TIFF: The Market has brought government agency Ontario Creates’ highly regarded and long-running International Financing Forum under its official umbrella, with 51 projects taking part.
Against The Wind (UK)
Director Rachel Ramsay (pictured)
Producers Adele Reeves, Rachel Ramsay, Natalie Humphreys
Production company Effra Productions
UK filmmaker Ramsay was previously at TIFF with female football documentary Copa 71, which she co-directed with James Erskine and opened the TIFF Docs section in 2023. She is heading to the TIFF market with another sport-focused documentary, following endurance cyclist Juliana Buhring. Born in Greece and raised in the Children of God cult, Buhring went on to set the first Guinness world record as the fastest woman to cycle around the world in 2012.
Against The Wind is at an advanced stage of development with a budget of $1.1m (£800,000). “We have ambitions for it as a theatrical doc, because of the scale of what we can put on the screen,” says Ramsay. “We’ve got a lot of archive from her 2012 ride, and we also want to be taking the audience into the point of view of a cyclist.”
Ramsay co-founded Effra Productions with Reeves last year, with Humphreys recently boarding the film as a third producer. Ramsay says they are open to finding another co-producer at the market and want to meet financiers and sales agents.
Contact: Rachel Ramsay, Effra Productions
Apeman (US)
Director Michael Basha (pictured)
Producer Lucas Ford
Production companies Ford Films, in association with Youngblood Pictures
Basha’s follow-up to his 2019 crime drama Samir focuses on a care home employee in love with a paramedic who creates ‘emergencies’ to capture her attention. Producer Ford — who brought Backrooms to Shawn Levy’s 21 Laps — and executive producers Zach Baylin and Kate Susman of Youngblood Pictures have attached Willa Fitzgerald from JT Mollner’s 2023 Fantastic Fest selection Strange Darling and Chace Crawford from Prime Video series The Boys.
The project is partially financed and Ford is looking to engage with more finance partners, distributors, sales agents and production service companies. The goal is to shoot in Ontario in 2027.
Basha says: “Apeman is a film that seeks to reintroduce the danger, the unpredictability and passion required to find oneself in love.”
Contact: Lucas Ford, Ford Films
Argus Inside (Taiwan)
Producer David Kao
Writer/executive producer Cheng Hsin-mei (pictured)
Production company Ina Taiwan Film Production
This $15m geopolitical sci-fi thriller follows a Taiwanese tech tycoon who, in order to save his braindead daughter, smuggles advanced semi-conductors across borders — but inadvertently turns her into an instrument of warfare. It is scripted by Cheng, a former journalist and Golden Bell award-winning screenwriter for 2015 series The Best Of Youth. She was also the writer and producer of 2025 series Zero Day Attack.
Producer Kao is seeking a director for the project. “We are aiming to attach top-tier international talent, specifically exploring Hollywood and Korean actors for our leading cast,” he says. “The financing is actively underway. We have received strong investment interest from prominent figures in the tech industry.”
Contact: Ina Taiwan Film Production
Black Snake (Zimbabwe)
Director Naishe Nyamubaya (pictured)
Producer Sue-Ellen Chitunya
Production company 263 Reels
When a family move into a new home in the mountainous eastern highlands of Zimbabwe, they decide to keep their true identity a secret because they were banished from their previous village. However, when a mysterious tree suddenly appears in the village, their new life unravels and they are forced to face their true cultural identity.
Director Nyamubaya notes that global audiences are often not familiar with his home country of Zimbabwe in southeast Africa. Keeping this in mind, his first full-length film will be “deeply Zimbabwean”, with a focus on its people, language and reality. “It’s a film about identity, home and belonging, he says.
Nyamubaya’s short films have screened at festivals including Rotterdam, London and Sydney, and he is an alumnus of development programmes including Sundance, Locarno Open Doors, Cannes Cinéfondation’s L’Atelier and TIFF Filmmaker Lab.
Producer Chitunya says she is in Toronto looking for strategic partners for collaboration, such as financing, angel investors, impact producers, sales agents and distributors.
