With the 51st edition of the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) fast approaching, we uncover the LGBTQ+ highlights, section by section, in this year’s eclectic lineup of features, series and special events. Kicking off on Thursday, September 10th and running until Sunday, September 20th, the program features the Canadian premieres of All of Us Strangers filmmaker Andrew Haigh’s latest, A Long Winter, starring Fred Hechinger and Heartstopper’s Kit Connor; Jordan Firstman’s buzzy directorial debut Club Kid which he stars in alongside Cara Delevingne; and Veneno creators Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi’s Spanish Civil War drama La Bola Negra featuring Penélope Cruz, Glenn Close and Julio Torres. Trans program highlights include the world premiere of Rodrigo Barriuso’s Neverman starring Justin Vivian Bond; Sharon Kleinberg’s I Am Mario (Soy Mario) starring Oustin de León; and Joaquín Ruano’s Nosotros starring Lola Vásquez and Jozef Coxaj.
The TIFF 2026 lineup includes several works set in the 1980s during the height of the HIV/AIDS crisis, including Ira Sachs’ The Man I Love starring Rami Malek and Tom Sturridge; David Turpin’s Ancestors starring Éanna Hardwicke and Rupert Everett; acclaimed Brazilian filmmaker Marcelo Gomes’ first series Oxygen Masks Will (Not) Drop Automatically (Máscaras de Oxigênio Não Cairão Automaticamente); and Simon Stone’s Elsinore based on the life of Chariots of Fire actor Ian Charleson portrayed by Andrew Scott, co-starring Heartstopper’s Joe Locke and Olivia Colman. Scott, who also produced Elsinore, will take part in an on-stage conversation event on September 12th, while Heated Rivalry star Hudson Williams will participate in a Making Waves With… on-stage conversation on September 17th.
The 2026 slate also features the North America premiere of Pedro Almodóvar’s Bitter Christmas (Amarga Navidad), Lukas Dhont’s Coward, and the world premieres of Girl Group written and directed by Rebel Wilson who was last at the festival in 2024 with her musical comedy The Deb, and Rachel Morrison’s Love of Your Life starring Margaret Qualley. Another wolrd premiere at the festival sees Oscar-nominee Cynthia Erivo star in Susanna White’s adaptation of Suzie Miller’s globally acclaimed play, Prima Facie.
In the first year of TIFF: The Market, as part of the Access Canada Summit Powered by The Hollywood Reporter there will be a panel entitled Future Queer Stories: Building the Next Era of Screen Representation on September 15th with panelists including producer Alex Schmider, Senior Director of Entertainment at GLAAD, Red Queen Productions’ Justine Pimlott, Gay Agenda’s Michelle Mama, and Lion Pictures’ Damon D’Oliveira.
Running alongside the official lineup, the 5th annual Trans Filmmakers Summit (TFS) will take place on Sunday, September 13th. The event will once again centre around a juried short film pitch competition and will directly follow the Inside Out queer brunch. While the night before, queer cult filmmaker Bruce LaBruce will takeover the Bovine club on Queen Street West from 10pm till late to host his annual unofficial TIFF party.
Special Presentations
A Long Winter
Written and directed by Andrew Haigh
Canadian Premiere
Canada, United Kingdom | 2026 | 117m | English
Following the extraordinary emotional resonance of 2023’s All of Us Strangers, Andrew Haigh returns with a period drama occupying the liminal space between hope and acceptance. Adapted by Haigh and Colm Tóibín from the acclaimed Irish novelist’s short story, A Long Winter follows Mike (Fred Hechinger), a young man on the cusp of adulthood whose life is upended when his mother disappears during the first blizzard of the season. As the search stretches from days into weeks, the onset of winter becomes inseparable from the family’s slow reckoning with the possibility that she may never return.
While Mike’s emerging sexuality forms part of his journey, Haigh’s gaze remains fixed on something broader: the emotional fault lines that open within a family when normalcy is ruptured. Set in the mountains of Colorado and filmed in the breathtaking Canadian Rockies, the vast landscape is both beautiful and unforgiving, mirroring the emotional distance between Mike and his stoic father. Haigh’s patient, intimate filmmaking finds an ideal companion in Tóibín’s measured storytelling, where every silence, glance, and gesture carries extraordinary weight.
Hechinger (The White Lotus) embodies Mike’s evolution with remarkable sensitivity. Ebon Moss-Bachrach (The Bear) is superb as an aging father struggling to express his own grief, while Caitríona Balfe (Belfast, TIFF ’21) leaves a profound impression as the absent mother whose disappearance shapes every moment that follows. With memorable support from Kit Connor (Heartstopper) and D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai (Reservation Dogs), A Long Winter is beautifully observed work from one of contemporary cinema’s most compassionate filmmakers. – JASON RYLE
Bitter Christmas (Amarga Navidad)
Written and directed by Pedro Almodóvar
North American Premiere
Spain | 2026 | 111m | Spanish
Riddled with intrigue, personal entanglements, and stories within stories, the latest from Oscar-winning maestro Pedro Almodóvar, last at TIFF with 2024’s The Room Next Door, follows a pair of filmmakers vying against the hazards of sustaining a meaningful artistic career — and the alliances that sometimes get compromised in the process.
