Between Dreams And Hope

Source: True Colours

‘Between Dreams And Hope’

Screen International rounds up the world and international premieres in the Toronto International Film Festival’s Platform and Midnight Madness strands, with details on each title including sales contacts.

TIFF runs September 4-14.

Platform

At The Place Of Ghosts (Can-Belg)

Dir. Bretten Hannam
The third feature from Two-Spirit L’nu filmmaker Hannam is a folk-horror story about two estranged adult siblings who must team up to confront a mystical forest spirit that is bedevilling them both. At The Place Of Ghosts follows Hannam’s 2021 second feature Wildhood, which premiered at TIFF and was nominated for best picture and director at the Canadian Screen Awards. The new film, which stars Forrest Goodluck (The Revenant), will be released in Canada in 2026.
Contact: Magnify 

Between Dreams And Hope (Iran)

Dir. Farnoosh Samadi
This queer love story brings Iranian filmmaker Samadi back to TIFF, where her 2020 debut feature 180° Rule launched. Her second feature stars Fereshteh Hosseini as a trans man who ventures with his lover (Sadaf Asgari) to Iran to confront his dissapproving father. Samadi’s 2016 short The Silence (co-­directed with Ali Asgari) played in Cannes. In 2017 she co-wrote Asgari’s debut feature Disappearance, which premiered in Venice’s Horizons.
Contact: Francesca Tiberi, True Colours 

Bouchra (It-Mor-US)

Dirs. Orian Barki, Meriem Bennani
Bennani and Barki present their first feature film, also Platform’s first animated entry. The anthropomorphic-­animal tale spotlights a queer Moroccan filmmaker living in New York City (animated as a coyote, voiced by Bennani) and her complex long-­distance relationship with her cardiologist mother in Casablanca (also a coyote, voiced by Moroccan actress Yto Barrada). Bouchra — which received backing from Fondazione Prada — follows the filmmaker pair’s 2020 miniseries 2 Lizards documenting life in quarantined New York City.
Contact: SB Films 

The Currents (Switz-Arg)

Dir. Milagros Mumenthaler
Mumenthaler won the Locarno Golden Leopard in 2011 with debut feature Back To Stay, returning in 2016 with follow-up The Idea Of A Lake. The Currents is about a 36-year-old Argentinian fashion stylist (Isabel Aime Gonzalez-­Sola) who travels to an awards ceremony in Geneva, survives a fall in the lake’s icy waters and returns to Buenos Aires to unravel a past she thought she had left behind. Switzerland’s Alina Film and Argentina’s Ruda Cine produce.
Contact: Luxbox 

Hen (Ger-Greece-Hun)

Dir. György Palfi
Hungarian director Palfi’s latest feature — filmed and set in Greece — concerns an extraordinary hen who wants to be a mother, breaking out of a hellish farm and finding her way to the courtyard of a rundown restaurant. Palfi’s 2006 body horror Taxidermia was selected for Un Certain Regard at Cannes. His 2014 comedy Free Fall won best director and a special jury prize at Karlovy Vary, while his 2018 adaptation of Stanislaw Lem’s sci-fi novel His Master’s Voice premiered at Tokyo.
Contact: Lucky Number 

Steve (Ire-UK)

Dir. Tim Mielants
Belgium’s Mielants won fans with his dark campsite comedy Patrick (2019), and enhanced his rep with 2024 Berlinale-launched Small Things Like These, starring Cillian Murphy. He teams with the actor again in Platform opener Steve, adapted by Max Porter from his 2023 novel Shy. Murphy stars in the 1996-set drama as the titular head of a residential school for troubled teenage boys, with 2024 Screen Star of Tomorrow Jay Lycurgo as Shy, and a cast also including Tracey Ullman and Little Simz. Murphy and Alan Maloney produce for their Big Things Films, with backing from Netflix, which streams worldwide.
Contact: Netflix

To The Victory! (Ukr-Lith)

