Led by “Steve,” starring Cillian Murphy, nine of the 10 titles at Toronto’s Platform are non-U.S., a sign of Toronto’s ever more vigorous focus on international titles in the run-up to the launch of a market next year.
Multiple Platform titles could have Variety’s list of 20 International Titles to Track. Profiled by Variety on Saturday, however, they are not included in the cut.
Two of Toronto’s highest profile non-U.S. titles – “Couture;” starring a French-speaking Angelina Jolie, and “Bad Apples,” have already been profiled in Variety’s TIFF: 15 Buzzy Films From Chris Evans, Angelina Jolie, Michaela Coel and More That Have Buyers Circling.
They are included but cross-referenced. A closer look at the international 20 pic selection:
“100 Sunset,” (Kunsang Kyirong, Canada, Discovery)
Writer-director Kunsang Kyirong’s noirish feature debut “100 Sunset” captures what she calls the “fleeting, fragile, and mundane moments of everyday life in a Tibetan diasporic community.” Shot with non-professional actors in Toronto’s Parkdale neighborhood, the film follows an 18-year-old girl who watches and steals from adults and forms a strange bond with a young married woman she’s been secretly filming. Producing with her Migmar Pictures partner Joaquin Cardoner, Kyirong pulls in a notable, eclectic team, including cinematographer Nikolay Michaylov, Bhutanese avant-garde guitarist-composer Tashi Dorji and executive producers Madeleine Davis at Common Knowledge” and MDFF’s Dan Montgomery. JP
“Amoeba,” (Tan Silyou, Singapore, Netherlands, France, Spain, South Korea, Discovery, )
Inspired by the colonial Singapore gangsters rulers, four girls, at a modern-day regimented elite secondary school form their own gang cam-recording petty acts of rebellion, led by firebrand freethinking lesbian Choo Xin Yu. But how farewell their rebellion really go when academic conformity is the key to get into top-notch colleges? “I set out to make a gang film, a prickly love letter to Singapore that questions the national narrative via four schoolgirls resisting repression with resilience and friendship,” says Tan Silyou. A spirited iconoclastic feature debut attracting an impressive multilateral production partners. JH
“Bad Apples,” (Jonatan Etzler, U.K.)
See Variety’s Sep. 5 article, TIFF: 15 Buzzy Films From Chris Evans, Angelina Jolie, Michaela Coel and More That Have Buyers Circling.
“The Captive,” (Alejandro Amenábar, Spain, Italy)
1575, Algiers. A young Miguel de Cervantes – who went on to write “Don Quixote,” the world’s first modern novel – languishes in a jail, captured by Ottoman corsairs. There he discovers his gift for storytelling. Starring Julio Peña (“Berlin”), a broad audience jail break adventure movie and Cervantes origins story as a writer and man which marks the latest from Academy Award winning Amenábar (“The Others,” “The Sea Inside”) and one of the biggest movies from Europe world premiering at Toronto. With Netflix acquiring Spain and select foreign territories, “The Captive” has scored a healthy bevy of pre-sales for Global Constellation, including France with Haut et Court. JH
“The Condor Daughter,” (Álvaro Olmos Torrico, Bolivia, Peru, Uruguay, Centrepiece)
One of the buzziest titles screened in rough-cut at late ’s Ventana Sur, and written-directed-produced by Empatia Cinema’s Olmos Torrico, at key figure on Bolivia’s cinema scene. An identity drama, Quechua Clara, 16, her midwife mother Ana’s assistant, Clara leaves her high Andes village to become a big city chincha singer. Ana seeks her out in the city, as, animals dying and crops drying, her village is losing its population. A mother-daughter relationship drama set against rural depopulation knit and stunning, sweeping high Andes. Part of a highly select slate at Bendita Films Sales. JH
“Couture,” (Alice Winocour, U.S., France)
See Variety’s Sep. 5 article, TIFF: 15 Buzzy Films From Chris Evans, Angelina Jolie, Michaela Coel and More That Have Buyers Circling.