Elsa (Bárbara Lennie, TIFF ’22’s El Suplente) gave up art-house filmmaking for gainful employment as an advertising director long ago, but the urge to craft something personal and creative comes creeping back: she begins writing a new screenplay, drawing upon the misfortunes of her friends for material. Parallel to Elsa’s endeavour, revered auteur Raúl (Leonardo Sbaraglia, who featured in Almodóvar’s thematically related TIFF ’19 drama Pain and Glory) is also using the personal hardships of his inner circle to concoct character arcs for his new project. Both artists seek to rejuvenate their respective practices through autofictional devices that threaten to dismantle their most cherished relationships.
Bitter Christmas invites us into an entrancing house of mirrors as only Almodóvar can construct. Alter egos, seductions, and betrayals abound, as do memorable characters and performances — such as Elsa’s firefighter/exotic dancer boyfriend (Patrick Criado) and longtime Almodóvar alum Rossy de Palma in a buoyant cameo — and sequences that fuse the director’s characteristically sumptuous use of colour with evocative locations. With noirish hues and telenovela twists, it’s a captivating exploration of grief, love, and the perils of unchecked artistic licence. – ANITA LEE
Club Kid
Written and directed by Jordan Firstman
Canadian Premiere
United States of America | 2026 | 122m | English
For Peter Green (Jordan Firstman), a promoter and purveyor of… shall we say… stimulating party favours in the queer New York club scene, the party never stops. Each revelry blurs into the next, with restraint and responsibility perpetually foisted upon others, especially his fed-up business partner Sophie (Cara Delevingne). But on the precipice of losing another decade to the rhythm of the night, reality bites in the form of his surprise parentage to 10-year-old Arlo (Reggie Absolom), the result of a half-remembered hookup. When his mother unexpectedly dies, the boy is thrust straight into Peter’s carousing care.
Firstman’s spirited debut feature as writer and director bops to familiar beats as his affably incorrigible Peter tackles fatherdom, first with trepidation, and soon with enthusiasm as his precocious child’s propensity for DJ mixing becomes a springboard to endearing if precarious father-son bonding, though this is later threatened by encroaching custodial factors.
What distinguishes this trajectory from mere stock sentimentality is the care taken in depicting Peter’s queer community as they accept and invite Arlo into their world. Supported by Adam Newport-Berra’s intimate cinematography, Firstman authentically renders the lives of his characters with an effervescence that is both subtle and captivating. Special shout out to the excellent Diego Calva who portrays both Arlo’s therapist and Peter’s romantic foil with an affectionate calm.
A sensation at Cannes, where comparisons were drawn to TIFF ’24’s Anora (the films share producer Alex Coco), Club Kid boldly brings its affecting story home with sobering shifts, but an emotional catharsis that makes it a consummate crowd pleaser. – PETER KUPLOWSKY
Coward
Directed by Lukas Dhont. Written by Lukas Dhont and Angelo Tijssens.
North American Premiere
Belgium, France, Netherlands | 2026 | 125m | French, Dutch
The opening scenes of Lukas Dhont’s extraordinary third feature introduce an array of newly minted Belgian soldiers in 1916. Like so many young men of the era, they initially approach the front lines not with a feeling of trepidation but a spirit of excitement and freshly forged camaraderie. Of course, the characters of Coward soon wake up to the First World War’s many horrors. Yet, traces of that brighter energy still persist in the uncommonly poignant love story at the film’s centre.
Among those new arrivals in the trenches is Pierre (Emmanuel Macchia), a taciturn farmboy who’s mostly content to blend into the background of his troop. That makes him very different from Francis (Valentin Campagne), the son of a tailor and the enthusiastic lead performer in the ad hoc revues that the most theatrically inclined soldiers stage for their comrades as a welcome distraction. The spark of attraction between the two men leads to another means of escaping the misery and tragedy that surrounds them.
Macchia and Campagne were the very deserving recipients of Best Actor honours from the jury when the film premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in May. Coward also marks a triumph for Dhont, who makes the shift to the much larger scale of a period drama without losing the sense of intimacy, specificity, and humanity that distinguished his Camera d’Or winner Girl (TIFF 2018) and Close (2022), which followed its own Cannes success with an Academy Award nomination. The grace, beauty, and tenderness that the director captures here all make Coward a film to be treasured. – JASON ANDERSON
Elsinore
Directed by Simon Stone. Written by Stephen Beresford.
