The Toronto International Film Festival is one of the largest publicly attended film festivals in the world, attracting over 480,000 people annually. Since its founding in 1976, TIFF has grown to become a permanent destination for film culture operating out of the TIFF Bell Lightbox, located in Downtown Toronto. TIFF's mission is "to transform the way people see the world through film".
Frank D'Angelo is a Canadian entrepreneur in the food and restaurant industry, and in entertainment. D'Angelo has made several feature-length films through his In Your Ear Productions. He is also the founder of D'Angelo Brands and the now-defunct Steelback Brewery and is host of The Being Frank Show, a weekly late night talk show.
The Waiting Room is a Canadian drama film written and directed by Igor Drljaca. Loosely based on the life of Jasmin Geljo, the film stars Geljo as an actor once popular in his native country of Yugoslavia, who has struggled to find success since immigrating to Canada.
Kazik Radwanski is a Canadian film director and screenwriter. His early short films have been cited as part of the New Canadian Cinema movement. He made his feature film directorial debut in 2012 with Tower. His second feature film, How Heavy This Hammer (2015), screened at film festivals around the world and received critical acclaim. His third feature film, Anne at 13,000 Ft. (2019), starring Deragh Campbell, won the Toronto Film Critics Association's $100,000 Rogers Best Canadian Film Award in 2021.
Firecrackers is a 2018 Canadian drama film written and directed by Jasmin Mozaffari. An expansion of Mozaffari's 2013 short film of the same name, the film stars Michaela Kurimsky and Karena Evans as two teenage girls trying to escape their small town.
Canada's Top Ten is an annual honour, compiled by the Toronto International Film Festival and announced in December each year to identify and promote the year's best Canadian films. The list was first introduced in 2001 as an initiative to help publicize Canadian films.
Jasmin Mozaffari is an Iranian-Canadian film director and screenwriter. She won the Canadian Screen Award for Best Director at the 7th Canadian Screen Awards in 2019 for her debut feature film Firecrackers.
The Song of Names is a 2019 drama film directed by François Girard. An adaptation of the novel of the same name by Norman Lebrecht, it stars Tim Roth and Clive Owen as childhood friends from London whose lives have been changed by World War II. The film was nominated for nine Canadian Screen Awards, winning five.
And the Birds Rained Down is a 2019 Canadian drama film, directed by Louise Archambault. An adaptation of the novel by Jocelyne Saucier, the film centres on a group of senior citizens living off-the-grid in a wilderness setting, whose orderly and quiet lives are threatened by changes in their personal group dynamics after the death of the group leader and the arrival of a new outsider.
Antigone is a 2019 Canadian drama film directed by Sophie Deraspe. An adaptation of the ancient Greek play Antigone by Sophocles, the film transposes the story to a modern day refugee family in Montreal. The cast includes Nahéma Ricci as Antigone, with Rawad El-Zein, Hakim Brahimi, Rachida Oussaada, and Nour Belkhiria. It was filmed in Greater Montreal in 2018.
White Lie is a 2019 Canadian drama film written and directed by Yonah Lewis and Calvin Thomas. The film stars Kacey Rohl as Katie Arneson, a university student who fakes a cancer diagnosis for the attention and financial gain, but gets caught up in having to maintain her lie.
Kire Paputts is a Canadian film director and screenwriter. He is most noted for his feature films The Rainbow Kid, which premiered at the 2015 Toronto International Film Festival, and The Last Porno Show, which premiered at the 2019 Toronto International Film Festival.
Ariane Louis-Seize is a Canadian film director and screenwriter from Quebec. She is most noted for her short films Wild Skin , which was a Canadian Screen Award nominee for Best Live Action Short Drama at the 5th Canadian Screen Awards and a Prix Iris nominee for Best Short Film at the 19th Quebec Cinema Awards, and Little Waves , which was named to the Toronto International Film Festival's annual Canada's Top Ten list in 2018.
Anne at 13,000 Ft. is a Canadian drama film. Directed and written by Kazik Radwanski, the film stars Deragh Campbell as Anne, a shy, socially awkward daycare worker whose attitude to her life and work is radically transformed after she skydives for the first time. It premiered in the Platform Prize program at the 2019 Toronto International Film Festival, and received an honourable mention from the Platform Prize jury. In December 2019, the film was named to TIFF's annual year-end Canada's Top Ten list. After premiering on the festival circuit in 2019, the film's 2020 theatrical release was postponed until 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Black Conflux is a 2019 Canadian drama film directed by Nicole Dorsey. The film stars Ella Ballentine as Jackie, a teenage girl in Newfoundland and Labrador whose quest for independence leads her into the orbit of Dennis, a mentally unstable and potentially violent man in his twenties.
The Rest of Us is a 2019 Canadian drama film, directed by Aisling Chin-Yee. It stars Heather Graham as a single mother, who reluctantly takes in her ex-husband's second wife and their daughter as houseguests after his untimely death leaves his new family homeless.
Violation is a 2020 Canadian drama horror film directed and written by Madeleine Sims-Fewer and Dusty Mancinelli. It is the feature film debut of the two directors, who have collaborated on several short films displayed at film festivals worldwide. The film stars Madeleine Sims-Fewer, Anna Maguire, Jesse LaVercombe, Obi Abili, Jasmin Geljo, and Cynthia Ashperger.
The 2021 Toronto International Film Festival, the 46th event in the Toronto International Film Festival series, was held from September 9 to 18, 2021. Due to the continued COVID-19 pandemic in Toronto, the festival was staged as a "hybrid" of in-person and digital screenings. Most films were screened both in-person and on the digital platform, although a few titles were withheld by their distributors from the digital platform and instead were screened exclusively in-person.
Scarborough is a 2021 Canadian drama film, directed by Shasha Nakhai and Rich Williamson. An adaptation of Catherine Hernandez's 2017 novel Scarborough, the film centres on the coming of age of Bing, Sylvie and Laura, three young children in a low-income neighbourhood in the Scarborough district of Toronto, as they learn the value of community, passion and resilience over the course of a school year through an after-school program led by childhood educator Ms. Hina.