Contact: Sue-Ellen Chitunya, 263 Reels
A Brief History Of Silence (US)
Director Stephen Francis Winter (pictured)
Producers Brian Montopoli, Nadean Rawlins
Production company Not Drowning Productions
Production has begun in Jamaica, Toronto, Portugal and New York on the documentary about Booker Prize-winning Jamaican author Marlon James as he seeks reconciliation with a family and nation that would not accept his queer identity. The project began as a conversation between producer Montopoli and James while the former was researching James’s new book The Disappearers.
Montopoli and Rawlins are looking for additional financing, distribution and possibly co-production partners. Winter, known for directing 2015’s Jason And Shirley and 1997 Berlinale selection Chocolate Babies, says: “Marlon’s remarkable journey, informed by both trauma and beauty, reflects my own reckoning with Jamaica and to become my authentic self. This film is Marlon’s return home. It is also my own.”
Contact: Brian Montopoli, Not Drowning Productions
Central Park Tale (US)
Director Daniel Jeannette (pictured)
Producers Jacqui Barcos, John Fragomeni
Production company A Higher Standard
Animation and VFX veteran Jeannette makes his feature directing debut on the animated reimagining of Romeo And Juliet set against the backdrop of a squirrel turf battle in New York City’s Central Park. Keke Palmer and Common are among the voice cast, and multiple Academy Award nominee Diane Warren and Common are composing the music to the project, which features Step Up-style dance battles.
Producers Barcos and VFX veteran Fragomeni are looking for investors, co-production partners, distributors and branded content partners. A Higher Standard is the main production company and handles sales, while Mikros and Freewillusion are the animation studios.
“I was drawn to Central Park Tale because it’s a fresh and compelling story — and its visual language is unique and bursting with energy,” says Jeannette, who was animation supervisor on Where The Wild Things Are, Van Helsing and The Mummy Returns.
Contact: Jacqui Barcos
The Charcoal Swordmaster (Braz)
Director Vini Wolf (pictured)
Producers Cid Makino, Jonas Brandao, Guille Hierz
Production company Split Studio
On alien planet Adapak, a demigod warrior raised in isolation is forced to leave home after his father is murdered. He must learn to forge bonds with other beings, trusting the people he had considered a threat.
Brazilian filmmaker Wolf is using his feature animation debut to challenge ideas about what it means to be a hero. “The hero archetypes fail to engage with the current state of affairs — a world of uncertainty and nuance without simple solutions like winning a battle,” he says.
The Charcoal Swordmaster follows Wolf’s work as art director on the animated film Tito And The Birds, a Split Studio production that screened at Annecy and TIFF in 2018. With partial funding secured in Brazil ($487,000 of the total $1.2m budget), the producers are seeking further financing partners and strategic alliances abroad.
“Partnerships can offer not only additional resources but also bring new expertise, creative perspectives and insights into different markets and audiences,” says Makino.
Contact: Split Studio
Do Not Wake (Australia)
Director Steven Arriagada (pictured)
Producers Bobby Romia, Tianna Roberts, Braiden Asciak, Danielle White
Production companies Cineaxiom Studios, Atypical Originals, Luna Films
“Do Not Wake, much like my short film Headphones, is a horror sci-fi rollercoaster with heart set in the multicultural working-class suburbs of Melbourne, where I grew up,” says director Arriagada. “It’s the story behind the limitations of time and the protection of love at all costs.”
Studiocanal Australia has provided a letter of interest for local rights, and rising actor Carlos Sanson Jr from Berlinale and TIFF award winner Sweet As and Australian comedy drama series Bump is attached.
Arriagada is penning the script with his Headphones co-writer Stefan Delatovic. Having co-written another feature script for Toni Collette, Arriagada is also working with her regular partners New Sparta. Screen Australia has supported the project, which is in advanced development and seeks further financial, international marketplace and co-production opportunities.
