TIFF23 / TIFFR

Friday, September 08

2:30 PM — 4:12 PM

Holiday

Set in a picturesque Italian seaside town at the height of summer, writer-director Edoardo Gabbriellini’s suspenseful and perturbing third feature chronicles a subtle cat-and-mouse game.

TIFF Bell Lightbox 3

7:15 PM — 8:46 PM

How to Have Sex

A blurry ― and almost out-of-body ― night in Crete leads 16-year-old Tara, who is on a wild holiday with her best friends, on a mission of self-knowledge, to the best of her ability.

Scotiabank 2

9:30 PM — 11:34 PM

Perfect Days

Wim Wenders returns with a poignant character study and a deeply moving, poetic reflection on finding beauty in the everyday world around us.

Scotiabank 4

11:59 PM — 1:54 AM

In Nikhil Nagesh Bhat’s relentless martial arts thriller, a passenger train bound for New Delhi becomes a bloody battleground of brutal close-quarters combat as a pair of commandos square off against a 40-strong army of invading bandits.

Royal Alexandra Theatre

Saturday, September 09

10:30 AM — 12:34 PM

The Boy and the Heron

Already acclaimed as a masterpiece in Japan, Hayao Miyazaki’s new film begins as a simple story of loss and love, and rises to become a staggering work of imagination.

Roy Thomson Hall

3:45 PM — 5:08 PM

La Suprema

In a remote Colombian village without electricity, a strong-willed teenager convinces her whole town to find a way of watching her estranged uncle compete in a world championship boxing match.

Scotiabank 9

5:30 PM — 7:27 PM

American Fiction

Jeffrey Wright stars in Cord Jefferson’s adaptation of Percival Everett’s Erasure — a wicked satire about the commodification of marginalized voices and a portrait of an artist forced to re-examine his integrity.

Scotiabank 1

9:30 PM — 11:10 PM

I Told You So

Ginevra Elkann’s I Told You So is a star-studded romp through Rome amid an unprecedented heat wave that increasingly melts — and melds — the lives of a group of individuals, each on the brink of insanity.

TIFF Bell Lightbox 2

Sunday, September 10

11:15 AM — 1:47 PM

Great Absence

Kei Chika-ura returns to the Festival with this smartly observed, beautifully shot story about the reunion of a long-estranged father and his son amid lost memories and scattered fragments of lives.

TIFF Bell Lightbox 2

3:00 PM — 4:40 PM

Dream Scenario

This satirical swipe at celebrity and groupthink from writer-director Kristoffer Borgli and co-producer Ari Aster stars Nicolas Cage as an inconspicuous academic who is thrust into the limelight after he starts inexplicably appearing in people’s dreams.

Scotiabank 2

6:45 PM — 8:26 PM

Chuck Chuck Baby

A film of love, loss, music, and female friendship, set in and around the falling feathers of a chicken processing plant in industrial north Wales.

Scotiabank 14

9:30 PM — 11:08 PM

Spirit of Ecstasy

French pop star Claire Pommet makes her acting debut as a clever and ambitious non-binary person eager to make their mark, in director Héléna Klotz’s riveting portrait of self-possession and confidence.

TIFF Bell Lightbox 2

Monday, September 11

10:50 AM — 1:00 PM

Concrete Utopia

In the opening moments of Um Tae-hwa’s riveting new disaster epic, an earthquake renders much of Seoul a smouldering ruin. But as survivors begin efforts to restore order, it seems the real calamity has only just begun.

Scotiabank 1

3:00 PM — 5:06 PM

Monster

Acclaimed Japanese auteur Hirokazu Kore-eda returns to his homeland with a powerful yet delicate story of love and humanity, a moral tale about school bullying, scored by the late Ryuichi Sakamoto.

Scotiabank 2

6:30 PM — 8:00 PM

Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person

Ariane Louis-Seize’s deadpan horror comedy finds droll humour in the plight of a young Montreal bloodsucker who can only feed on people for whom she feels sympathy.

Scotiabank 4

9:15 PM — 11:10 PM

Together 99

The members of a ’70s Stockholm commune reunite decades later to renew old romances and reveal their lives are as messy as ever, in Lukas Moodysson’s razor-sharp comedy.

Scotiabank 10

Tuesday, September 12

11:35 AM — 1:28 PM

A Happy Day

Love upends the plans of three teenage friends longing to escape a Norwegian centre for young asylum seekers in Hisham Zaman’s equally funny and poignant third feature.

Scotiabank 11

2:45 PM — 4:16 PM

Shame on Dry Land

An anxious former fraudster comes ashore at Malta only to find big trouble among a hedonistic community of Swedish expats, in Axel Petersén’s cunning, stylish thriller.

Scotiabank 3

6:30 PM — 8:13 PM

Next Goal Wins

Michael Fassbender, Elisabeth Moss, and Oscar Kightley star in Taika Waititi’s comedy about the American Samoa soccer team’s attempt to make a World Cup — 12 years after their infamous 31-0 loss in a 2002 World Cup qualifying match.

VISA Screening Room at the Princess of Wales Theatre

9:30 PM — 11:04 PM

Flora and Son

The latest from writer-director John Carney (Once, Sing Street) features a revelatory performance from Eve Hewson as a young mother trying to connect with her teenage son through a shared love of music.

Roy Thomson Hall

11:59 PM — 1:50 AM

NAGA

In Meshal Aljaser’s exhilaratingly madcap thriller, a young woman stranded in the Arabian desert races to be home before curfew under the threat of extreme punishment from her scary strict father.