“Dinner With Friends,” (Sasha Leigh Henry, Canada, Discovery)
Multihyphenate Leigh Henry, whose TIFF Primetime-debuting “Bria Mack Gets a Life” won the 2023 Canadian Screen Award for Best Comedy Series, returns with her feature directorial debut, a micro-budget “Big Chill”-inspired miracle starring an ensemble of rising Canadian screen talent as longtime millennial friends we get to know only through dinner parties. Co-written and co-produced with her Everyday, People studio partner Tania Thompson, “Dinner With Friends” cozies up to the zeitgeist. “It reminds you of the delicate, grounding beauty of friendship and how all at once life is wonderfully long and quite achingly too short,” Henry says. “It’s the kind of film you’ll find yourself rewatching during a post-dinner Friendsgiving veg-out.” JP
“Dry Leaf,” (Alexandre Koberidze, Germany, Georgia)
Catnip for Locarno main competition and at the more out-there end of the spectrum for Toronto, the third film from Koberidze after breakout “What Do We See When We Look at the Sky?” is shot on an Sony Ericsson cameraphone, discontinued in 2011. Picked up by Cinema Guild for North America, “Dry Leaf” was hailed at Locarno by Variety as “a gorgeously eccentric road trip through blurry rural Georgia. Pixelated images tell a pixilated story as Alexander Koberidze’s bizarre and wonderful three-hour feature plays hide-and-seek with reality and memory across the soccer-mad nation of Georgia. JH
“Egghead Republic,” (Pella Kågerman, Hugo Lilja, Sweden, Discovery, TIFF Next Wave Selects)
One more example that political satire is back, baby – and weirder than ever. Kågerman and Lilja(“Aniara”) pick up Arno Schmidt’s novel and head to a radioactive zone, a no-go area ever since an atomic bomb fell on Soviet Kazakhstan. According to a controversial writer “you cannot tell a story without experiencing it yourself,” so a group of journos – and their unpaid interns – won’t be stopped by little radiation. Soon, they drink from cactuses, kiss topless centaurs and repeat after Tarkovsky’s Stalker: “Welcome to the Zone.” MB
“Franz,” (Agnieszka Holland, Czech Republic, Germany, Poland, Special Presentations, Luminaries)
A legendary director takes on a legendary writer, following the punch in the face that was “Green Border.” The results are surprisingly playful. While stunningly shot, this is no usual Franz Kafka biopic, with Holland more interested in nightmares than the who, what, when, where and why of a story. She “interviews” the characters on-camera, heads to present-day Kafka Museum and admits her troubled protagonist (newcomer Idan Weiss) would eventually change the world with his writing, but also demand change from a beggar. “An unconventional biopic that’s more puzzle than portrait,”says Variety, as Films Boutique continues to announce early sales. MB
“The Furious,” (Tanigaki Kenji, Hong Kong, China, Midnight Madness)
Tanigaki Kenji — the veteran fight choreographer behind “SPL,” “Flash Point” and “Twilight of the Warriors” — takes a turn in the director’s chair with “The Furious.” Produced by Bill Kong (“Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon”), the film follows Xie Miao as a father forced to unleash his combat instincts when his daughter is kidnapped, aided by Joe Taslim of “The Raid.” With Tanigaki’s signature mix of bone-crunching choreography and unrelenting pace, the film is a visceral showcase of martial arts cinema at its most uncompromising, the kind that genre fans – and buyers – will want to track closely. XYZ Films handles sales. NR
“Girl,” (Shu Qi, Taiwan, Centrepiece)
Growing up isn’t easy in Taiwanese screen icon Shu Qi’s debut film as a director – she recently starred in Cannes pick “Resurrection” – it’s all about disappointment and fear. Hsiao-lee’s abusive parents constantly keep her on the edge. She tries her best to disappear, until she meets Li-li. Her new friend isn’t quiet – Li-li is all about joyous rebelling and she’s tempted to join her. It’s the 1980s and her country is changing. Fed up with the silence, she’s hoping she can transform her life, too. Sold by Mandarin Vision Co and Goodfellas, “a heartfelt but scrappy debut,” says Variety. MB
“Ky Nam Inn,” (Leon Le, Vietnam, Special Presentations)
Food has rarely looked better than in this romantic film set in post-war Saigon. That’s how a young translator – working on “The Little Prince” – and a widow start to get close, chopping away and preparing delightful meals. But people are always watching, especially their neighbors, so quick to judge even the purest emotions. Fully embracing charms of retro-ish melodrama, director Leon Le is attracted to kindness, but these are not kind times that he’s portraying. Then again, are any? MB
“Laundry,” (Zamo Mkhwanazi, Switzerland, South Africa, Discovery)
Set in apartheid South Africa and inspired by the story of Mkhwanazi’s own family, this drama hits hard – but also delivers the joy of music and the gloss of 1990s historical epics. Teenage Khuthala wants to become a musician – his father would like him to inherit their family business instead. Generational struggles give way to something much more sinister, however, as the world they’re living in would rather take away everything. The debuting director believes in dreams, that’s clear. She also knows that not everyone is allowed to have them. MB
“Little Lorraine,” (Andy Hines, Canada, Discovery)
Nova Scotia native and Grammy-nominated video director Andy Hines brings a globally recognized cast to his feature debut, which is inspired by a true story about a struggling mining town where a lobster boat crew gets tangled in an international drug ring. Produced by Tim Doiron and James van der Woerd of Wango Pictures and Michael Volpe of Topsail Productions (“Trailer Park Boys”), “Little Lorraine” marks the acting debut of Colombian reggaeton superstar J Balvin and stars Stephan Amell (“Arrow”), Stephen McHattie, Sean Astin, and Rhys Darby. “There is beauty mixed with rawness of the reality these characters are trapped in, and that juxtaposition is where great cinema lives,” says Hines. “My hope for Little Lorraine’ is to give audiences an emotional experience they may not have felt in years.” JP
“I Swear,” (Kirk Jones, U.K.)
