TIFF is particularly valued, because it each flags off the awards season (Oscars, Golden Globes) and is a vital gateway to the North American market. For occasion, Payal Kapadia’s movie All We Imagine as Light, following its screening at Cannes and TIFF final yr, received two Golden Globe nominations for Best Director and Best Foreign Language Film. Kapadia additionally garnered a number of consideration worldwide throughout her Academy Awards marketing campaign although her movie didn’t win an Oscar.
S.S. Rajamouli’s Telugu blockbuster RRR had already had a theatrical launch in India and within the U.S., however as part of the movie’s concerted Oscar marketing campaign, the director was interviewed at TIFF within the Visionaries collection in 2022. RRR went on to win an Oscar for Best Original Song, in addition to a Golden Globe in the identical class.
(L to R) Director S.S. Rajamouli and actors Ram Charan and N.T. Rama Rao Jr. at a promotional occasion for his or her movie RRR in Los Angeles, January 2023. | Photo Credit: Getty Images
For Kiran Rao’s Laapataa Ladies, its world premiere at TIFF 2023 little question partly influenced its subsequent choice as India’s Oscar entry final yr. These are all incremental beneficial properties, pushing Indian cinema in direction of a seat on the Big Table, the Academy Awards.
In 2024, 11 movies had been chosen at TIFF from India, South Asia and Diaspora, and in 2023, 14 had been chosen. This yr’s 17 movies and collection chosen embody eight movies and collection from India, 4 South Asian movies past India, and 5 Diaspora movies. This is an incredible feat, as every has been picked from over 8,000 submissions worldwide.
I really like going to TIFF, not only for its excellent movie choice, but additionally as a result of it’s a really public-facing folks’s pageant. And after I was on the crimson carpet in 2023, crowds of followers screamed “Ki-ran, Ki-ran”. They mistook me for the Laapataa Ladies filmmaker, and I apologised, “So sorry, I’m not Kiran, however it is best to see her good movie Laapataa Ladies/ Lost Ladies,” and all of us had an excellent giggle.
Kiran Rao (second from left) with the forged of her 2023 movie ‘Laapataa Ladies’. | Photo Credit: Getty Images
Cinema with out borders
“I’m over the moon,” says Bollywood actor Huma Qureshi, whose movie Bayaan, directed by Bikas Ranjan Mishra, has its world premiere in TIFF’s Discovery part. In an author-backed heroine’s position with out a ‘hero’, Qureshi performs a policewoman in an investigation drama about abuse inside a cult. “For any actor, TIFF is a dream as a result of it’s such a world platform, the place cinema is widely known with out borders,” she says. “It’s additionally a validation of the alternatives I’ve made — tales which can be a little bit dangerous, that push the envelope. My expectation is about conversations, seeing how audiences internationally reply to our movie, the way it travels past India.”
Huma Qureshi in a nonetheless from ‘Bayaan’.
The different Indian movies at TIFF 2025 embody Anurag Kashyap’s Monkey in a Cage (Bandar), starring Bobby Deol, in a task which may be a redemption of kinds of his current testosterone-driven outings in Animal (2023) and Kanguva (2024). Kashyap commends Deol for being “emotionally bare” along with his character in Bandar, a jail drama with a special tackle the MeToo motion.
He says, “I by no means gave him [Deol] a script. I might give him the scene simply earlier than we’d shoot it. He has by no means finished that earlier than. I instructed him, you’re not taking part in a hero, you’re a character, certainly one of many. It’s simply that the movie is about you, so the main focus is on you, however you’re not taking part in a human being superior to anybody. And you’re imagined to be emotionally bare. He took to the method like a fish to water.”