Canadian Premiere
United Kingdom | 2026 | 104m | English
Ian Charleson is widely known as the real-life star of TIFF ’81’s Chariots of Fire, the first People’s Choice Award winner to receive the Oscar for Best Picture. Its piano-led ubiquity in pop culture follows the Scottish actor everywhere, making him yearn less for Hollywood and more for his theatre roots. When Daniel Day-Lewis walks off stage as Hamlet at London’s National Theatre, the role of a lifetime appears for Charleson — but so does an AIDS diagnosis. Dream and nightmare collide as Charleson strives to command the stage and survive as long as possible.
Andrew Scott (TIFF ’25’s Blue Moon and Wake Up Dead Man) delivers a career-best performance in Elsinore, wondrously celebrating both Charleson and Hamlet on screen. Through Scott, each real and fictional man’s confrontation with death becomes visceral, profoundly moving, and resoundingly answers Shakespeare’s famed question with “to be.”
Olivia Colman brings a wellspring of empathy as a doctor treating Charleson and fellow gay men during the HIV epidemic, including a supporting turn from Heartstopper’s Joe Locke. Harnessing warmth and even wit, Queer Palm and BAFTA-winning screenwriter Stephen Beresford (TIFF ’14’s Pride) and director Simon Stone (TIFF ’15’s The Daughter) effectively fortify Charleson’s legacy in Elsinore, a courageous testament to the meaning of life and art. – ANITA LEE
Happily Ever After (幸福快樂的日子)
Written and directed by Feng-I Fiona Roan
World Premiere
Taiwan | 2026 | 95m | Chinese
Feng-I Fiona Roan made history with American Girl (2021) as the first woman to win Best New Director at the Golden Horse Awards. With countless accolades under her belt, anticipation has been building around her sophomore work. Effortlessly living up to expectations, Happily Ever After doesn’t disappoint. Delving into the themes of family relationships, generational expectations, and the definition of happiness, this is an engaging and approachable film with the perfect balance of humour and emotional tension.
Kitty (Shuhua Yeh) and Claire (Xuan Chen) are two very different sisters. Kitty, the younger of the two, is the textbook daughter and the mother’s favourite — she’s about to get a promotion and is engaged to a wealthy man. Meanwhile, Claire is far from traditional. She disappoints her parents in both career and love, but is working towards what she wants. One has it all, and one is on her way to freedom, but contrary to what meets the eye, their quest for fulfilment is complicated. When an abandoned cat enters their lives, it becomes the catalyst for unveiling their deep emotional wounds.
Roan’s strong script delicately unfolds the complexity of defining one’s own joy. Claire and Kitty’s uncertainty towards upcoming milestones and fear of breaking family expectations may seem ordinary, but they are battles that strike utterly real to many.
Despite Kitty being her first acting gig, Shuhua Yeh of K-pop group i-dle puts on a convincing and sincere performance alongside rising star Xuan Chen, and backed by seasoned actors Kuei-Mei Yang and Jack Kao — all as individuals searching for happiness in their own ways. – GIOVANNA FULVI
La Bola Negra
Directed by Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi. Written by Javier Calvo, Javier Ambrossi, and Alberto Conejero.
Canadian Premiere
Spain, France | 2026 | 155m | Spanish
At the cusp of the Spanish Civil War, a young man confronts his ideology and sexuality as he is conscripted into the fascist army where he becomes fascinated by a prisoner of war. Another young man in pre-dictatorship Spain finds himself blackballed from his father’s prestigious social club due to rumours about his sexuality. Finally, a young gay historian manoeuvres through his complicated family history and a unique inheritance decades after the dictatorship has ended.
A celebration of famed Spanish writer Federico García Lorca’s enduring legacy, La Bola Negra reimagines vignettes of his works that centred on repressed identity and sexuality, specifically his last, unfinished work that featured an openly gay protagonist in the context of extreme societal oppression. Academy Award winner Penélope Cruz (also at the Festival in Bunker), Academy Award nominee Glenn Close (The Wife, TIFF ’17), and Julio Torres (Problemista) star alongside stunning debut performances by musician Guitarricadelafuente and Milo Quifes.
The seamlessly converging storylines make for a sweeping and operatic romantic drama, punctuated by the lasting tragedy of Lorca’s execution at the hands of fascists. Directors Javier Ambrossi and Javier Calvo present a bold and ambitious narrative that delicately balances collective memory with deeply emotional personal histories. With these interconnected arcs, combined with stunning cinematography and a grand score, falling in love with La Bola Negra is inevitable. – ANITA LEE
The Man I Love
Directed by Ira Sachs. Written by Mauricio Zacharias and Ira Sachs.
Canadian Premiere
United States of America | 2026 | 97m | English
The protagonist of Ira Sachs’ new drama, The Man I Love, is an actor and performance artist in 1980s New York who is dying of AIDS. His diagnosis is central to the plot, but, just as Jimmy (Rami Malek, TIFF ‘25’s Nuremberg) remains the defiant author of his own life, Sachs eschews the familiar beats of a story about illness, instead excavating a naturalistic portrait of a group of artists in a very particular time and place.