Contact: Bobby Romia, Atypical Originals
The Frogman (New Zealand)
Director Matthew J Saville (pictured)
Producer Angela Littlejohn
Production company Angela Littlejohn Films
Saville’s wacky and intriguing short Dive, which screened at Telluride and other festivals in 2014 and 2015, is the proof of concept for his second feature, a buddy romance with sci-fi and comedic elements. His 2021 debut feature Juniper starred Charlotte Rampling and sold well internationally.
In The Frogman, George’s reflection turns its back on him following a devastating breakup. This action is inspired by a René Magritte surrealist painting that depicts similar themes.
“Now George must descend into the dark waters of his own soul, navigating memory and madness, actions and consequences, in the hope of reconciling with his estranged doppelgänger,” explains Saville.
The priority at TIFF is to secure a co-production partner. Casting is front of mind, and Saville sees the advantage of shooting exteriors in a city larger than what New Zealand has to offer.
Contact: Angela Littlejohn, Angela Littlejohn Films
If Only Tonight We Could Sleep (US-Pol-Den-Gre-Swe)
Director Erin Vassilopoulos (pictured)
Producers Julia Jendrysik, Brad Zimmerman
Production company Rizz Films
Greek American writer/director Vassilopoulos has a track record making personal, genre-bending films. Their directorial debut Superior premiered in Sundance’s US Dramatic Competition in 2021, and its follow-up Destroy All Girls premiered this year in Locarno’s Cinema of the Present competition.
TIFF marks the first market for Vassilopoulos’s latest project. Set in 1962, the $3.3m budgeted feature is about Margaret, a long-suffering insomniac who discovers a mysterious mountain sanatorium in Sweden that offers an unconventional cure. Once there she is drawn to a former nurse who awakens feelings that Margaret has long repressed.
According to Vassilopoulos, the film will combine the striking setting of a surreal mid-century mountain hotel with LGBTQ+ themes.
Producer Zimmerman says the team is primarily looking for equity and international sales at TIFF on the multi-territory co-production, which has partners attached including Poland’s Rizz and Greece’s Heretic.
Contact: Brad Zimmerman, Yoki
Mimesis (Australia)
Director Hannah Hilliard (pictured)
Producers Bethany Bruce, Kristian Moliere
Production companies Ondine Pictures, Triptych Pictures
Hilliard’s debut feature is a character-driven sci-fi that taps into fears around AI. Olivia DeJonge (Elvis, TV series The Narrow Road To The Deep North) is attached to star as a gifted AI scientist, whose younger sister dies mysteriously and is resurrected through experiments conducted on them by their mother. The virtual replacement, to be played by an actor, pushes past the programming to become disturbingly human.
The developing space of grief technology and the loss of several loved ones in quick succession, including her mother, have influenced Hilliard. The filmmaker won a Berlinale Crystal Bear in 2010 for short film Franswa Sharl. She is co-writing Mimesis with Ian Shadwell, and is supported by Australian screen agencies. Producer Moliere’s credits include The Babadook. All the usual partners are being sought.
Contact: Bethany Bruce, Ondine Pictures
The Mount (Ireland)
Director Brian Durnin (pictured)
Producer Laura McNicholas
Production company 925 Productions
Irish filmmaker Durnin is following his feature debut, 2025 Glasgow audience award winner Spilt Milk, with Halloween comedy The Mount. The project, in development with Screen Ireland, explores a dysfunctional US family who inherit a castle in Ireland, much to the dismay of the locals who believe it belongs to the community; they plot to scare away the new owners. The project is Fiona Tuohy’s feature debut script.
Durnin teams up with his Split Milk producer McNicholas. “Tonally, it’s similar to [Apple TV horror comedy series] Widow’s Bay,” says McNicholas, who adds that the project — budgeted at $6m-$7m (€5m-€6m) — intends to explore colonialism within a comedic context.
“Halloween was invented in Ireland, so we dig into that.”
She is looking to set it up as an Ireland-Canada co-production and is having conversations with Canadian producers at the market. She will also take meetings with European and US sales agents, with a focus on landing an early US pre-sale.
Contact: Laura McNicholas, 925 Productions
Profiles by: Tim Dams, Sandy George, Elaine Guerini, Jeremy Kay, Mona Tabbara & Silvia Wong
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