On the lookout for the following Barry Jenkins, Pietro Marcello, William Oldroyd, or Darius Marder? Let the Toronto Worldwide Movie Pageant’s auteur-focused and discovery-minded Platform part assist.
At this time, the pageant has introduced its 2025 Platform program lineup, marking the tenth anniversary of the fest’s auteur aggressive part, which “champions daring directorial imaginative and prescient and distinctive storytelling.”
This 12 months’s version options 10 movies representing 19 international locations. This system opens with the World Premiere of “Steve,” from Belgian director Tim Mielants (“Small Issues Like These,” “Peaky Blinders”), starring Tracey Ullman and Academy Award–winner Cillian Murphy. The movie is Mielants’ first look at TIFF and his third collaboration with Murphy.
Per regular, the part is juried by a three-person group of luminaries. This 12 months, they embody Jury Chair and Spanish movie author, editor, and director Carlos Marqués-Marcet, who received the 2024 Platform Award for “They Will Be Mud.” He’s joined by Oscar-nominated actor, author, composer, and director Marianne Jean-Baptiste, who was most just lately on the pageant with Mike Leigh’s “Laborious Truths” (TIFF ’24), and Québécois filmmaker Chloé Robichaud, whose acclaimed Sundance hit “Two Ladies” just lately had a theatrical run at TIFF Lightbox, and who has attended TIFF beforehand for her movies “Days of Happiness” (TIFF ’23), “Boundaries” (TIFF ’16), and her brief movie “Delphine”(TIFF ’19), amongst others.
The opposite 9 movies collaborating within the Platform competitors are: Farnoosh Samadi’s “Between Desires and Hope,” Orian Barki and Meriem Bennani’s “Bouchra,” György Pálfi’s “Hen,” Pauline Loquès’ “Nino,” Bretten Hannam’s “Sk+te’kmujue’katik (On the Place of Ghosts),” Milagros Mumenthaler’s “The Currents,” Yoon Ga-eun’s “The World of Love,” Valentyn Vasyanovych’s “To the Victory!,” and Kasia Adamik’s “Winter of the Crow.”
The Platform program is curated by TIFF’s programming group underneath the course of Robyn Citizen, Platform Lead and Director of Programming, Pageant & Cinematheque. Platform spotlights 10 movies from early- to mid-career filmmakers poised to interrupt out on the world stage. All movies in this system are eligible for the Platform Award, which is chosen by a world jury. The successful filmmaker will obtain a $20,000 CAD money prize. The Platform Award might be offered as a part of the TIFF awards ceremony.
Over the previous few weeks, TIFF has rolled out some early picks for its choice, together with Colin Hanks’ opening night time documentary “John Sweet: I Like Me,” plus new movies from Steven Soderbergh, Nia DaCosta, Chandler Levack, Alejandro Amenábar, and Sung-hyun Byun, the addition of 11 starry titles within the Gala and Particular Shows program simply final week, and that full lineup simply yesterday.
Try the complete itemizing of this 12 months’s Platform lineup (alphabetically), with all language supplied by TIFF:
“Between Desires and Hope” | Farnoosh Samadi | Iran | World Premiere
Farnoosh Samadi, whose characteristic movie “180° Rule” (TIFF ’20) and brief movie “Disappearance” (TIFF ’17) each premiered on the pageant, returns with “Between Desires and Hope.” On this daring queer love story, Azad (Fereshteh Hosseini), a trans man, and Nora (Sadaf Asgari) are two younger lovers toggling between custom and modernity of their society and household. Collectively, they journey to a distant Iranian village to face Azad’s estranged father and acquire paperwork that may allow the pair to stay authentically.
“Bouchra” | Orian Barki & Meriem Bennani | Italy/Morocco/USA | World Premiere
Longtime collaborators and companions, visible artist Meriem Bennani and documentary filmmaker Orian Barki, recognized for his or her earlier works Life on the “CAPS” (TIFF ’22) and “2 Lizards” (TIFF ’22), carry their newest animated venture, “Bouchra,” to the pageant, marking the primary animated characteristic to premiere in Platform. On this movie, 35-year-old Moroccan Coyote and filmmaker, Bouchra, lives in New York and chronicles the impression her queerness has on her relationship together with her mom, Aïcha, in Casablanca. Slicing between the movie that’s forming and real-life conversations between Bouchra and Aïcha (recreations of telephone calls that befell between Bennani and her mom), “Bouchra” is a humorous and tender portrait of the love and ache that either side have to know so as to transfer ahead.
“Hen” | György Pálfi | Germany/Greece/Hungary | World Premiere
György Pálfi’s “Hen,” an ingenious live-action characteristic, chronicles a exceptional hen as she escapes from her grisly destiny on this unorthodox and daring story. Escaping from a hen farm, she finds refuge within the courtyard of a crumbling restaurant. There, she discovers love, confronts the pecking order, and fights to guard her eggs from a grasping proprietor. Her droll but touching quest for motherhood mirrors the messy compromises and silent struggles of human lives.