As is fitting for such a mesmeric character, we hear about Jimmy before we see him. After a recent hospital stay, he feels more alive than ever, and is ready to concentrate his energy on a starring role in an adaptation of a work by Québécois playwright Michel Tremblay. The Man I Love lingers on impromptu performances, conversations around the dinner table, and long, grounded theatre rehearsal scenes: the communal act of creation remains central. The film’s visual language is warm and inviting, prioritizing rich textures and intricate details over strict medical precision.
But this collective also carries the potential for destruction. Jimmy can be selfish and capricious, taking up all the air in the room. As well, the spectre of the disease is always present, though it often weighs more heavily on Jimmy’s devoted partner Dennis (an unshakeable Tom Sturridge, TIFF ‘23’s Widow Clicquot) and his sister Brenda (Rebecca Hall, TIFF ‘24’s The Listeners) than on Jimmy himself. The Man I Love is an idiosyncratic portrait of an artist who above all aches to create. – ROBYN CITIZEN
Discovery
Ancestors
Written and directed by David Turpin
World Premiere
Ireland, United Kingdom | 2026 | 106m | English
David Turpin’s (writer of The Lodgers, TIFF ’17) debut feature is a mesmerizing journey through a dreamlike 1980s London. Evoking the tactile beauty of old photographs, Turpin—who also wrote the screenplay—conjures a city at a time that forever altered the lives of gay men.
An Irishman abroad at a time when homosexuality was still illegal in his homeland, Beau (Éanna Hardwicke) spends his days working in a neighbourhood café and his nights with his loyal confidante, Shell (Jessica Reynolds). When the enigmatic Tiny (Jack Wolfe) enters Beau’s life, an unlikely bond forms – until Tiny suddenly disappears. Beau embarks on a search that reveals not simply what has been lost, but the unseen threads of love, friendship, and care that bind one generation to the next. Along the way, visions of the enigmatic Gloria (Christina Hendricks) draw him ever deeper into a world where memory and longing become impossible to separate, while the lived experience of the unforgettable Maurice (gay screen icon Rupert Everett, My Policeman, TIFF ’22) embodies the resilience of a generation.
Turpin has crafted a rare film. Heartbreaking without ever surrendering to despair, Ancestors is less a chronicle of the AIDS crisis than a contemplation of the haunting legacy it left behind. He lovingly recreates a distinctly gay world, from late-night cruising to the rituals of chosen family to the playful cadences of Polari (a secret slang used to communicate discreetly). It is a deeply felt tribute from a younger gay generation to those who were there, honouring not only those lost, but those who loved, cared for, and carried each other forward. – JASON RYLE
I Am Mario (Soy Mario)
Written and directed by Sharon Kleinberg
International Premiere
Mexico | 2026 | 98m | Spanish
Mario (Oustin de León) is a gentle forty-year-old transgender taxi driver working in a big city in present-day México. He has bonded with his colleagues and has a relationship with his family — his mother and two sisters — that is caring and mostly stable. When he unexpectedly becomes pregnant, he finally has the opportunity to fulfill a long-held and intimate desire to become a father. But the news also shakes what he thought were the solid foundations of many of his own beliefs and expectations, particularly those regarding his masculinity. Mario’s questioning leads him to painful decisions and a sense of being completely cornered by life. Before exposing himself to his colleagues and facing social prejudices, he must confront himself.
Writer and director Sharon Kleinberg — making her directorial debut after a long career as both an actor and playwright — conducted extensive research for her feature film debut, which led her not only to cast a trans man — and untrained actor — as her lead, but to crystallize a deeply moving and dignified narrative. I Am Mario is a film that challenges moral, social, and religious principles and assumptions surrounding pregnancy, which is traditionally associated solely with women. Faced with a circumstance that is hard to fathom, Mario finds courage and strength in the vulnerability he thought wasn’t a part of him anymore. – DIANA CADAVID
Nosotros
Written and directed by Joaquín Ruano
World Premiere
Guatemala, Mexico | 2026 | 79m | Spanish, Maya K’iche’
When Romero (Jozef Coxaj), a thirtysomething man from rural Guatemala, leaves his Indigenous wife and young child behind in their remote village, he promises them he will return just as soon as he’s earned enough money to ease their economic struggles. Moving to the city to work as a security guard, he finds himself facing estrangement, loneliness, and the performative macho milieu that surrounds him in this unfamiliar environment. His journey is further complicated when he falls fast and hard for Nubia (Lola Vásquez), a transgender small business owner with a shop in the mall he patrols.
In his feature directorial debut, director Joaquín Ruano carefully deploys a cinematic language of nuance, restraint, and clarity. As Romero and Nubia’s developing relationship blooms in the midst of perils and tensions, Ruano quietly opens new ways to witness this unexpected intimacy. Romero finds refuge where he least expected — and even without knowing he was desperately searching for it — and discovers an affection that is as fragile as it is tender. Inside the safe space Nubia creates for both of them, Romero finds a version of himself he wasn’t aware had previously existed. The harsh world around them may never truly leave them alone. – DIANA CADAVID
Seventeen
Written and directed by Justin Ducharme
World Premiere
Canada | 2026 | 88m | English, Cree
Seventeen follows the intersecting lives of three young, queer, Indigenous sex workers in gritty downtown Vancouver over 17 hours as they face significant challenges. First-time feature director and writer Justin Ducharme handles each character with care and sensitivity, and the authenticity radiates off the screen.
