S Viswanath

Discovery, as the name, or title suggests, is an initiative, and a prime section, at the Toronto International Film Festival – TIFF, to bring before audiences young, talented and emerging filmmakers of promise and their works from across the global cinema cosmos.

The carefully curated objective being to showcase the debut or sophomore films at the TIFF’s exclusively dedicated programming section, providing them a platform and window of opportunity to be seen, spoken and pursued about by interested sales agents, through their world or international premieres.

Eminent names such as British-American filmmaker Christopher Nolan, Mexican filmmaker Alfonso Cauron, Yorgos Lanthimos from Greece, American filmmaker Barry Jenkins, Jean-Marc Vallée homegrown Canadian discovery, Hungary’s Ildikó Enyedi, Spaniard woman filmmaker Lucía Aleñar Iglesias, Canada’s very own Sophy Romvari, another Canadian Meredith Hama-Brown, Lav Diaz, Dea Kulumbegashvili, Elegance Bratton, and Durga Chew-Bose and the like on whom Discovery programme has shone its spotlight making them the talk of the film circuit circles.

Restricted specifically and strictly to an aspiring director or filmmaker’s first or second feature length film the idea of Discovery section is to ensure the freshest cinematic voices find the film festival’s fora, drawn from highly diverse geographic slate, routinely representing over 30 countries each year, the ideal launch pad for their directorial sojourn thereon.

The Discovery curation team comprising Jason Anderson, Kelly Boutsalis, Diana Cadavid, Robyn Citizen, Claire Diao, Giovanna Fulvi, June Kim, Peter Kuplowsky, Dorota Lech, and Jason Ryle typically curates a tight, highly competitive selection of 23 to 24 films each year, given the section’s unmatched reputation for identifying “generation-defining visionaries” long before they become household names.

The 51st Edition of TIFF presents a selection of 24 new feature films, offer audiences front-row seat to the prospective filmmakers who could be the future of cinema. This year’s picks serves as TIFF’s place to discover European film, with more than half of the titles being full or partial European productions.

A Common Story (Una storia) by Italy’s multifaced Anna Foglietta’s debut feature, as the title bespeaks, revolves round a couple whose seemingly solid relationship falters when their daughter leaves for college and emptiness surfaces. Left to their own devices the two confront old desires while seeking new meaning in their lives as unresolved wounds and forgotten dreams hit them hard in their silent struggle to rediscover themselves.

The Irish feature Ancestors by David Turpin, which the filmmaker describes as a “mystery of a missing person which becomes a journey into something deeper,” and “It uses the language of dreams to confront the questions with which reason alone cannot help us,” is a gay saga, a noir mystery and a metaphysical fable which follows Beau as he searches 1980s London for his missing friend, Tiny, forcing Beau to come face-to-face with truths beyond life and death.

Swedish director Lars Vega’s Arne Goes to Space follows two elderly brothers in quiet northern Swedish community, still residing in their parents’ home, who are driven to reconsider their lives when an alien arrives in their midst in this disarming blend of sci-fi fable and small-town comedy.

Bedford Park by Korean-American woman filmmaker Stephanie Ahn’s debut flick explores the complexities of diasporic experience through a chance encounter between two thirtysomething, second-generation Korean Americans – a Korean American woman struggling with family expectations and her own aspirations, and an ex-wrestler haunted by his past – tracking their relationship as it moves from circumstantial to friendly to romantic leading to transformative journey..

American actor & filmmaker’s debut fare Drifter in which he also stars is an alternately melancholy and exhilarating character study of a lonesome racetrack custodian with a secret talent for drifting who discovers purpose and community when he enters the world of competitive drift racing.

Iranian woman director Ghasideh Golmakani’s Head to Head an absurd Iranian political satire on state control explores what happens when a female director forces male actors to wear skirts and headscarves.

The Mexican film I Am Mario (Soy Mario) by Brazilian filmmaker Sharon Kleinberg spotlights on a 40-year-old trans taxi driver, encounters an unexpected pregnancy that could make his dream of fatherhood come true and in the process forcing him to confront his own notions of masculinity while navigating unexpected social, moral, and emotional consequences..

Vietnamese woman animator-director Phuong Mai Nguyen’s animation feature In Waves set under the confectionery pink and blue skies of California speaks of AJ who meets Kristen, who loves surfing, in high school. How the two face adversity with dignity while sharing their mutual passion for surfing and the ocean after illness upends Kristen’s life, forms the fulcrum of the film.

Ulrike Tony Vahl, Berlin based filmmaker’s Krux is set in a German village near war’s end is a powerful and stark portrait of moral collapse, societal panic, and the consequences of being on the wrong side of history. It spotlights on the women’s struggle to maintain normalcy as corpses appear along the river. When ordered to leave with no Germans alive for arriving Russians, the villagers face brutal choices about survival and humanity.

Los Angeles based Alexandra Pechman’s Magazine which draws upon her own experience as a writer revolves around a young intern facing the intoxicating power dynamics at a prestigious New York City literary magazine.

