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Toronto International Film Festival · 2026

Toronto International Film Festival 2026

Centrepiece

Programme

21 films · 3 reviews

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After Elena (Después De Elena)

When a family's matriarch dies, four relatives are forced to confront decades of silence, resentment, and buried affection.

(Country: Chile, Colombia, Italy; Year: 2026; Director: Shawn Garry; Writer: Bernardo Quesney, Shawn Garry, Carla Stagno; Stars: Alfredo Castro, Carola Varleta, Nicolás Zárate, Catalina Saavedra, Guilherme Sepúlveda)

Ben'imana

A female survivor of the 1994 Rwandan genocide finds her stability rocked when her teenage daughter becomes pregnant.

(Country: Rwanda; Year: 2026; Director: Marie-Clémentine Dusabejambo; Writer: Marie-Clémentine Dusabejambo)

The City Of The Living

Recounts the interrupted coming-of-age of a young man searching for his place in the world.

(Country: Italy; Year: 2026; Director: Edoardo Gabbriellini; Writer: Edoardo Gabbriellini, Damiano D'Innocenzo, Fabio D'Innocenzo; Stars: Emanuele Maria Di Stefano, Valerio Mastandrea, Simona Senzacqua, Roberta Mattei, Gaia Merlonghi)

Congo Boy

Tale of a teenage refugee, whose musical dreams face challenges in the Central African Republic.

(Year: 2026; Director: Rafiki Fariala)

The Difficult Bride

Review preview for The Difficult Bride

Hossain keeps the mood claustrophobic.

Amber Wilkinson · 3.5 out of 5
In contemporary Dhaka, a bride-to-be preparing for her dream wedding begins to lose control of her body as beauty rituals, social expectations, and supernatural forces collide, transforming her journey toward marriage into an unsettling search for freedom.

(Country: Bangladesh, Germany, France, Norway, Portugal; Year: 2026; Director: Rubaiyat Hossain; Writer: Rubaiyat Hossain; Stars: Zaineen Karim Chowdhury, Reekita Nondine Shimu, Sunerah Binte Kamal, Azmeri Haque Badhon, Dameer Khan, Saberi Alam, Shatabdi Wadud, Mohammad Bari)

Full review

Elephants In The Fog

In a small Nepalese village nestled in the heart of a forest populated by wild elephants, Pirati is the matriarch of a community of transgender women. But when one of her "daughters" disappears, she must choose between love and responsibility to her community.

(Country: Nepal, Germany, Brazil, France, Norway; Director: Abinash Bikram Shah; Writer: Abinash Bikram Shah)

Everytime

A tragedy brings a mother, daughter, and teenage boy together.

(Country: Austria, Germany; Year: 2026; Director: Sandra Wollner; Writer: Sandra Wollner; Stars: Birgit Minichmayr, Tristán López, Lotte Keiling, Carla Hüttermann)

Flies (Moscas)

Olga rents out a room to a man whose wife has been admitted to a hospital nearby. However, the man has a nine-year-old son he has been sneaking into the room, which leads to Olga’s carefully controlled world shifting as their lives become intertwined.

(Country: Mexico; Year: 2026; Director: Fernando Eimbcke; Writer: Fernando Eimbcke, Vanesa Garnica; Stars: Teresa Sánchez, Bastián Escobar, Hugo Ramirez)

See: Fernando Eimbcke on fun and games in Flies

Furies

Amid Lebanon’s real-life, corruption-induced bank crisis – when depositors were and today still are denied access to their own savings – two women scheme a daring all-night heist to get their own money back and pay for a life-saving surgery.

(Country: Lebanon, Brazil; Year: 2026; Director: Rami Kodeih; Writer: Rami Kodeih, Nora Mariana Salim; Stars: Maria Nakouzi, Rym Mroue, Hasan Akil, Issam Bou Khaled)

A Girl Unknown (Wu ming nü hai)

A Chinese girl grows up from the age of 6 to 18 across three families, each giving her a new name and a different life. As she searches for belonging and the possibility of love, she must face the weight of her past and and the uncertainty of her future - until she finds her own way.

(Country: China, France; Year: 2026; Director: Zou Jing; Writer: Zou Jing; Stars: Li Gengxi, Zu Feng, Shen Jiani, Cao Ruofan)

La Gradiva

Review preview for La Gradiva

Pompeii becomes a place where fantasy is tested against historical violence, and where looking too closely can break the story one came to preserve.

Edin Custo · 4 out of 5
A group of French high-school students travel to Naples on a school trip to discover the ruins of Pompeii and the bodies petrified by Vesuvius. There, they are drawn into a dizzying descent.

(Country: France, Italy; Year: 2026; Director: Marine Atlan; Writer: Marine Atlan, Anne Brouillet; Stars: Antonia Buresi, Julie Sokolowski)

Full review

Ha-Chan, Shake Your Booty!

Review preview for Ha-Chan, Shake Your Booty!