A cast of relative newcomers play the three lead characters. The drama is not about the work each of them do, but instead about important deadlines they are racing to meet: Tamara (Nizhonniya Austin) must track down a passport before she’s kicked out of the country, Aiden (Taio Gélinas) has to find the money for a deposit on a new apartment, and December (Aalayna) needs to acknowledge a pressing family situation back home on her reserve. Also appearing in pivotal smaller roles are some of today’s leading Indigenous actors, such as Kaniehtiio Horn (Seeds, TIFF ’24) and Joel Oulette (Can I Get a Witness? TIFF ’24, also at this year’s Festival in Carrie).
As the clock ticks down on each of their deadlines, chosen family members step in — and up — to do whatever they can but, crucially, Tamara, Aiden, and December need to do the work themselves. This is an impressive debut from Ducharme, one that gives viewers a glimpse into the complex realities of queer Indigenous people living on the margins in the urban spaces around us. – KELLY BOUTSALIS
We Are Born Good (善男信女)
Written and directed by Leung Chuen Yeung
World Premiere
Hong Kong | 2026 | 96m | Chinese
A botched takeaway order detonates into a battle of wills in We Are Born Good (善男信女), the assured feature debut of Hong Kong filmmaker Leung Chuen Yeung, developed through the Hong Kong government film-funding programme, First Feature Film Initiative.
Suet Ying Chung plays an aspiring actress, crushed by debt and disappointment. When a neighbourhood restaurant gets her order wrong and refuses to remake it at closing time, she decides to retaliate. The owner (Wai Lun Yeung), recently released from prison and struggling to rebuild his life, is equally close to his breaking point. Their escalating feud pushes both further into chaos before hostility gives way to an unexpected connection.
Inspired by a viral CCTV clip of a trivial street dispute erupting into violence, Yeung looks beyond the spectacle to ask what pressures had already brought its participants to the brink. The film’s contemporary Hong Kong is a city where money, work, family obligation, and social judgment leave people living on the edge. Its title reflects a compassionate conviction: these characters are not inherently bad, but worn down by grief, anger, and exhaustion.
An accomplished screenwriter, Yeung handles tone and narrative momentum with confidence, while veteran producer Patricia Cheng brings experience to a debut that remains highly personal and original.
The performances are a major strength. Golden Horse winner Chung brings humour, volatility, and vulnerability to her role, while Yeung makes the ex-convict’s defensiveness inseparable from his sadness. Entertaining, emotionally perceptive, and polished throughout, We Are Born Good establishes Leung Chuen Yeung as an exciting emerging filmmaker in East Asian cinema. – GIOVANNA FULVI
Wavelengths
At Night
Directed by Beatrice Gibson
North American Premiere
United Kingdom, France | 2026 | 87m | English, French, Bambara, Tibetan
After nearly two decades of exceptional shorts, including I Hope I’m Loud When I’m Dead (TIFF ’18) and Someplace in Your Mouth (TIFF ’24), British filmmaker and artist Beatrice Gibson arrives with her much-anticipated and deeply affecting debut feature, At Night.
Shot in Paris with the city’s gleaming streets, metro lines, neighbourhood bars, and shuttering corner shops creating a richly textured setting, Gibson weaves an intersecting portrait of six women from varying backgrounds and professions seeking connection over the course of an ambulatory, neon-lit night.
Central to the configuration is B (director Gibson, performing with brave vulnerability), a filmmaker in the midst of losing her grasp on her current project, and wanting to reconnect with her now-distant friend Didi (Diocouda Diaoune), a single mother defiantly resisting society’s systemic attempts to confine her. Other women include a former sex worker reflecting on the complexities of her past and a poet who confronts the unspoken grief caused by infertility. Together, these nocturnal denizens give voice to a rare and liberating dialogue, exploring womanhood, motherhood, sexual desire, isolation, class privilege, race, societal malaise, and the delicate nature of family and care.
Exquisitely shot on 16mm by Ben Rivers (Mare’s Nest, TIFF ’25), At Night boldly transcends traditional narrative, opting instead for a form of poetic, collaborative autofiction guided in spirit by cult literary figures like June Jordan, Kathy Acker, Bernadette Mayer, and, especially, Alice Notley. Melding an atmosphere of urban anxiety with moments of tenderness and self-reflection, At Night is equally mesmerizing and melancholic as it shifts between narrative, documentary, and dream. – ANDRÉA PICARD
Gala Presentations
Girl Group
Written and directed by Rebel Wilson
WORLD PREMIERE
United States of America, United Kingdom | 2026 | 98m | English
Rebel Wilson takes the lead — writing, directing, and starring — in this story of Tassie Young, a pop singer who leaves her hit band to attempt a solo career, until some ill-advised choices tank her ambitions. After a DUI, she finds herself paying for the consequences of her actions. Booked to do community service, she’s assigned to be the mentor for a handful of young girls who aspire to be in the spotlight themselves.
