The Toronto International Film Festival is one of the most prestigious and largest publicly attended film festivals in the world, founded in 1976 and taking place each September. It is also a permanent destination for film culture operating out of the TIFF Lightbox cultural centre, located in Downtown Toronto.
Alanis Obomsawin, is an Abenaki American-Canadian filmmaker, singer, artist, and activist primarily known for her documentary films. Born in New Hampshire, United States and raised primarily in Quebec, Canada, she has written and directed many National Film Board of Canada documentaries on First Nations issues. Obomsawin is a member of Film Fatales independent women filmmakers.
Heather Young is a Canadian filmmaker based in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia.
Trick or Treaty? is a 2014 Canadian documentary feature film by Alanis Obomsawin about Treaty 9, a 1905 agreement in which First Nations peoples in northern Ontario surrendered their sovereign rights. The film is the first by an indigenous filmmaker to be selected to the Masters program at the Toronto International Film Festival, and is the 43rd film by Obomsawin for the National Film Board of Canada.
The 42nd annual Toronto International Film Festival was held from September 7 to 17, 2017. There were fourteen programs, with the Vanguard and City to City programs both being retired from previous years, with the total number of films down by 20% from the 2016 edition. Borg/McEnroe directed by Janus Metz Pedersen opened the festival.
Hochelaga, Land of Souls is a 2017 Canadian historical drama film directed and written by François Girard and starring Gilles Renaud, Samian and Tanaya Beatty. Dramatizing several centuries of Quebec history and the local history of Montreal in particular, the story depicts Quebec archaeology revealing the past of indigenous peoples, explorers and 1837 rebels.
The 43rd annual Toronto International Film Festival was held from September 6 to 16, 2018. In June 2018, the TIFF organizers announced a program to ensure that at least 20 percent of all film critics and journalists given press accreditation to the festival were members of underrepresented groups, such as women and people of color. The People's Choice Award was won by Green Book, directed by Peter Farrelly.
The Platform Prize is an annual film award, presented by the Toronto International Film Festival to films of "high artistic merit that also demonstrate a strong directorial vision." Introduced in 2015, the award is presented to a film, selected by an international jury of three prominent filmmakers or actors, from among the films screened in the Platform program. The program normally screens between eight and twelve films; only one winner is selected each year, although as with TIFF's other juried awards the jurors have the discretion to give honorable mentions to other films besides the overall winner.
The 44th annual Toronto International Film Festival was held from 5 to 15 September 2019. The opening gala was the documentary film Once Were Brothers: Robbie Robertson and The Band, directed by Daniel Roher, and the festival closed with a screening of the biographical film Radioactive, directed by Marjane Satrapi.
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.
Murmur is a Canadian docufiction film, directed by Heather Young and released in 2019. Young's full-length directorial debut, the film stars a cast of largely non-professional actors and centres on Donna, a lonely, alcoholic woman who is ordered to perform community service in an animal shelter after being arrested for drunk driving; when she adopts an older dog from the shelter to save him from being put down, she finds new meaning and purpose in her life but becomes obsessed with saving animals to the detriment of her own well-being.
The 2020 Toronto International Film Festival, the 45th event in the Toronto International Film Festival series, was held from September 10 to 21, 2020. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic in Toronto, the festival took place primarily on an online streaming platform, although limited in-person screenings still took place within the constraints of social distancing restrictions.
Danis Goulet is a First Nations (Cree-Métis) film director and screenwriter from Canada, whose debut feature film Night Raiders premiered in 2021.
Honour to Senator Murray Sinclair is a Canadian short documentary film, directed by Alanis Obomsawin and released in 2021. The film intercuts excerpts of former Canadian senator Murray Sinclair's 2016 acceptance speech, when he was presented with an award by the World Federalist Movement-Canada in honour of his role as chair of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, with the personal testimonies of various survivors of the Canadian Indian residential school system.
Share Her Journey is a Canadian film program, created by the Toronto International Film Festival to foster the career development and advancement of women in the film industry.
The 47th annual Toronto International Film Festival was held from September 8 to 18, 2022.
The TIFF Tribute Awards are an annual award, presented by the Toronto International Film Festival to honour distinguished achievements in filmmaking. Unlike the festival's regular awards, which are presented based on audience or jury voting during the festival, the TIFF Tribute Awards are presented to people or organizations selected by the board and announced in advance of the festival. Recipients are selected from among the cast and crew of the films in that year's festival lineup.
The 48th annual Toronto International Film Festival was held from September 7 to 17, 2023.
