S Viswanath

Capping its serious movie announcements in the run up to the festival proper, Toronto International Film Festival 2025 signed off the weekend with the announcement of 23 choices films to be ‘discovered’ as also ten spine chilling, goosebumps giving and hair raising movies as the ‘midnight’ hour strikes.

The Discovery Section, says TIFF is aimed at offering audiences a peerless panoply of movies to experience and engage in from talented, visionary filmmakers drawn from across the globe being either premiering their first or sophomore features, offering a fascinating insight into contemporary cinemas and trends lighting up the movie marquee across the global stream.

Likewise, TIFF, which also takes equal pride and pleasure in presenting its ‘Midnight Madness’ compendium of edgy and nervy films to wallop and wacky them out of their wits as they watch in sheer terror at the goings on in the dead of night, is showcasing ten choices films under the terrorising section especially for audiences seeking the thrill of the twist in the terrorising tales.

According to TIFF, the Discovery Section holds a rich history of championing and launching some of the world’s most acclaimed filmmakers providing for a rich tapestry of cinematic works of prodigious promise spanning 30 plus countries, including Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, India, New Zealand, Pakistan, Serbia, Singapore, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, and Turkey, making the section’s experience a truly unmissable moment to catch the international voices of the future.

Midnight Madness, on the other hand, TIFF proudly states, comes with its signature slate of wicked wonders that are sure to delight and disturb the Festival’s devoted and raucous late-night crowd.

The section closes out each night of festival with 11:59pm screenings at the (possibly) haunted Royal Alexandra Theatre, where the nocturnal faithful gather to bear witness to the very best and most bizarre in contemporary genre and shock cinema. The 2025 edition features seven World Premieres, and is bookended by two of year’s most acclaimed midnight comedies courtesy of some seriously funny Canadians.

The 23ensemble features in the Discovery Section (in alphabetical order) are as under: The Tibetan debut feature 100 Sunset Toronto-based first generation Tibetan-Canadian woman filmmaker and animator from Vancouver, British Columbia Kunsang Kyirong, a Tibetan, who spent her childhood playing in Yarlung Tsangpo (River in Tibetan) with her family in Arunachal Pradesh, North East India,  is credited with exploring the themes of memory and immigration by melding the two as his narrative technique. In 100 Sunsetthe Parkdale Apartment Complex, Toronto, turns into a surreal site of intrigue, desire and deceit in the mystery drama revolving round a young Tibetan thief who meets an unexpected confidant.

Then you have Los Angeles based Chinese-Singaporean woman filmmaker Siyou Tan, winner of  SEAFIC Open SEA Fund Award 2020/21, the Southeast Asian Film Lab – Most Promising Project Award 2019, with Amoeba about a tomboy schoolgirl who persuades three other classmates at an all-girls school to rebellion and resistance against the repressive City-State of Singapore where chewing gum and feeding pigeons are proscribed.The 90-minute a coming-of-age drama primarily in English and Mandarin, is a searing and indictive exploration of Singapore’s societal and cultural expectations through the lens of a misfit in an all-girls’ school as the girl gang tries to pass the all-important final year examinations. The film shows how as the young nation carves out its own identity through its unmitigated hunger for progress, the nonconformist Choo defiant of its exacting standards—struggles to maintain her individuality as she seeks to belong.

Istanbul born and Bilgi University Cinema & TV Degree holder and co-founder of Mental Film,Copenhagen, Denmark based filmmaker Seyhmus Altun’s As We Breathe(‘Aldığımız Nefes’ in Turkish) is set in a quaint rural Turkish village spotlighting on the challenges its inhabitants confront in the wake of an environmental disaster. The film, which presents a brutal and powerful look at a rural Anatolian family, tracks the universal issue through young Esma, who, following a chemical fire spreads and blankets the village with smoke, takes on a significant role in helping her father manage both the immediate crisis and the pre-existing family issues. In the process, as a subtext, the film also explores themes of family, resilience, and the impact of environmental devastation on individuals and communities.

