TIFF Announces its 2025 Short Cuts Programme
By Natalia Albin Legorreta
From left to right, top to bottom: Agapito (Arvin Belarmino and Kyla Danelle Romero), A Small Fiction of My Mother in Beijing (Dorothea Sing Zhang), Ambush (Yassmina Karajah), Not Scared, Just Sad (Isabelle Mecattaf), Ali (Adnan Al Rajeev), Jazz Infernal (Will Niava)
The 50th edition of Toronto International Film Festival has released their full Short Cuts slate. This year’s programme features 48 shorts from 28 countries, with around 42% of them being produced in Canada.
The line-up features established titles such as Idris Elba’s Dust to Dreams and Kelly Fyffe-Marshall’s Demons, alongside shorts by a generation of filmmakers whose names are either just breaking through or who are working with experimental narratives in less mainstream media.
Here are some highlights.
Talent from the Global South includes the Phillippine’s Arvin Belarmino and Kyla Danelle Romero presenting Agapito in North America for the first time, Cannes 2025 Special Jury Mention Ali from Adnan Al Rajeev, Colombian María Cristina Pérez González with her oil-on-paper animation Once In A Body, and Sana Zahra Jafri’s Permanent Guest presents a Pakistani perspective on sexual abuse.
Female-focused documentary narratives also come from newer filmmakers such as Dorothea Sing Zhang’s A Small Fiction of My Mother in Beijing and Isabelle Mecattaf’s Not Scared, Just Sad, which follows her family in Beirut during the recent Israeli bombings of the city.
Diaspora storytelling includes Jordanian-Palestinian Yassmina Karajah’s Ambush, Afghan-Canadian Salar Pashtoonyar’s I Fear Blue Skies, and Vietnamese-Canadian Solara Thanh Bình Đặng’s ripe which offer storylines on place and belonging.
Other interesting highlights include Mongolian director Lkhagvadulam Purev-Ochir, fresh from the Locarno Film Festival, with A South Facing Window, Will Niava’s second short film Jazz Infernal, and Palestinian actor Tawfeek Barhom in his directorial debut (and Short Film Palme d'Or winner) I’m Glad You’re Dead Now.
This year, the festival has also added a third prize to be won. Alongside Best International and Best Canadian Short Film, a Best Animated Short Film Award will be given by jurors Marcel Jean, Ashley Iris Gill and Connor Jessup.
View the whole line up here.