“It was traumatic to make this movie [’Bandar’] for all of the forged and crew. The topic and capturing circumstances had been such. We had been capturing lengthy hours and since prisons by no means postpone the lights, solely after the shoot was over did we realise that it was late night time. Going from complete day to full night time had a psychological affect on all of us. And then to create the realism of the jail, and after I say realism I imply complete realism, with some 120 theatre actors, with all its dingy darkness — everybody was affected throughout these shoot days.”Anurag KashyapDirector of ‘Monkey in a Cage’ (‘Bandar’)
Deol leads an ensemble forged with Sanya Malhotra, Saba Azad, Sapna Pabbi and a bunch of indie skills from regional language cinema (Riddhi Sen, Natesh Hegde, Indrajith Sukumaran, et al). Apart from being a hat-tip to the rising home attraction of Indian cinema, the casting can also assist to amplify the movie’s attraction.
Bobby Deol in ‘Bandar’ (‘Monkey in a Cage’).
On a quieter notice, theatre artist and filmmaker Jitank Singh Gurjar can even be at TIFF this yr, along with his deeply shifting second function, In Search of the Sky (Vimukt), a few lower-income household with a mentally challenged grownup son and their journey to the Mahakumbh Mela in hopes of a miracle treatment.
“Just being at TIFF might be a giant second,” says Gurjar, who shot his movie in Prayagraj on the landmark pilgrimage gathering that’s estimated to have seen 660 million folks earlier this yr.
A nonetheless from Jitank Singh Gurjar’s ‘In Search of the Sky’ (‘Vimukt’).
“Shooting on the Mahakumbh with a small crew was the most important problem, with the chaos, the dimensions, and carrying tools by the crowds. But, on the identical time, it was additionally essentially the most satisfying half, as a result of it gave the movie an authenticity that can not be recreated anyplace else,” he provides.
The subsequent large Indian movie
This yr, for the primary time, India additionally has a collection at TIFF. Gandhi, co-created by Hansal Mehta and Sameer Nair and produced by Applause Entertainment, is a lavish interval collection shot on a number of continents with a global forged and crew. “Being the primary Indian present, one that’s actually swadeshi, and to be on this international stage is, for me, already a vindication of the ambition, effort, and keenness poured into its making. In a profession spanning greater than 30 years, that is maybe essentially the most bold and essentially the most difficult story I’ve ever instructed,” says Mehta. The drama tells the story of Mahatma Gandhi’s early years and relies on historian Ramachandra Guha’s books Gandhi Before India and Gandhi: The Years that Changed the World.
Pratik Gandhi in a nonetheless from Hansal Mehta’s ‘Gandhi’.
Clearly Gandhi’s producer Sameer Nair has a outstanding urge for food for taking calculated dangers as properly. The big-budget collection, starring Pratik Gandhi and Bhamini Oza, was made with out having a streaming platform on board initially. “The rise of streamers previously 10 years emboldened us to inform this nice story within the premium drama collection format throughout a number of seasons. We are following our enterprise mannequin of making the fabric after which licensing it, so to that extent, it stays inside the framework of what we often do,” says Nair.
Director Hansal Mehta | Photo Credit: PTI
The bold sentiment is echoed by Bayaan producer Shiladitya Bora. “I see choice at TIFF as half of a bigger imaginative and prescient of pushing Indian cinema into the worldwide mainstream in a approach that movies from South Korea, as an illustration, have managed to do,” says Bora, founding father of Platoon One Films. “We’ve had nice moments previously with movies like Lunchbox, RRR, and extra lately, All We Imagine As Light, however we’re nonetheless ready for that one movie that can grow to be a world phenomenon, like Ang Lee’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon or Bong Joon Ho’s Parasite. Can Bayaan be that movie for India? It is a narrative with a world attraction, and TIFF is the proper launchpad to begin its journey all over the world.”
(L to R) Actors Kani Kusruti, Chhaya Kadam, director Payal Kapadia and actor Divya Prabha pose with the Grand Prix Award for his or her movie ‘All We Imagine As Light’ on the Cannes Film Festival 2024. | Photo Credit: Getty Images
Journey to the Oscars
From South Asia past India, there’s British-Pakistani filmmaker Seemab Gul’s Ghost School in Discovery, Bangladeshi director Adnan al Rajeev’s Ali, which acquired a Special Mention in Cannes’ Shorts Competition; and Pakistani director Sana Zahra Jafri’s Permanent Guest.