“Nino” | Pauline Loquès | France | Worldwide Premiere
With a breakout efficiency from TIFF ’17 Rising Star and Québécois actor Théodore Pellerin (whose earlier TIFF credit embody “By no means Regular, By no means Nonetheless,” “Household First,” and “Genèse” and the latest, “Solo”), Pauline Loquès’ “Nino” follows its titular character (performed by Pellerin) over three pivotal days. Nino faces a serious well being problem, however first, his docs have assigned him two very important duties. These two missions lead the younger man on a journey by Paris, compelling him to reconnect with the world — and himself.
“Sk+te’kmujue’katik (On the Place of Ghosts)” | Bretten Hannam | Canada/Belgium | World Premiere
From Indigenous, two-spirited filmmaker Bretten Hannam (“Wildhood,” TIFF ’21) comes “Sk+te’kmujue’katik (On the Place of Ghosts),” which follows siblings Mise’l and Antle who had been shut as kids, however trauma from their upbringing has prompted them to float aside as adults. When they’re each haunted by a malevolent spirit of bones and decay, the siblings are pressured to reunite and enterprise deep into the forest to confront their trauma collectively.
“Steve” | Tim Mielants | Eire/United Kingdom | Opening Movie | World Premiere
Set within the mid-90s, “Steve” is a reimagining of Max Porter’s Sunday Instances bestseller “Shy.” The movie follows a pivotal day within the lifetime of headteacher Steve (Academy Award winner Cillian Murphy) and his college students at a last-chance reform college amidst a world that has forsaken them. As Steve fights to guard the varsity’s integrity and impending closure, we witness him grappling along with his personal psychological well being. In parallel to Steve’s struggles, we meet Shy (Jay Lycurgo), a troubled teen caught between his previous and what lies forward as he tries to reconcile his internal fragility along with his impulse for self-destruction and violence.
“The Currents” | Milagros Mumenthaler | Switzerland/Argentina | World Premiere
Recognized for her evocative storytelling, filmmaker Milagros Mumenthaler, whose acclaimed movie “Abrir puertas y ventanas (Again to Keep)” premiered at TIFF ’11, unveils her newest drama, “The Currents.” The enigmatic movie follows Lina on a enterprise journey to Geneva. She is pushed by an impulse that places her life in peril. On her return to Buenos Aires, Lina retains what occurred hidden, however the previous which she escaped from emerges and places her current in abyss.
“The World of Love” | Yoon Ga-eun | South Korea | World Premiere
Yoon Ga-eun’s third characteristic, “The World of Love,” brings collectively Search engine optimization Su-bin in her debut function with Chang Hyae-jin (“Parasite,” “Crash Touchdown on You”). The movie introduces us to Jooin (Search engine optimization Su-bin), an enigmatic 17-year-old highschool scholar who’s interested in and baffled by love. Someday, some phrases she says in a match of anger trigger a serious scene. Afterwards, she receives nameless notes questioning her habits, and cracks start to seem in her previously peaceable world. “Jooin, who’s the true you?”
“To the Victory!” | Valentyn Vasyanovych | Ukraine/Lithuania | World Premiere
The most recent from multi-talented filmmaker Valentyn Vasyanovych, who additionally stars because the lead character in “To the Victory!” Ukraine, within the close to future. The warfare has ended. A movie director is out of labor, out of luck, and out of contact along with his household overseas. Whereas his spouse and daughter constructed a brand new life in Vienna, he stays behind — confused, stressed, and satisfied that issues will get higher. Ultimately. In all probability. Perhaps.
“Winter of the Crow” | Kasia Adamik | Poland/Luxembourg/United Kingdom | World Premiere
“Winter of the Crow” stars Lesley Manville, Zofia Wichłacz, and Tom Burke and relies on a brief story by Nobel Prize–successful creator Olga Tokarczuk. Set through the onset of Poland’s Martial Regulation period, the nation is shut down simply as British psychiatry professor Dr. Joan Andrews (Manville) arrives as a visitor lecturer in Warsaw. Taxis have been changed by tanks; residents are handled like criminals. As chaos engulfs town, Joan witnesses a brutal homicide by the key police. In mortal hazard and trapped as Poland is closed down, Joan turns into a hunted fugitive operating for her life.
This 12 months’s official screening venues will as soon as once more embody TIFF Lightbox, Roy Thomson Corridor, the Visa Screening Room on the Princess of Wales Theatre, Cineplex’s Scotiabank Theatre Toronto, Glenn Gould Studio on the Canadian Broadcast Centre, Cinema Park at David Pecaut Sq., and the Royal Alexandra Theatre. The seventh version of the TIFF Tribute Awards Gala will happen on Sunday, September 7, 2025, at Fairmont Royal York Resort.
On the final day of the pageant, TIFF broadcasts the winners of its varied awards. Alongside the favored Folks’s Alternative Awards, offered by Rogers, this September introduces the brand-new Worldwide Folks’s Alternative Award. Additionally returning are the esteemed Jury Prizes together with the Platform Award, now celebrating its tenth 12 months, and honors from FIPRESCI and NETPAC.
The fiftieth version of the Toronto Worldwide Movie Pageant, offered by Rogers, runs September 4–14, 2025. Extra pageant particulars might be shared within the coming weeks, with this week set to play dwelling to some main different bulletins.