EXCLUSIVE: A producorial role for Lulu Wang and a script co-written by Oscar-nominated Lily Gladstone are on the roster at the 20th edition of Ontario Creates’ International Financing Forum (IFF, September 7-8) running in partnership with TIFF.
Forty feature producing teams will participate at IFF, the co-financing and co-production market that brings producers together with sales agents, distributors and executives to find potential partners. This year’s pool brings new work from around Canada, the UK, US, Australia, France, Greece, and Iceland, among other countries.
Twenty Canadian projects include Hannah Cheesman’s romantic comedy Succor, an adaptation of her 2015 TIFF short of the same name, from Ontario producer Mike MacMillan of Lithium Studios Productions. Wang, who directed The Farewell and Expats miniseries, is a co-producer alongside Jen Goyne Blake.
Montreal-set crime drama Knight hails from Quebec producers Michael Solomon of Band With Pictures, whose The Things You Kill premiered this year at Sundance, and Laurent Allaire of Chasseurs Films. Carlos and Jason Sanchez are on board to direct.
Ontario producers Tamara Dawit and Ashu Kermsa of Gobez Media bring road trip drama The Last Tears Of The Deceased, to be directed by Beza Hailu Lemma, whose short Alazar screened in 2024 Cannes Critics’ Week. France’s Cigognes Films and Germany’s Die Gesellschaft are co-producers.
British Columbia-based Kind Stranger Productions producer and Berlinale Talents alumna Rebecca Steele, who was a producer on Anthony Shim’s 2022 TIFF Platform Prize winner Riceboy Sleeps, arrives with the New York-set romantic comedy drama Dogging In Central Park, to be directed by British-Canadian writer-director Joseph Carney.
IFF’s 20 international projects include Indigenous drama Buffalo Stone from US producers Laura Wagner and Ivan MacDonald of Bay Bridge Productions, to be directed by Daniel Glick and Ivy MacDonald from a screenplay by the “Buffalo Cousins” Sarah Clarke, Oscar-nominated Killers Of The Flower Moon lead actress Lily Gladstone, Glick, and Ivy MacDonald.
UK producers Pablo Gutierrez De Lario and Elena Conte of Groucho Arts have the comedy drama Life And Flowers And Other Things to star Jon Gries from The White Lotus and Anna Castillo, with Pelayo De Lario lined up to direct; and Australian producers Gal Greenspan and Celyren Leckie of Sweetshop & Green, the company behind 2017 Cannes ACID selection Scaffolding, will present Please Don’t Go, a dramedy about multiple sclerosis to be directed by Madeleine Dyer.
Click here for the full selection of IFF 2025 producers and projects selected by a jury.
This year’s edition of IFF includes in-person one-on-one producer and executive meetings, an exclusive industry panel discussion with executives about the international film sales landscape, and networking opportunities for participants.
Some 170 projects introduced at IFF have secured financing and been produced, among them upcoming 2025 TIFF premiere Blood Lines, and, from prior years, 40 Acres, Alice Darling, The Swearing Jar and Maudie. Projects from other previous participants are in the late stages of development.
IFF founding partners are Telefilm Canada, the UK’s Department for Business and Trade, Canadian Media Producers Association, Creative BC, SODEC, and Manitoba Film & Music.
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