Babystarby Wolfsburg, Germany born Joscha Bongard captures the deleterious and dangerous effects of modern day social media exploring the themes of family vlogging and the potential dark side of online fame, with the teenage daughter of family vloggers realizing she’s not just a star but also a victim of her avaricious parents’aspirations for their star sibling.

Known for his previous works Chauranga (2014), Pagla Ghoda (2017) and Guy In The Sky (2017) India’s Bikas Ranjan Misha in Bayaanpicks on the proverbial theme of sexual exploitation by a revered religious leader taking on a detective-thriller format of storytelling. It speaks of how a rookie detective Roohi battles entrenched power, silenced victims, blind devotion and faith, and rising danger in a tense, uncompromising fight for justice following the surfacing of the accusatory letter about the revered cult leader’s abuse, and must uncover the truth before it’s too late.

Canadian woman filmmaker and University of Waterloo alumni Sasha Leigh Henry’s Dinner with Friends brings viewers inside a fractured group of eight longtime friends who intermittently come together for dinner parties to share in the joys and pains of being adults today reaching the age of mid-thirties.

Swedish woman-man director duo Pella Kågerman & Hugo Lilja’sEggheadRepublic(Die Gelehrtenrepublik)loosely based on the 1957 novel Republica Intelligentsiaby German writer Arno Schmidt and in part on Kågerman’s experience working for Vice Magazine in an alternative reality where the cold war did not end, and an atomic bomb has struck Soviet Kazakhstan. A young Swedish club kid — working at one of the hippest magazines in the world — is handed the reporting assignment from the restricted zone, where freaky science fiction collides with ruthless satire of gonzo journalism and indie-sleaze excess.

Forasteraby Spanish woman Lucía Aleñar Iglesias presented at the 59th edition of La Semaine de la Critique, is a journey back to her homeland told as a languishing fantasy, where family legacy is a matter of spirit possession, like a garment that would wear us as much as we wear it. The film speaks of how during a sun-soaked summer in Mallorca, a family mourns the loss of its matriarch — only for teenage Cata to quietly step into her grandmother’s role, in this tender, beautifully crafted debut about grief, memory, and the strange echoes that live within us.

Pakistani-British woman directorSeemab Gul’s Ghost School revolves round Rabia, 10-year-old, who sets out to find why her only school in the village is closed. Taking the fable format of a ghost story the film is sprinkled with a tinge of magical-realism exploring the corruption from a child’s perspective who defies rural superstition and bureaucratic neglect while untangling eerie rumours, corrupt local power, and silence, undertaking a solitary, courageous search for truth and justice.

Julianby young Belgian woman director Cato Kusters based on the book of the same name by Belgian artist, writerFleur Pierets, which draws from her own life story, speaks of two women’s unique campaign for marriage equality. After an unexpected encounter, Fleur and Julian fall madly in love. Soon after Julian proposes, an ambitious, yet challenging idea starts to dawn on Fleur. Slowly but surely she works out a plan to get married in every country where she and her wife are allowed to do so. Fueled by their love and a rising sense of urgency, they take a leap of faith. After only four marriages, their journey comes to an inevitable, painful halt.

Johannesburg. South African woman filmmaker Zamo Mkhwanazi’s Laundryinspired by real-life events experienced by the director’s mother’s family in 1950s andset in South Africa, 1968. Khuthala hates the family laundry run by his father dreaming of a life in music. But, as the oppressive and violent apartheid regime cracks down on Black business ownership, through large-scale forced removalshe is tossed between chasing his dream of becoming a musician and fighting the injustice that threatens the business his family’s only means of support, and glue that holds them together.

Little Lorraineby Canada’s Andy Hines and son of photographer Sherman Hines set in a North Atlantic seaside coastal fishing town with population of 60, becomes embroiled in an international cocaine smuggling operation under the noses of multiple governments, distributed in coffins through a network of funeral homes, following the 1986 mining explosion that left 10 men dead in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia.