Memories of a Forest (Erinnerungen eines Waldes) by Austria’s woman director Katharina Rabl involves a doctoral student navigating the tension between honouring her family’s legacy and pursuing her own independent path as she toggles between loyalty and longing for independence.

Guatemalan Association of Audiovisual and Cinematography AGACINE – Guatemala’s Joaquín Ruano debut fare Nosotros spotlights on a 23-year-old Indigenous tuk-tuk driver who takes up a lonely security guard, after leaving his Indigenous family for work in Guatemala City, to be free from extortion by a local gang, demanding weekly payment to avoid harming him and his family taking up which he sees a way out, leaving behind his wife and son.

There he meets Nubia, a trans woman, the business owner at the mall he patrols, discovering an unexpected refuge and a new sense of self, with whom he quickly forms an emotional bond which impossible love triggers Romero’s violent death. Nubia returns his body to the mountains, where she will meet the real man she loved.

Purgatory by Canada’s woman director Lindsay Lanzillotta is a coming-of-age dramedy, set in the 1980s, follows Beatrice as she tries to reunite her recently separated parents. The film revolves around a 13-year-old girl in 1980s Ontario who tries to hold her family together after her mother leaves home.

British director Tom Nicoll’s Salvation is a dark comic thriller about a delusional and tenacious aspiring guru who must go to extreme measures to pay off the debts he’s accrued from trying, and failing, to set up a successful online life coaching business in a post-industrial Scottish town.

Exploring the world of male influencer culture and its deleterious effect on the young men who come into its orbit, the film blends mounting tension, dark comedy and forensic focus to explore the very modern story of a delusional life coach spiralling out of control.

Seventeen by Justin Ducharme filmmaker & curator belonging to the Métis community of St. Ambroise on Treaty 1 Territory over the course of a single day (17 hours in Downton Vancouver) three urban Indigenous peoples’ lives intersect and overlap through chance, relation and the shared experience of familial and colonial displacement.

The Spanish film Sisters (Hermanas) by San Sebastian born woman director Ione Hernández talks of two sisters who bring their families together for a summer weekend near Madrid to celebrate milestones and San Juan Festival. The joyful celebration, however, turns dark, when a child makes a serious sexual abuse allegation.

Winnipeg, Manitoba born Ian Bawa’s Strong Son highlights how a dedicated South Asian bodybuilder returns home to care for his aging father, juggling his own well-being with the demands of care-giving. He strives to balance personal goals and filial duty in this touching exploration of family bonds.

Stuffed by London based filmmaker Theo Rhys, which is the flags off the TIFF’s Discovery Section screenings, is twisted, crony musical wherein love, death, and taxidermy collide wherein a taxidermist Araminta seeks to preserve a human specimen for which Bernie volunteers himself. Their unusual arrangement soon evolves into an unexpected love story.

The Daughters of Abraham (Les Filles d’Abraham) by Paris born Moroccan Hanaël El Yousfi speaks of Myriam, a young woman from a Muslim background who grew up in Marseille, who, after several years apart, reconnects with Eva, who comes from a Jewish family, during the summer vacation. Together, they live out their youth outside the imposed norms. But this carefree summer begins to unravel when a tragedy upends the balance of their social and family circles—and soon, their own destinies.

The Fortunate Isles (Las islas afortunadas) by the Spanish director-duo Helena Girón & Samuel Delgado follows an enslaved woman in the 16th C Canary Islands, during a colonial period of water scarcity and social rebellion, who searches for water as rebellion threatens her aristocratic owner’s rule. Exploring the French-Norman conquest and settlement in the Canary Islands under the Spanish Crown, the film centres on Fátima, a slave belonging to a blind, alcoholic French marquis named Don Gaspar, who owns the island’s only fresh water.

Houston, Texas domiciled Deante Gray’s Voices is a thriller wherein a rising soul duo overdose just hours before their big break, a desperate bellhop and his closest friends seize the chance of a lifetime, only to discover that the price of fame is blood.

We Are Born Good by Hong Kong’s Leung Chuen Yeung is thriller which centres on a feud between a man and woman, in which following a dining mishap a rift between Ji and Rui ensues leading to a cycle of revenge. Their already troubled lives only come together to fall apart. The story being inspired by a viral CCTV clip in which a market aunt and a vendor uncle had a verbal altercation leading to a physical struggle.

Silkeborg, Denmark born woman director Amalie Næsby Fick’s What Lies Between Us is a compelling cautionary family drama exploring the price of ambition, the consequences of lies, about the ethical and moral boundaries a parent are willing to cross in order to protect their children.

The Ghanian film Zjili: A Story of Sisterhood and The Burdens of Excess | by the directors duo of Christine Boateng & Hajara Musah Chambas speaks of Zoya, who leaves her village in northern Ghana for Accra, working as a kayayo (head porter) carrying heavy 55-kilogram bales of second hand clothes at the Kantamanto Market.

Indeed, TIFF’s Discovery with its multifarious narratives and cinematic explorations by the newbie directors promises a perspective peek into where films are headed today and what matters most for these wannabe movie makers.