In 1983, in Scotland’s Galashiels, John Davidson, 15, begins to feel the first symptoms of Tourette Syndrome, when there was still little awareness of the illness. Davidson’s turning point came 13 years later when he meets a neighbor, Lottie, a mental health nurse, who has a clear and compassionate understanding of his condition. “I Swear” charts Davidson’s journey to there and beyond in one of Toronto’s potentially big crowdpleasers from Jones (“Waking Ned Devine”) packing an enormously empathetic performance by Robert Aramayo (“The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power”). “Another Super Hero film, but this hero is human, lives in Scotland and has been living with Tourette’s since he was 15 years old,” Jones tells Variety. It has already been pre-sold healthily to multiple major territories by Bankside. JH
“November,” Tomás Corredor (Colombia, Brazil, Mexico, Norway)
Colombian directors – Gala del Sol, Simon Mesa Soto in just 2025 – are winning top-tier fest recognition. Corredor might join the list. Gripping but reflective, “November” revisits the Nov. 1985 siege of Colombia’s Palace of Justice, but from the POV of guerrilla fighters, judges and civilians trapped in one of its bathrooms, battling their fears, driven by a desperate desire to survive. “‘November’ explores human fragility faced by an unmanageable reality: Imminent death. It’s about resistance,” Corredor tells Variety. Lead-produced by two of Latin America’s classiest producers, Colombia’s Burning and Mexico’s Piano, picked up by Cineplex for sales and also acquired by Prime Video. JH
“Our Father,” ( GoranStankovic, Serbia, Italy, Croatia, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Discovery)
Stankovic’s intense drama – based on true events – mixes religion with violence as recovering addicts head to an isolated monastery. They have already run out of options, or so they think – according to Father Branko (Boris Isaković), “when a man is willing to repent, he can find peace.” He believes in tough love; in religious ardor and horrifying physical punishment these tough men, apparently, subconsciously crave. When they hear him say, “you know the drill,” they submit. But their bodies can only take so much. Picked up by Croatia-based sales outfit Split Screen, the latest from Stankovic, creator of Canneseries winner “Operation Sabre.” MB
“Rose of Nevada,” (Mark Jenkin, U.K. Special Presentations)
Starring George MacKay (“1917”) and Callum Turner (“Masters of the Air”) and bowing at Venice Horizons, the third feature from Jenkin whose 2019 debut “Bait” proved a celebrated indie breakout. Something of a commercial turn for Jenkin but still shot in 16mm, a time-looping ghost ship horror fantasy hailed by Variety as a “bewitching, time-surfing voyage.”It added: “Cornish indie auteur Mark Jenkin’s feature combines the analog throwback approach of his debut ‘Bait’ with the genre experimentation of his follow-up ‘Enys Men,’ to thoroughly satisfying effect.” Sold by Protagonist Pictures. JH
“Unidentified,” (Haifaa Al Mansour, Saudi Arabia, Centrepiece)
From the groundbreaking Al Mansour, whose “Wadjda” was the first feature shot entirely in Saudi Arabia, “Unidentified” now weighs in as one of the most eagerly anticipated movies from the Arab after Sony Pictures Classics acquired North and Latin America, Eastern Europe and Australia with Paradise City Film selling out most elsewhere. In it, Noelle Al Saffan, a police department receptionist, pushes back against sexism and police indifference investigating the discovery of the lifeless body of a teen girl in the desert. “The mystery-thriller ‘Unidentified’ is exactly the type of compelling movie that’s thriving in the theatrical marketplace right now,” SPC has stated. JH