Dir. Valentyn Vasyanovych
Filmmaker Vasyanovych returns to the topic of Ukrainian conflict following Atlantis, which won best film in Venice Horizons and played at TIFF in 2019, and Reflection, which played in Venice Competition in 2021. Set in Ukraine’s post-war future, it stars Vasyanovych as a man who feels helpless in his homeland while his wife and daughter are living in Vienna, and his dream of being a filmmaker never worked out. Ukraine’s ForeFilms and Arsenal Films and Lithuania’s M-Films produce with funding from the Ukrainian Film Academy and a Netflix grant.
Contact: Best Friend Forever 

Winter Of The Crow (Pol-Lux-UK)

Dir. Kasia Adamik
Poland-born Adamik began her career as a storyboard artist (including on films directed by her mother Agnieszka Holland), and has since gone on to a busy film and TV directing career since she played Sundance with her 2002 feature debut Bark!. Her latest is based on an Olga Tokarczuk short story, and stars Lesley Manville as a British academic targeted by secret police in 1981 Warsaw after witnessing a student’s murder. Tom Burke also stars, and backers include Polish Film Institute, Film Fund Luxembourg and the UK’s Global Screen Fund.
Contact: HanWay Films 

The World Of Love (S Kor)

Dir. Yoon Ga-eun
The first film from South Korea ever to be selected for TIFF Platform centres on an enigmatic 17-year-old student who causes a scene in a fit of anger, leading cracks to form in her previously peaceful life. It marks the third feature by director Yoon after 2016 Berlinale premiere The World Of Us and The House Of Us, which played the 2019 BFI London Film Festival. The cast is led by Seo Su-bin in her screen debut alongside Chang Hyae-jin of Parasite and Ko Min-si from Decision To Leave. It is produced by Semosi and Vol Media.
Contact: Barunson E&A intl@barunsonena.com

Midnight Madness

Dust Bunny_Dir Bryan Fuller Lionsgate

Source: Lionsgate

‘Dust Bunny’

Dead Lover (Can)

Dir. Grace Glowicki
Canadian actress and filmmaker Glowicki earns the closing slot at Midnight Madness with Dead Lover, her second feature following 2019 SXSW entry Tito. She stars as a lonely gravedigger who finally meets her dream man (Ben Petrie, who also co-writes), and then goes to morbid lengths to resurrect him after he drowns at sea. Glowicki, Petrie and Yona Strauss produce for their own Toronto-based Featured Creatures.
Contact: Yellow Veil Pictures 

Dust Bunny (US)

Dir. Bryan Fuller
A TV screenwriter who began his career with various Star Trek series and went on to co-create Star Trek: Discovery, Fuller also created ABC’s Pushing Daisies and was showrunner for NBC’s Hannibal. He makes his feature directing debut with the tale of an eight-year-old girl who asks her neighbour for help in killing the monster under her bed she thinks ate her family. Hannibal’s Mads Mikkelsen, Sigourney Weaver and David Dastmalchian star, and Thunder Road Pictures’ Basil Iwanyk and Erica Lee produce the Hungary-shot film alongside Fuller and Entertainment One.
Contact: Lionsgate 

Fuck My Son! (US)

Dir. Todd Rohal
Rohal’s debut feature The Guatemalan Handshake won a jury special award at Slamdance in 2006, and his follow-up The Catechism Cataclysm launched at Sundance in 2011. This fifth feature from Rohal — described by him as “disgusting and fun and shocking” — is adapted from the Johnny Ryan comic book of the same name, and sees an elderly mother going to lengths to persuade a stranger to provide intimacy to her sex-starved son.
Contact: Tommy Lucente, Professional Motion Picture 

The Furious (HK)

