OP, 2025, Coming-of-Age/Drama, 0:24:25, Canada)
6:30 PM
FOREIGN SHORTS & FEATURE
PROGRAM: 2H 17M. Followed by audience Q & A.
Moderated by Nikita Helewa, Foreign Features Program Committee.
The Hair
Directed by Friderike Krafczyk
The image of aging women is transmitted through media and internalized by society and The Hair addresses the fear women can feel about their own aging. Fear of losing attractiveness, becoming irrelevant, and ending up as a child-eating crone in a gingerbread house in the forest. But it also tells of the self-empowerment we possess to challenge this narrative. Women get older, and that’s a good thing.
(CP, 2024, Animation, 0:03:45, Germany)
Of May
Directed by Brit Kewin
Alone in her house, a hint of a memory from her past leads May on a mission to find misplaced documents.
As she searches through her house she slips into a fantasy world where she has a small, helpful companion in the form of a teddy bear. Together they revisit and revise her painful relationship with her long-dead mother-in-law.
When her daughter Sharon enters the house and breaks the fantasy, the realization of May’s deteriorating mental state hits them both with full force. (2024, Drama, 0:12:16, Toronto, ON)
The Star I Lost
Directed by Luz Orlando Brennan
While the renowned actress Norma Reyes (76) rehearses a very bad and mediocre commercial play, where she must play an old woman with Alzheimer's; her daughter Celeste, always overshadowed by her mother's star, decides to move out of the house. Despite the stress of rehearsals and the pain of her daughter's absence, Norma continues to push forward, but an unfortunate event will put both of their plans on hold. Her daughter Celeste will take this opportunity to mold from scratch the mother she always dreamed of having.
(CP, 2024, Drama, 1:37:00, Argentina)
9:30 PM
Late Night Thrills & Chills
Short & Feature
PROGRAM: 2H 30M. Followed by audience Q & A.
Moderated by Marisa Lloyd, Late Night Thrills & Chills Program Curator.
Fucktoys
Directed by Annapurna Sriram
Part-time sex worker, full-time chaos magnet, AP is convinced that the universe has it out for her... and she might be right. In this wild, unfiltered debut from writer/director/star Annapurna Sriram—AP seeks a cosmic reset after a tarot reader floating in a swamp tells her she needs $1,000 and a sacrificial lamb to lift her curse. Armed with neither, she meets up with her long-lost kindred spirit Danni, and together the two moped off on a bizarre quest through Trashtown USA—a dystopian, neon-drenched sprawl of stripclubs and urban decay, stocked with a series of assorted oddballs, Tom of Finland cops, and some all-too-familiar type clients. Fucktoys is rude, crude, unhinged, girlypop middle finger to filmic convention and a comedic calling card for anyone who finds themself asking the question: am I cursed???
(CP, 2025, Comedy/Adventure, 1:46:00, USA)
FILM PROGRAM
DAY SIX - OCTOBER 19th
CLICK TO SEE HERE
TIFF Lightbox
350 King St W, Toronto, ON M5V 3X5