Director Aneil Karia and actor Riz Ahmed characterize their movie ‘Hamlet’ on the Telluride Film Festival on August 30, 2025. | Photo Credit: Getty Images
One of TIFF’s centrepieces might be Hamlet, British actor-rapper of Pakistani descent Riz Ahmed’s reimagining of Shakespeare that has been “13 years within the making…,” wrote Ahmed on Instagram. The movie was launched at Cannes in 2022, when Ahmed and director Aneil Karia instructed leisure portal Deadline, “Our Hamlet is an outsider in a rich British Indian household, who begins to query his kinfolk’ morality and his personal sanity after encountering his father’s ghost.” Also premiering at TIFF after a lot delay is Indian-origin American standup comic-actor Aziz Ansari’s directorial debut Good Fortune, starring Keanu Reeves as angel Gabriel, and Sandra Oh.
Aziz Ansari and Keanu Reeves in ‘Good Fortune’.
TIFF is likely one of the Big Five international movie festivals that additionally comprise Cannes, Berlin, Venice and Sundance. Premieres at TIFF are essential as a result of they lead as much as the awards season. Unlike the opposite A-lister festivals, TIFF, like Berlin, is among the many most accessible. Its industrial, well-liked cinema attracts within the crowds who’re then launched to impartial arthouse and New Wave movies which can be an important a part of the pageant’s combine. TIFF is a gateway to North America because the U.S. theatrical launch/screening is a key step within the journey to the Academy Awards.
While Cannes premieres are the primary indicator of Oscar probables, over the many years, TIFF openings have additionally secured Oscar nominations and wins. Notable TIFF-to-Oscar success tales embody Chariots of Fire (1981), which launched this predictive custom, adopted by Life Is Beautiful (1998), Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000), Silver Linings Playbook (2012), La La Land (2016) and American Fiction (2023).
The India join
A nonetheless from Rima Das’s ‘Village Rockstars’.
Rima Das’s Village Rockstars (2017), Lijo Jose Pellisery’s Jallikattu (2019) and Kiran Rao’s Laapataa Ladies (2024), all TIFF world premieres, had been despatched as India’s official entry for the Academy Awards. TIFF not solely found Das and turned her into a world title, it made Indians sit up and take notice and provides Das the National Award in 2018. Das has since been a pageant alumna, typically premiering her movies at TIFF and Berlin. Back in 2007, Mr. India director Shekhar Kapur’s Elizabeth: The Golden Age premiered at TIFF and went on to get Cate Blanchett a Best Actress nomination and received Alexandra Byrne the Best Costume Award on the 2008 Oscars.
“What makes TIFF particular is the way it helps filmmakers past simply the screenings. With networking occasions, filmmaker meetups, and the pleasant assist of the programmers, the pageant creates a heat and provoking house to share and develop. Having had three of my movies premiere at TIFF through the years, it has grow to be very near my coronary heart. Each time, it jogs my memory why storytelling is so highly effective, it helps us join and perceive one another.”Rima DasDirector of Village Rockstars, India’s official entry at Oscars 2019
Filmmaker Shonali Bose — whose Margarita with a Straw (2014, co-directed, written and produced with longtime collaborator Nilesh Maniyar) received the NETPAC Jury Award at TIFF — attests to the leverage offered by the Canadian pageant. “I contemplate myself a TIFF child and really feel very fortunate that each one my fiction movies have been chosen there, the final one being The Sky is Pink[2019], the one Asian movie within the Gala part. Here’s a shaggy dog story: Cameron Bailey [CEO, TIFF] first noticed my debut, Amu [2005], in Berlin at its world premiere. After my Q&A, he got here as much as me and provided TIFF. I stated no at first, because it meant I couldn’t display screen anyplace else until September. Other filmmakers stated, ‘Are you loopy?’ So, I chased him right down to say sure. Cameron has been an enormous supporter and good friend since.”