Dir. Kenji Tanigaki
This action thriller follows a martial artist who, along with a journalist, confronts corrupt police and child traffickers in a bid to rescue his kidnapped daughter. The pan-Asian cast includes Joe Taslim, Xie Miao, Brian Le, Joey Iwanaga and Yayan Ruhian. Director Tanigaki is an acclaimed Hong Kong-based Japanese action choreographer who has worked on Twilight Of The Warriors: Walled In. As a director, his credits include 2020’s Enter The Fat Dragon. Edko Films’ Bill Kong serves as a producer.
Contact: Pip Ngo, XYZ Films 

Junk World (Japan)

Dir. Takahide Hori
This stop-motion animation is the second in Hori’s Junk trilogy, which began with 2017’s Junk Head, animated almost entirely by the director over a period of seven years. Junk World (released in Japanese cinemas by Aniplex in June) takes place a millennium before the first instalment and features humans, mutants and robots. It was produced by a small team at Hori’s studio Yamiken.
Contact: Toshiro Fujiwara, Aniplex Inc 

Karmadonna (UK-Ser)

Dir. Aleksandar Radivojevic
The perils of imminent motherhood form the basis of Serbian filmmaker Radivojevic’s feature debut, a violent thriller starring Jelena Djokic as a pregnant woman who receives an order from a mysterious deity to kill a list of strangers. Radivojevic was one of the writers on the 2008 allegory Tears For Sale, which screened at TIFF, and also worked on the screenplay for the notorious 2010 exploitation film A Serbian Tale. He is also a writer on the forthcoming A Serbian Documentary, which looks back at that controversial picture.
Contact: Jim Davies, Bad Tattoo 

The Napa Boys (US)

Dir. Nick Corirossi
Described as a combination of American Pie, The Lord Of The Rings and Wet Hot American Summer, Corirossi’s second feature stars Armen Weitzman, Mike Mitchell and the director as members of the titular wine-­connoisseur club, who are in pursuit of good times and great grapes. A prolific maker of comedy shorts, Corirossi directed 2019’s Deep Murder, a dark serial-killer comedy set in the world of softcore porn. The Napa Boys is produced by Sunset Rose Pictures, which also oversaw irreverent cult TV series The Eric Andre Show.
Contact: CAA Media Finance (US); Sunset Rose Pictures (international)

Nirvanna The Band The Show The Movie (Can)

Dir. Matt Johnson
After co-creating mockumentary-­sitcom web series Nirvanna The Band The Show (2007-9) with fellow actor/filmmaker Jay McCarrol, and reviving it as a 2016-18 TV series Johnson found success as a filmmaker, most recently with 2023 corporate-­biographical tale BlackBerry. Co-written with and co-starring McCarrol, the new film — which Neon will release in the US — sees the pair attempt to land a show at Toronto’s Rivoli club, also travelling back to the year 2008.
Contact: Zapruder Films 

Normal (US-Can)

Dir. Ben Wheatley
One of two new Wheatley films (his Bulk just launched at Edinburgh), Normal stars Bob Odenkirk as a sheriff assigned to the titular town, where he uncovers a criminal underground. It’s scripted by Derek Kolstad (creator of the John Wick franchise), and based on a story Kolstad co-­devised with Odenkirk. Lena Headey and Henry Winkler also star. Wheatley was last at TIFF with 2016’s Free Fire.
Contact: WME Independent

Obsession (US)

Dir. Curry Barker
Filmmaker and sketch comedian Barker lands at TIFF with his debut feature, following last year’s 62-­minute YouTube hit Milk & Serial, and earlier shorts such as The Chair (which has a feature version in development). Barker now presents the tale of a hopeless romantic with a deep crush, who triggers a dark enchantment. Cast includes Inde Navarrette, Michael Johnston, Cooper Tomlinson and Megan Lawless. Capstone Pictures backed the $1m production.
Contact: Capstone Global

TIFF profiles by Charles Gant, Tim Grierson, Nadiya Jackson, Rebecca Leffler, Lee Marshall, Tara Nimmoneser, Jonathan Romney, Michael Rosser, Mona Tabbara, Silvia Wong

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