Toronto Looks to International for Growth

The Toronto International Film Festival will be placing an ever larger emphasis on the international in its name. 

Outlined to Variety by Toronto chief programming officer Anita Lee, the move comes in response to the emergence of younger audiences driving the post-pandemic box office rebound, reshaping audience tastes in both U.S. independent cinemagoing and at film festivals. 

“Our festival audiences have become younger, and younger audiences are coming out for the non-English international arthouse films,” Lee told Variety, adding it was Toronto’s “biggest growth and shift” in audience attendance.

Drivers for this evolution abound, Lee said, such as the fact that audiences are consuming more international content. In the last few years, a new breed of “crossover or slightly more accessible international arthouse films” has emerged, she added, citing Ruben Östlund’s “Triangle of Sadness.” “That’s on the rise. There’s more industry attention to films which could work in this way,” she added.

One big question for Lee is: “What can we do to better support, position and raise awareness of international and especially non-English films at the festival?

Toronto is already taking initial steps in its push for international films.

This year, nine of the 10 titles in Toronto’s Platform, a showcase for envelope-pushing mid-career filmmakers, are international and seven non-English language, some mixing foreign languages from the Ukrainian and Russian of “Viktor” to the French and Korean, such as in “Winter in Sokcho.” 

Platform’s directors will be “promoted in a bigger way than in the past,” said Lee. “We have some new ideas that we will also be introducing in the future for the Platform. That is very much part of our elevating and positioning international films and filmmakers.” 

Five of the 10 titles in Toronto’s 2024 Industry Selects Showcase are from outside North America, including Teemu Nikki’s “100 Litres of Gold” from buoyant Finnish shingle “It’s Alive Films,” and awaited “Rich Flu” from Galder Gaztelu-Urrutia, director of Netflix megahit Toronto pick-up “The Platform.”

TIFF’s In Conversation With… series of talks features South Korean superstars Hyun Bin (“Crash Landing on You”) and Lee Dong-wook (“Tale of the Nine-Tailed”).

In 2023, Toronto began supporting greater promotion of films from Africa, and including a panel on the continent’s films, which will be repeated this year. Southeast Asia is also coming in for a larger focus. “We are really seeing young new voices coming up from Southeast Asia,” said Lee. Last year, TIFF appointed a programmer for the region. This year it will host its first Southeast Asian cinema panel.

One reason for inaugurating an official market in 2026 is to attract more international distributors who are already interested in attending Toronto as “the gateway to North America,” she said. “With an official market, international companies can come to TIFF and more effectively do business on their whole slate versus just films that they have in Official Selection.”