The story sometimes lacks thrust, but when it isn’t working, something new will be on screen soon enough.

Jeremy Mathews · 3 out of 5
Haru and Luis love competing in Tokyo’s ballroom dance scene, but after tragedy strikes, Haru withdraws into isolation. When friends coax her back to the studio, she develops an infatuation with the new instructor. She must face what comes next as sparks fly.

(Country: US, Japan; Year: 2026; Director: Josef Kubota Wladyka; Writer: Josef Kubota Wladyka, Nicholas Huynh; Stars: Rinko Kikuchi, Alberto Guerra, Alejandro Edda, YOU, Yoh Yoshida, Damián Alcázar)

Full review

Iron Boy (Le Corset)

When a young boy is forced to wear an iron corset for health reasons, he has to reinvent his life on his family farm, discovering friendship and a new passion for music. Animation

(Country: France, Belgium; Year: 2026; Director: Louis Clichy; Writer: Louis Clichy, Franck Salomé; Stars: Alexandre Astier, Dimitri Colas, Gary Clichy, Brune Moulin, Rod Paradot, Aurélie Vassort, Jean-Pascal Zadi)

Julián

A young boy goes to spend the summer in Brooklyn with his grandma, where he dreams of being a mermaid.

(Country: Canada, Denmark, Ireland, Luxembourg; Year: 2026; Director: Louise Bagnall; Writer: Juliany Taveras; Stars: Knyght Darius Jack, Milcania Diaz-Rojas, Zariah Georgia Ellis, Emma So, Avery Star Pryce Tibayan, Kim Roberts, Stephanie Herrera, Yanna McIntosh, Manuel Rodriguez-Saenz, Naomi Díaz, Lisa-Kaindé Diaz)

See: Louise Bagnall on bringing animation Julián to vibrant, colourful life

Just An Illusion (Juste Une Illusion)

In 1985 suburban Paris, 12-year-old Vincent lives with his distant older brother and quarrelling parents. Amid laughter and unease, he navigates friendship and first love.

(Country: France; Year: 2026; Director: Olivier Nakache, Éric Toledano; Writer: Éric Toledano, Olivier Nakache; Stars: Louis Garrel, Camille Cottin, Simon Boublil, Alexis Rosenstiehl, Pierre Lottin, Jeanne Lamartine, Rony Kramer, Giorgia Sinicorni, Augusto Fornari, Ragnar Le Breton, David Ayala, Adèle Jayle, Elise Luguern, Lilian Wallet, Samuel Maïmoun)

Marie Madeleine

In Jacmel, Haiti, the arrival of an evangelical church across a brothel triggers a series of conflicts. At the heart of this war of morality, Marie Madeleine, a prostitute, befriends the pastor’s son, who must hide his homosexuality.

(Year: 2026; Director: Gessica Généus; Writer: Gessica Généus)

Rehearsals For A Revolution

Through five portraits of relatives and mentors, five expressions of resistance, Pegah Ahangarani sketches her life story.

(Country: 2026; Director: Pegah Ahangarani)

The Secret Lives of Baba Segi's Wives

A wealthy household is forced to confront hidden truths from its past.

(Country: Nigeria; Year: 2026; Director: Daniel Emeke Oriahi; Stars: Omowunmi Dada, Bimbo Manuel, Odunlade Adekola, Tina Mba, Bisola Aiyeola, Nkechi Blessing, Bimbo Ademoye, Nancy Isime, Bolaji Ogunmola, Blessing Jessica Obasi-Nze, Mike Ezuruonye, Olarotimi Fakunle, Iyabo Ojo, Uzor Arukwe, Daniel Etim Effiong)

Tropical Fractals

Imagines a future in which a biodome spaceship preserves the last traces of life on Earth.

(Country: Portugal, Brazil; Year: 2026; Director: Leonardo Pirondi; Writer: Leonardo Pirondi; Stars: Ivo Müller, Valentina Rosset, André Bohn, Utkarsh, Fernando Siqueira)

Viva Carmen (Love Is a Gypsy Child: A Carmen Story)

Andalusia, Spain, 1840. After three years of wandering, Salva, who works as an assistant to a blind knife sharpener, returns to Seville, his hometown, where he meets Carmen, a gypsy woman with a captivating voice.

(Country: Finland, France, Spain; Year: 2026; Director: Sébastien Laudenbach; Writer: Santiago Otheguy, Sébastien Laudenbach; Stars: Camélia Jordana, Milo Machado-Graner, Soumaye Bocoum, Carl Malapa, Fehdi Bendjima)

Woman Unknown (Kvinde Ukendt)

A housemaid is about to marry a wealthy widower but a secret from her past threatens to catch up with her.

(Country: Denmark; Year: 2026; Director: May el-Toukhy; Writer: May el-Toukhy, Maren Louise Käehne; Stars: Mathilde Arcel Fock, Carsten Bjørnlund, Thorbjørn Hedegaard, Marina Bouras, Mia Plantin, Sofia Nolsøe Mikkelsen)