Royal Alexandra Theatre

Wednesday, September 13

11:15 AM — 1:01 PM

Rustin

George C. Wolfe brings Bayard Rustin’s story to life, with a joyous performance by Colman Domingo as the activist who organized the 1963 March on Washington while being forced into the background because of his sexuality.

TIFF Bell Lightbox 1

2:00 PM — 3:47 PM

Four Daughters

In this co-winner of the Cannes ’23 Golden Eye, Kaouther Ben Hania blends documentary and drama to explore the case of two missing sisters in Tunisia, and the family that mourns them.

TIFF Bell Lightbox 1

4:30 PM — 6:16 PM

Evil Does Not Exist

A place of bucolic serenity is threatened by cynical urban developers, in this exquisite slow burn from Ryûsuke Hamaguchi (Drive My Car, TIFF ’21) that reveals the hidden potential for transformation on both sides of its fraught power dynamic.

Scotiabank 12

6:45 PM — 8:15 PM

The Contestant

This true story of a Japanese reality TV star left naked in a room for more than a year, tasked with filling out magazine sweepstakes to earn food and clothing, prompts innumerable questions about our culture of oversharing.

Scotiabank 9

9:45 PM — 11:23 PM

The Teachers' Lounge

A new junior high teacher (Leonie Benesch) becomes an amateur investigator in order to unmask a thief active in the school, but the roots and consequences of the case run deep.

Scotiabank 14

11:59 PM — 1:38 AM

When Evil Lurks

In this shocking supernatural chiller from Argentine master of horror Demián Rugna (Terrified), two brothers race to prevent the spawning of evil incarnate as an epidemic of demonic possessions spreads through their rural community.

Royal Alexandra Theatre

Thursday, September 14

12:15 PM — 2:25 PM

La Chimera

Led by a revelatory Josh O’Connor, and supported by Isabella Rossellini and Alba Rohrwacher, Alice Rohrwacher’s La Chimera is a dream-like romp through Italy’s archaeological and cinematic past.

Scotiabank 4

3:00 PM — 4:41 PM

Robot Dreams

Spanish director Pablo Berger returns to the Festival with this animated, dialogue-free story about the miracle of true friendship between a dog and a robot.

Scotiabank 13

5:00 PM — 6:57 PM

Shayda

Noora Niasari’s fiction feature debut stars Zar Amir Ebrahimi — winner of Cannes’ Best Actress award for Holy Spider — as a survivor of domestic violence seeking a fresh start for her and her daughter.

Scotiabank 14

9:15 PM — 11:03 PM

100 Yards

Two bitter rivals (Jacky Heung and Andy On) duel for stewardship of a wushu academy, in this cool and calculated martial arts caper from Xu Haofeng (The Sword Identity, The Final Master).

Scotiabank 13

Friday, September 15

11:30 AM — 1:26 PM

Ru

Based on the Governor General’s Award–winning novel by Kim Thúy, Ru is the story of the arduous journey of a wealthy family fleeing from Vietnam, before landing in Quebec.

Scotiabank 2

5:30 PM — 7:36 PM

The Burial

Oscar winners Tommy Lee Jones and Jamie Foxx star in this rousing David and Goliath courtroom drama about one family’s struggle to hold onto their mom-and-pop funeral home in the face of heartless corporate exploitation.

VISA Screening Room at the Princess of Wales Theatre

8:00 PM — 10:07 PM

Working Class Goes to Hell

A small-town labour union turns to the dark arts for empowerment against the corrupt forces in their community in Mladen Đorđević’s timely and disturbing socio-horror satire.

Scotiabank 12

11:59 PM — 1:34 AM

Sleep

Expectant parents navigate a nightmare scenario when a spouse develops a sleep disorder that may belie a disturbing split personality in writer-director Jason Yu’s intense horror feature debut.

Royal Alexandra Theatre

Saturday, September 16

12:45 PM — 2:18 PM

We Grown Now

Two young boys, best friends Malik and Eric, discover the joys and hardships of growing up in the sprawling Cabrini-Green public housing complex in 1992 Chicago in the latest film from director Minhal Baig (Hala, TIFF ’19).

Scotiabank 9

2:45 PM — 4:54 PM

Smugglers

Ryoo Seung-wan, the mastermind behind box office hits The Unjust, The Berlin File, and Veteran, returns with a star-studded cast for an aquatic crime-action epic.

TIFF Bell Lightbox 1

5:30 PM — 7:35 PM

The Movie Emperor

Andy Lau is perfectly, cheekily cast as a movie star seeking relevance via a film festival–baiting art-house role in director Ning Hao’s sharp satire of movie industry pretension.

Scotiabank 1

8:30 PM — 10:26 PM

Thank You For Coming

At 32, Kanika Kapoor has never had an orgasm… until last night. Now she needs to find out who got her there.

Royal Alexandra Theatre

11:59 PM — 1:52 AM

Riddle of Fire

Three rascal children run afoul of an enigmatic coven in Weston Razooli’s whimsical neo-fairytale, which evokes a menagerie of esoteric genres and dreamy cult-film vibes.

Royal Alexandra Theatre

Sunday, September 17

9:00 AM — 11:13 AM

The Holdovers

Paul Giamatti stars in Alexander Payne’s latest about the bond that forms between a strict professor and a belligerent student he’s stuck supervising over the winter holiday at an elite boarding school.

TIFF Bell Lightbox 1

12:15 PM — 1:36 PM

Fallen Leaves

Two solitary people in Helsinki look for a way out of their loneliness in this warm-hearted, tragicomic triumph from Aki Kaurismäki.

Scotiabank 10

3:05 PM — 4:55 PM

Uproar

Julian Dennison delivers another charismatic performance in a witty and wise story about a young student trying to find his place among New Zealand’s fight for its national identity in the ’80s.

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