At first, there’s apprehension from all sides as the group struggles to find their voices and to establish a connection with their reluctant mentor. But as Tassie lets her guard down and gets to know each girl’s story, the group starts to gel and even the jaded pop-star burnout begins to see new glimmers of light in her life. Tassie just might be the mentor she never had. Wilson assembles a hilarious cast of comedians and entertainers including Jennifer Coolidge, Randall Park, Nicole Scherzinger, Judi Love, and Sally Hawkins. True to the genre, the energized girl group is full of fresh faces, talent, and personality. With a fantastic soundtrack that includes classic earworms and original songs, this is at once an ode to some of our favourite pop acts and vibrant proof that the hits just keep on coming. – TIFF
A Talent for Murder
Anton Corbijn
WORLD PREMIERE
United Kingdom, Italy | 2026 | 106m | English
This smouldering chamber thriller from director Anton Corbijn (TIFF ’07’s Control) imagines a strange confrontation between a literary agent and legendary author Patricia Highsmith, whose acclaimed, icily intelligent crime novels were the source material for such classic films as Hitchcock’s Strangers on a Train and The Talented Mr. Ripley. Adapted by Joanna Murray-Smith from her play Switzerland and starring Alden Ehrenreich (TIFF ’23’s Fair Play), Olivia Cooke (TIFF ’19’s Sound of Metal; also at this year’s Festival in Slow Horses) and Oscar winner Helen Mirren, A Talent For Murder pits ruthless careerism against dark genius in a slippery battle of wills.
It is 1995, and American author Highsmith (Mirren), now in her seventies and in poor health, has retired to the Swiss Alps, where she largely confines herself to her study, surrounded by her books, her cats, and her collection of antique weapons. Enter Edward Ridgeway (Ehrenreich), emissary for a New York publisher sent to persuade Highsmith to craft one last instalment in her bestselling series of mysteries featuring the murderous antihero, Tom Ripley. Irritated by this youthful, overly eager visitor, Highsmith refuses the offer — unless, that is, Ridgeway can dream up the perfect murder along with her.
Highsmith was famously charismatic and problematic — and as wickedly manipulative as her most celebrated character. Mirren embodies the formidable scribe with seductive wit, while Ehrenreich infuses Ridgeway with enough duplicity to keep us unsure of his motives. With its brilliant twists and trenchant dialogue, A Talent for Murder is a deeply intriguing foray into the realm where history and myth become deliciously entangled. – TIFF
Centrepiece
Intermission
Written and directed by Yonfan
NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE
Hong Kong | 2026 | 225m | Chinese, English, Japanese
A brilliant feast for the eyes, Yonfan’s Intermission distills the essential meaning of cinema as the collective experience of pursuing a dream by following a beam of white light projected onto a screen in a darkened space.
Neither a documentary nor a conventional film-on-film essay — and conceived almost like a musical compilation — Intermission draws from the wealth of beauty, elegance, and the extraordinary constellation of stars populating Yonfan’s 15 films spanning nearly 40 years.
Maggie Cheung, Sylvia Chang, Chow Yun Fat, Cherie Chung, Daniel Wu, Shu Qi, Stephen Fung, Rie Miyazawa, and many others are captured at defining moments in their careers which collectively made Yonfan’s cinema so singular.
Here, he creates a cinematic portrait of his work and an alternative history of Hong Kong cinema shaped by his unmistakable artistic vision. Images, music, dance, and memory flow into one another through virtuoso editing evoking the graceful, circular movement of tai chi: beginnings become endings, and every ending opens onto another dream.
The romanticism and complex female protagonists of his early works, and the later explorations of queer desire, eroticism, social marginality, and artistic liberation, all gather in Intermission, a meeting place where intimacy and spectacle, memory, and fantasy coexist in harmony.
Intermission resists easy classification. It is at once memoir, reverie, and act of preservation and an exquisitely fluid celebration of cinema itself, of the vanished faces, places, and desires that continue to live whenever light reaches the screen. – GIOVANNA FULVI
Neverman
Directed by Rodrigo Barriuso. Written by Rodrigo Barriuso and Kyah Green
WORLD PREMIERE
Canada | 2026 | 98m | English
Lucia (Justin Vivian Bond) has spent her life fighting for gay and trans rights, often to the detriment of her own personal relationships. As she gets older, all she wants is to find a facility that can help her with her worsening Alzheimer’s and that shares her fundamental values. But when she enters the nursing home — one that claimed to be trans-friendly — she quickly notices that the treatment she’s receiving, particularly from one very involved nurse, is a far cry from the supportive safety that was promised.