John Early American comedian and actor’s debut film Maddie’s Secretwhich flags off the Discovery Section’s screenings revolves around a content creator on a food network who’s trying to hide her dark past and not to pierce her perfect veneer, satirising and skewering content culture from with the comedian-director himself reprising the titular role.

Aotearoa New Zealand born (Maori mother) and London UK based Taratoa Stappard’s Māramais a Maori gothic revenge horror set in Victorian England, 1859 and speaks of how being far from home and haunted by visions, a Māori woman uncovers gruesome secrets inside an English manor. The film is a bold, unsettling gothic tale of identity, memory, and colonial reckoning.

Canadian woman filmmaker Eva Thomas’ Nika & Madisonan expansion of the director’s 2023 short film Redlights,^[is a thought provoking crime thriller where fearing they won’t be believed; two young Indigenous women go on the run after a fateful encounter with a predatory policemanwhen sexually assaulting Madison leaves him hospitalised in a coma,to embarking on a powerful journey of self-discovery, friendship, and redemptionpropellingthe two to reevaluate their relationship.

Nairobi based Colombian director Tomás Corredor’s Noviembrebased on the 1985 Palace of Justice siege, is a dramatized account which blends gripping fiction and striking archival footage to deliver a tense, haunting reflection on conviction, chaos, and the enduring wounds of one of Colombia’s darkest days, exploring themes of belief, turmoil, and lasting national trauma.

Mexican woman director Karla Badillo’s Oca spotlights on a young nun who sets off on a spiritual mystical pilgrimage to save her dying congregation, which leads her to encountering others facing their own trials of faith, privilege, and contradiction mirror her haunting search for divine meaning in a fractured, material world.

Serbian born Belgrade residing Goran Stankovic’s Our Fatheris based on true events, which portrays a recovering addict Dejan, is taken by his mother Violeta (60) for treatment at an isolated monastery commune where he becomes the right hand of the authoritative Father Branko, harbouring around thirty addicts. Dejan begins to find meaning in this new position of power and begins to preach to others, making it seem like he is completely healed,where the priest rules with an iron hand, and not even God can save him from the extreme treatment methods of an authoritarian patriarch. When Mionica, Dejan’s former guardian, returns under the influence of drugs, breaking the commune’s biggest rule, Dejanmust decide whether to protect his friend or remain loyal to the priest and punish him.

Out Standing by Canadian woman filmmaker Mélanie Charbonneau is an adaptation of Canada’s first woman infantry officer, Sandra Perron’s memoir Outstanding in the Field, is a compelling and tenacious saga of a woman adapting to civilian life after resigning from her position with the Canadian Armed Forces amid media firestorm around allegations, which she refuses to publicly confirm, that she was sexually assaulted.

Featuring an all deaf cast Retreat by British director Ted Evans (himself deaf) loosely-based on a short film of the same name previously directed by Evans, which won awards at Italian Cinedeaf Film Festival in Rome in December 2013 including Best Director in fiction category,revolves round a young woman who arrives at a remote wellness retreat for deaf people, where nothing is what it seems. In the isolated deaf community, Matt’s idyllic world cracks when Eva arrives, making him question his identity and the costs of maintaining his supposedly utopian society, turning the film into a gripping, genre-bending debut thriller that will leave audiences guessing and feeling unsettled — until the final frame.

Jordan’s woman director and a product of Toronto Film School Zain Duraie’s Sinkspeaks of a mother Nadia’s struggle when her teenage son Basil in his final year of school is suspended after a troubling outburst, determined to help him convincing herself he just needs guidance. But as Basil’s mental state slowly unravels, she ignores the warning signs sinking deeper into denial as disaster approaches. The debut feature is a magnificent portrait of a mother struggling with her son’s unravelling mental state in a film buoyed by sublime camerawork of Farouk Laâridh.

UK’s woman director Nadia Latif ‘sThe Man in My Basementan adaptation of Walter Mosley’s novel is about a mysterious white businessman with a European accent Anniston Bennetwho approaches Charles Blakey an African American man living in Sag Harbor, to rent his basement of his ancestral home for a generous sumfor the summer, Blakey is drawn into chilling reality involving his own family’s hidden history as the film explores themes of race, power, and identity through the story of Charles Blakey.  

