S Viswanath

If Gala Presentations are more of a star-studded, red carpet oriented selections and relatively in the popular mode, it’s virtual contrast is the Toronto International Film Festival’s much appreciated and coveted segment – Platform Section.

Being the TIFF’s jury led competition section the segment is specifically curated cornucopia of cinemas which brings to the table keen directorial vision and bold, global auteur cinema where the talents are tested and judged for their aesthetic merit to bag the prestigious awards in the competition.

The section, put in place nearly a decade ago, in 2015, is seen to serve as influential global launchpad for awards circuit introducing audiences to future prospective cinema talents. This time around the TIFF Platform Section will serve as the official international Oscar qualifying competition segment, wherein for the first time, non-English-language films which have found a pride of place in the Platform Section will have a direct path to Best International Feature Film Oscar contention.

This path breaking move makes Toronto among the six international film festivals to qualify enabling the selected films the direct pathway to 99th Academy Awards without requiring an official, singular country submission.

The carefully curated section, which comprises of 12 films, from as many nations and emerging talents, will vie for the prestigious Platform Award, which will be adjudicated by a five-member international jury with the award winning filmmaker taking home a bounteous CAD$20,000 cash prize.

In keeping with the new role that the Platform Section will play, the line up of films which traditional would be around 8-10 has not been expanded to a dozen (12) titles with films and filmmakers drawn from 15 different countries. The films under the Platform Section will be screened exclusively at the TIFF Lightbox’s Cinema 1 auditorium.

The Toronto International Film Festival’s solo competitive section, with specific mandate of championing exceptional directorial vision and auteur voices, serving as launchpad for the awards circuit and international spotlight that follows TIFF in the global film festival and awards circuit, says TIFF Chief Programming Officer Anita Lee this year’s 12 film selection is an imaginative reflection of new auteur cinema now. Incidentally the Platform Selections are led by TIFF Director of Programming, Festival & Cinematheque; & Lead Programmer Robyn Citizen.

According to Ms Lee “each year, we strive to curate a selection of films that feels most relevant to the moment with the power to spark a rich dialogue with our public audience, and these Special Presentations titles are true reflections of that.”

“From debut directors to the most anticipated sophomore films of the year to vanguard voices, this group of films showcase the authenticity, the unexpected, and the ambition of cinema now. They are sure to be among the Festival’s most talked-about titles, captivating audiences and generating buzz long after the credits roll. We’re delighted to share these original works with TIFF audiences in September,” Ms Lee adds.

The five member Jury is led by Argentine film producer, editor, and director Pablo Trapero, Jury President., British filmmaker & screenwriter Amma Asante, Taiwanese renowned actress, singer, director, screenwriter,& producer Sylvia Chang, French Canadian film producer Luc Dery and Hong Kong International Film Festival Society Executive Director Albert Lee, which will be choosing the winner of this year’s Platform Award from among the 12 contenders. The winning filmmaker will receive a C$20,000 cash prize.

The 12 films in fray are as under: The Platform Section opens with the world premiere of Japanese filmmaker Miwa Nishikawa’s Children Untold. A longtime collaborator of Hirokazu Kore-eda, the filmmaker has adapted Children Untold from her own unpublished novel which follows a 12-year-old girl who disguises herself as a boy to survive in the immediate aftermath of Second World War in Tokyo.

Then you have the film from India’s North-East State of Nagaland – Angh the debut directorial feature by Theja Rio. The film, set in the remote jungles of Nagaland near the Indo–Burma border in the early 1960s and shot in richly textured 16mm, follows Anghba, the last surviving chief of an abandoned Indigenous Naga village, who lives in isolation with his ailing wife and mute young son after being deserted by his people.

The selection of London-based writer and director from Nagaland, Theja Rio’s Angh, which is an
expansion of his 2021 short by the same name, film explores themes of loss, identity, memory and survival against the backdrop of Nagaland’s dense forests. Further, the selection places Angh among an elite group of international filmmakers highlighting the growing global recognition of stories emerging from India’s North-East.

Umea, Sweden born Amanda Kernell’s Brace Your Heart is a luminous devastating portrait of love, resilience, and the enduring strength of Sami women.

The Turkish film Djinn Wedding by Ferit Karahan is set in a remote Anatolian village, and is an impressive family drama that unravels family secrets and conflicts across three periods of time, while the film swings between belief, hope, and dissolution. Incidentally, the Turkish director’s Brother’s Keeper (2021), won the FIPRESCI Prize at Berlinale.

Idda by Italy’s Irene Dionisio is the woman filmmaker’s sophomore feature, which takes an epic approach to unearthing the packed layers of a stewing friendship. When childhood friends Adele and Sofia reunite to fulfil the broken promise of climbing Mount Etna, they realise that like the mountain, old wounds loom over everything.

Igloolik, Nunavut of Canadian woman film director Nyla Innuksuk’s sophomore feature In the Heart of the South draws audiences into the world of Yura Ivalu, living far from the isolated community in Nunavut where she was born. She has often felt stuck in-between two worlds, but she decides to draw inspiration from her Inuk identity while creating new artwork.

London based photographer & filmmaker & Swedish artist Bertil Nilsson’s Masc is a debut feature offering viewers a tender, unflinching portrait of drawing upon the filmmaker’s experiences as a neurodivergent gay man navigating the contradictory demands of masculinity as it spotlights on Robin, a young autistic man desperate to fit in, tries on different roles to understand what kind of man he’s supposed to be..

The Brazilian feature On Behalf of My Son (Vicentina Pede Desculpas) by writer-director and co-Founder of Filmes de Plástico production firm Gabriel Martins follows a grieving mother seeking forgiveness from the families of a tragic bus accident, unfolding as a profoundly humane meditation on guilt and whether forgiveness is even possible. At 75, Vicentina faces the death of her son, a bus driver who caused a tragedy by plunging off a viaduct. As the investigation suggests possible suicide, she seeks out the victims’ families to offer her apologies.

Filipino filmmaker Lawrence Fajardo, known for fasted paced action films, new feature Silenced Nights is a bleak sociopolitical drama which, taking a raw cinema verite approach, follows a witness to an extrajudicial killing in a Philippines slum as he seeks to make the truth known.

South African writer-director John Trengove’s third feature The Smell of Apples revolves round a sheltered 11-year-old white South African boy who gradually comes to realise the horrors of the apartheid system. The film is adapted from South African writer Mark Behr’s 1993 bestselling novel of the same name.

The World Before by South Korea’s Yoon Dan-bi is her second narrative feature, which presents audiences with a tender, sharply observed portrait of first love and growing up in the coming-of-age drama which follows two teenagers, childhood best friends, who reunite for a summer on a small rural island in Korea.

Polish director Jan Holoubek’s Wild Wild East set in occupied Poland in the middle of the Second World War, is a tour de force which is part suspenseful western, part gritty wartime noir. Set in 1943, it follows a German official sent to a remote village to investigate the disappearance of a Jewish lawyer, unravelling a web of greed and betrayal. His presence shatters the fragile equilibrium between scarred local villagers, corrupt collaborators, and Nazi authorities. Whispers of the missing lawyer’s hidden fortune expose the village’s darkest secrets and deepest truths regarding survival and resistance