The cold, austere, and threatening institution is a sharp contrast to Lucia’s colourful, gorgeous dresses and the vibrant life that she’s lived — experiences we see in flashback and that she’s increasingly struggling to hold on to. With the help of some newly formed friendships she makes in the home, she must navigate this difficult environment as best she can, even as her memory begins, sadly, to let her down.
This second feature film from award-winning Cuban-Canadian filmmaker Rodrigo Barriuso (A Translator) features strong supporting turns by Eva Everett Irving — who plays the younger Lucia in flashbacks with vivacious energy — as well as Marie-Josée Croze (The Barbarian Invasions, TIFF ’03), Elias Koteas (Crash, TIFF ’94), Jess Salgueiro (TIFF 2018 Rising Star), and Zaiba Baig (Sort Of). But it is Bond’s captivating performance — it’s no wonder that they have long been a muse for Jonathan Anderson, the creative director at Christian Dior — that is the heart of the film and its enduring presence. – KELLY BOUTSALIS
Tangles
Directed by Leah Nelson. Written by Leah Nelson, Sarah Leavitt and Trev Renney.
NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE
Canada, United States of America | 2026 | 102m | English
Sarah Leavitt’s graphic memoir Tangles: A Story about Alzheimer’s, My Mother and Me comes to life in hand-drawn 2D animation, in director Leah Nelson’s deeply moving feature debut.
Set in San Francisco in the 90s, Tangles follows the story of Sarah, a young woman whose life is just beginning to tip into the stuff her dreams are made of — new opportunities to illustrate, a new romance with a bad-ass motorcycle-riding girlfriend named Donimo — when the pull of responsibility calls for her. Sarah’s lively mother Midge is battling Alzheimer’s disease, and the rest of the family is struggling to come to terms with the diagnosis.
The animation is perfectly paired with an incredible cast. Sarah is voiced by Broad City’s Abbi Jacobson, Julia Louis-Dreyfus (Enough Said, TIFF ’13) is unforgettable as Midge, Bryan Cranston (The Upside, TIFF ’17) voices Midge’s husband Rob, Beanie Feldstein plays Sarah’s sister Hannah, and Samira Wiley is Donimo.
Levity — the film’s top-notch supporting voice cast also includes comedians Seth Rogen, Bowen Yang, Sarah Silverman, Wanda Sykes, and Pamela Adlon — balances the heavy material, as Sarah tries to make sense of what’s happening with her mom’s failing mental acuity and the sudden, daunting role reversal of caring for a parent.
Tangles deals with memories, family, and, most importantly, love, rendered in black and white animation, with bursts of colour. A film about memories, this one will stay with you. – KELLY BOUTSALIS
Trash Mountain
Directed by Kris Rey. Written by Caleb Hearon and Ruby Caster.
WORLD PREMIERE
United States of America | 2026 | 90m | English
A dead hoarder’s houseful of holdings yields hope for a young man’s self-reckoning in this funny, wise film from director Kris Rey (It Was Great, But I Was Ready to Come Home). Featuring winsome performances from Caleb Hearon (The Devil Wears Prada 2), Zooey Deschanel (500 Days of Summer), and Oscar nominee Jackie Weaver (TIFF ’12’s Silver Linings Playbook), Trash Mountain is a homecoming story for anyone who dreads coming home.
After fleeing his rural Missouri roots years ago, Gavin (Hearon) found his community in Chicago, where he emcees a drag show. When his sister Abbi (Deschanel) calls to inform him of their reclusive father’s death, Gavin heads back to help sort through the old man’s mountainous personal effects and return to civilization ASAP. But death proves complicated: turns out they can’t process the paperwork without Dad’s social security card, which could be anywhere in his heaps of seemingly random possessions.
Meanwhile, Grandma Helen (Weaver) is loudly performing the grief neither Gavin nor Abbi have the energy for, and the local cutie (Jaboukie Young-White) Gavin hooks up with just won’t stop being cute. The longer Gavin stays in Missouri, the greater the danger that he might make peace with his home, his family, and himself.
Written by Hearon and Ruby Caster (Bleeding Love), Trash Mountain overflows with irreverence and tenderness. Growing up gay in a conservative region, Gavin’s wicked wit has always been his go-to survival technique, but he’s now confronted with a situation in which everyone is disarmingly supportive. This is a moving comedy about the difficulty of offering forgiveness and accepting love. – PETER KUPLOWSKY
Platform
Masc
Directed by Bertil Nilsson. Written by Bertil Nilsson and Joshua Griffin.
WORLD PREMIERE
United Kingdom | 2026 | 83m | English
PlatformTIFF Next Wave Selects
We all perform, contorting ourselves to fit into a given moment or situation. For Robin (a raw and unguarded Joshua Griffin), the negotiation between who he is and who he thinks he needs to be never stops, no matter the setting.