London based BAFTA winning woman director Stroma Cairns’ The Son and the Seaset against the rugged beauty of northern Scottish coast, is an intimate, visually striking debut feature that follows three young men at a turning point — learning, with quiet grace, what itmeans to grow up.Jonah, a ADHD and dyslexically created, is a man-child who keeps on slipping. Hs best mate, Lee, nimbly climbs every ladder. After hitting yet another bump and under pressure to see his great-aunt, who is lost to dementia, Jonah takes a trip to North East coast to get away from himself with Lee, where they meet Charlie, profoundly deaf and attempting to clean up after his shady twin brother. Through developing friendship, the three boys form a connection that ultimately brings Jonah to discover the courage to be vulnerable and that joy is possible despite loss, brings personal experience and threads of familial history together to ask: how will boys become men if there’s no one to show them the way?

Presenting the proverbial TIFF’s wild, wacky side, the ten tantalising Midnight Madness rendezvous revs up with Canadian Premiere of Matt Johnson’s Toronto-set Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie. Based on Johnson’s cult Viceland series, this hysterical, death-defying time-travel caper, which won the coveted Midnighter Audience Award at spring’s SXSW, is deeply steeped in late-aughts Toronto lore, and is anticipated to levitate audiences into high orbit from infectious laughter alone.

Dead Lover, a zany, macabre horror-comedy from Canadian director Grace Glowicki, the madcap phantasmagoria which has been celebrated in festival midnight sections around the world is the section’s closing film. Here a lonely gravedigger who stinks of corpses finally meets her dream man, but their whirlwind affair is cut short when he tragically drowns at sea. Grief-stricken, she goes to morbid lengths to resurrect him through madcap experiments.

Dust Bunnyby Bryan Fuller is about an eight-year-old girl who asks her scheming neighbour for help in killing the monster under her bed that she thinks ate her family.

Fuck My Son! By Todd Rohal is an X-rated descent into demented comedy and maniacal horror, as a desperate mother drags an innocent stranger into an absurd, filthy nightmare beyond comprehension. An unflinchingly loyal adaptation of transgressive artist Johnny Ryan’s joyfully disgusting comic book. Adults only.

Junk World by Takahide Hori stop-motion animated feature the second in a new trilogy set around the Junk Head universe.  It is about a world where weird cloned humanoid-esque creations live underground and  which depicts the world 1042 years before, invites you once again into an unknown adventure. 

Karmadonna by Serbian director Aleksandar Radivojevicis an audacious satirical thriller about an expectant motherwho receives a phone call from a deity that demands she obey a list of murderous instructions.

Normalby Ben Wheatley based on a story by Kolstad and Bob Odenkirk centres on a temporary small-town sheriff who uncovers dark mysteries after a local bank robbery.

Curry Barker’s Obsession is about a hopeless romantic who makes a wish that his long-time crush falls in love with him, following which a sinister enchantment ensues.

The Furious by Kenji Tanigakifollows a simple tradesman who fights his way through a complex web of criminals and evil agents in a frantic attempt to win back his kidnapped daughter by any means necessary.

The Napa Boysby Nick Corirossi follows Jack Jr, Miles Jr and the gang back for one last wine-related journey set forth by mysterious ‘Sommelier,’ this time joined by Puck, a fan of The Napa Boys comics, the group will learn about love, loss, friendship and viticulture.

S VISWANATH is a veteran film critic who officiates as JURY at several National & International Film Festivals. He deputises as CHIEF CINEMA CURATOR/PROGRAMMER & CREATIVE ADVISOR for Bengaluru International Film Festival (BIFFes). He also curates & advises on the selection of shorts & documentaries for Bengaluru International Short Film Festival (BISFF). Mr Viswanath is the author of “RANDOM REFLECTIONS: A Kaleidoscopic Musings on Kannada Cinema”.