(L to R) Shonali Bose, Kalki Koechlin and Nilesh Maniyar on the London premiere of their movie ‘Margarita With a Straw’ in 2014.
TIFF premieres often assist with discovering distributors/ gross sales brokers globally and assist in theatrical releases again dwelling, particularly for smaller productions corresponding to Nithin Lukose’s Malayalam debut Paka (2021) or Jayant Digambar Somalkar’s Marathi indie Sthal (2023), as an illustration. But there have been exceptions corresponding to Ritwik Pareek’s Rajasthani satire Dug Dug (2021) which stays unreleased in India. “TIFF can also be referred to as the Oracle of Oscars, no matter movie does very well right here, it perhaps, wins an award on the Oscars or a buzz will get created round it. The likelihood is a lot increased to get a nomination,” Pareek had stated throughout his TIFF premiere.
This yr, aside from the 17 picks, SRFTI (Satyajit Ray Film & Television Institute) alumna Kunjila Mascillamani’s work-in-progress Malayalam function debut Guptam (The Last of Them Plagues), co-produced by Jeo Baby, Richa Chadha and Ali Fazal, Payal Kapadia and Kani Kusruti, has been chosen as one of many 16 international filmmakers for the aggressive expertise growth programme, TIFF Director’s Lab.
Delhi-based up to date photographer and filmmaker Sohrab Hura, the one different Indian to be on the celebrated Magnum Photos member collective since Raghu Rai, can even premiere his shoestring finances movie, Disappeared, at TIFF.
(With inputs from Tanushree Ghosh)
The Mumbai-based author is a movie curator/ programmer to the Toronto, Berlin and different movie festivals worldwide since 30 years. She will not be part of the ultimate choice committee at TIFF 2025.
Also exhibiting at TIFF 2025
Homebound
Directed by Neeraj Ghaywan, produced by Dharma Productions and govt produced by Martin Scorsese, the movie premiered at Cannes this yr. Headlined by Ishaan Khatter, Vishal Jethwa and Janhvi Kapoor, it tells the story of two younger males whose friendship is examined once they be part of the police pressure in a politically charged India.
ALSO READ: Cannes 2025: The true story behind Neeraj Ghaywan’s ‘Homebound’, impressed by a pandemic-era New York Times essay
Aranyer Din Ratri
Satyajit Ray’s 1970 basic, restored in 4K, confirmed at Cannes Classics this yr and might be screened within the TIFF Lightbox part. It tells the story of 4 younger males on a visit to a forest, the place the veneer of city masculine hypocrisy peels off.
Sholay
The 1975 Bollywood basic, directed by Ramesh Sippy and written by Salim-Javed, is a part of TIFF’s Special Presentations. The dacoit Western follows two vagabond buddies who’re recruited by their previous frenemy, a principled ex-cop, to rid the village of the villain.
Agapito
After its Cannes premiere, the much-talked-about Filipino quick movie, directed by Arvin Belarmino and Kyla Danelle Romero, has been chosen for the Short Cuts Programme. It tells the story of a younger bowling pin setter whose days are spent manually resetting the pins of a rundown bowling alley.
Nomad Shadow
Japanese-American director Eimi Imanishi’s deportation drama, produced by U.S.-based Indian-origin Shrihari Sathe, amongst others, is likely one of the first fiction movies set in Western Sahara, at TIFF. It follows a younger girl’s tough homecoming after being deported from Spain to Western Sahara.
Karupy
Kalainithan Kalaichelvan’s Canadian quick movie is a few bitter Tamil matriarch who shocks her household by asserting her plan to finish her personal life.
I Fear Blue Skies
Salar Pashtoonyar’s new quick, a haunting portrayal of an assist employee’s story, sheds mild on a nation in turmoil.
Leave a Comment