In his striking, deeply original debut feature, co-written with Griffin, director Bertil Nilsson draws on his own experiences as a neurodivergent gay man navigating the contradictory demands of masculinity. And he has crafted something genuinely rare: a film built not around crisis or coming out, but around the subtler, ongoing work of simply figuring out how to exist as oneself. In this evocative portrait, people — both queer and straight — will recognize the gap between how we see ourselves, how we imagine others see us, and the elaborate, often unconscious adjustments we make between the two.
Structured in five chapters and shot over a year, Masc tracks Robin’s shifting appearance and environments with real ingenuity, with London’s many facets bringing different versions of Robin to the surface. The title nods to masking, the act of hiding an aspect of ourselves to feel accepted. But the film does the opposite. It gently and fearlessly exposes the parts of Robin that are sometimes uncomfortable, unfinished, or simply never given room to exist. In the end, Nilsson offers an unexpected finale as a way of embracing emotional truths that words alone cannot express. – JASON RYLE
Primetime
Oxygen Masks Will (Not) Drop Automatically (Máscaras de Oxigênio Não Cairão Automaticamente)
Directed by Marcelo Gomes and Carol Minêm. Written by Patricia Corso and Leonardo Moreira.
NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE
Brazil | 2026 | 110m | Portuguese
Young flight attendant Nando (Johnny Massaro, The Son of a Thousand Men) leads a glamorous, carefree life, revelling both in Brazil’s neon-lit 1980s club scene and a passionate affair with a closeted football star. Everything changes, though, when Nando begins experiencing strange and frightening symptoms, and is diagnosed with HIV.
At first, Nando tries to ignore the looming danger of his disease, which carries great stigma. But when a beloved performer and friend is struck down in her prime, she makes a dying request to her adopted son Raul (Ícaro Silva): tell people what happened to me, and speak its name. Raul and Nando are galvanized. Nando soon realizes that, with the help of his colleague and best friend Lea (Bruna Linzmeyer), he can access AZT — a new, life-saving drug — during his frequent trips to the US, smuggling it back into Brazil where it is hard to access, thus helping the wider community, possibly saving lives.
At a time when joy and dread were intertwined, Oxygen Masks Will (Not) Drop Automatically poignantly surveys a queer cohort forced to save itself. The vibrancy of these characters and those they represent — so very young to be grappling with a devastating epidemic, and unaided by the institutions that should protect them — is a testament to their strength, tenacity, and rapturous determination to live. – GEOFF MACNAUGHTON
In Conversation With… Andrew Scott
At TIFF ’26 with one of the standout performances of the year in Elsinore, Andrew Scott proves once and for all that he’s one of the most versatile and captivating performers of our time. While his role as the charismatic priest in Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s Fleabag introduced Scott to a wider audience, devoted fans had been following his work for years, including his electrifying turn as Moriarty in Sherlock, where he transformed the iconic villain into a captivating force of chaos. Scott first came to TIFF in 2014 with Matthew Warchus’ Pride, as part of an ensemble cast celebrating the history of LGBTQ+ activism in the UK, and returned most recently in 2025 as part of the acclaimed Knives Out franchise with Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery and Richard Linklater’s acclaimed Blue Moon. Scott has emerged as one of the leading actors bringing complex queer experiences to the screen — from Andrew Haigh’s All of Us Strangers, an intimate meditation on longing, grief, family, and memory, to his chilling transformation in the Netflix series Ripley, a dark reimagining of The Talented Mr. Ripley. In Elsinore, a film he also produced, Scott delivers a deeply personal and powerful performance as actor Ian Charleson, who in his final years summons exceptional courage to overcome immense physical challenges and deliver a defining performance of Hamlet at London’s National Theatre while living with AIDS. The conversation will explore the remarkable range of Scott’s career and celebrate this extraordinary new performance.
Access Canada Summit Powered by The Hollywood Reporter, September 14-16
Future Queer Stories: Building the Next Era of Screen Representation – tickets and registration here.
The rules of content financing are evolving. As the industry changes, producers are increasingly looking beyond conventional ways to finance and produce their next projects. From private equity and investment funds to brand partnerships and emerging financing models, new sources of capital are transforming how content gets made. In this forward-looking session, join leaders from across the investment, finance, brand, and entertainment sectors as they discuss the innovative partnerships and funding strategies reshaping the industry. Learn where new opportunities are emerging, how producers can diversify their financing approach, and what it takes to successfully navigate these new opportunities.
Moderator: Mathieu Chantelois Executive Vice-President, Communications, Strategy and Public Affairs Canada Media Fund (CMF)
Panelists: Alex Schmider Producer & Senior Director, Entertainment, GLAAD; Justine Pimlott Co-Founder / Executive Producer / Producer / Independent Consultant Red Queen Productions; Michelle Mama Founder / Executive Producer Gay Agenda; Damon D’Oliveira Founder & Partner Conquering Lion Pictures
Compiled by James Kleinmann, descriptions courtesy of TIFF
The 51st edition of the Toronto International Film Festival runs September 10th – 20th, 2026. For the full lineup and to purchase tickets head to TIFF.net.
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