The Strange Vibe — and Unexpected Pleasures — of TIFF 2026

Having spent a couple of days at the Toronto International Film Festival this year, a common phrase I’ve heard is that “the vibe of the festival feels different.” There’s certainly more business hubbub surrounding this year’s edition, if you know where to look. (TIFF launched a film marketplace this year, like the Marché du Film at Cannes every year, but that event mostly takes place away from the public screening venues.) The 10-ish-minute pre-reel that often riles up the crowd before screenings feels more corporate than ever, and, as I mentioned in my previous piece, the lineup itself isn’t full of heavy-hitters like we’ve come to expect from fall film festivals.

I agree that the vibe isn’t the same this year, but I’ve long abandoned the idea that the lineup is causing that. In fact, so far, I’ve enjoyed more of the films I’ve watched than the opposite way around, which is a surprisingly rare feat for me at film festivals. It’s been lovely traveling the world through TIFF and experiencing the rewarding feeling of a film living up to your hopes for it (especially when, as is the case with the festival’s smaller films, all you know about the film is the cover image and the brief synopsis on TIFF’s website).

Where the River Begins is the type of film that makes festival-going so special: A true discovery of a filmmaker and with a unique story that’s captivating, immersive, and unforgettable. Relatively unknown director Juan Andrés Arango Garcia’s film opens in Bogotá, where Indigenous mother Yajaira (Girleza Duave Cerezo) chooses to leave the city with her young daughter after a violent shootout kills someone close to her. Hoping to return to their village in the middle of the rainforest, they’re joined by a teenage gang member also fleeing the city. The film is quiet yet gripping, with slow, deliberate pacing and smartly deployed narrative twists that continuously undercut your expectations. The film’s spiritual undercurrent—based on the idea that nature (and specifically the vast, almost endless expanse of the rainforest) judges your character and decides your fate—is a strong, nuanced perspective that works perfectly within the story’s context.

Bitter Christmas, the latest film from Pedro Almodóvar, is technically well-balanced: It almost-perfectly balances the best qualities of the Spanish auteur with the worst. The film is a nauseatingly meta look at an aging filmmaker’s failure to separate reality from fiction, exploiting his relationships with others to craft his screenplays. While the last thirty minutes are excellent, capturing the rapid-fire, dynamic conversation that makes Almodóvar’s best works so watchable, the rest of the film is incoherent, drab, and lacking in substance and energy. It’s horrifying to think that a director as iconic and original as Almodóvar could be phoning it in, but that’s certainly what it feels like.

On paper, Québécois film L’AUTRE by Alexandre Franchi would make a decent (but not great) 15-minute short. It’s a one-room thriller, following an author bedridden in the hospital after getting knee surgery. When the over-capacity hospital wheels a comatose patient in to share his room, our main character begins to suffer from debilitating delusions that his new roommate is faking his coma. Despite some well-done (and nausea-inducing) visuals, the film’s story is fairly one-note, and its narrative quickly becomes stale once the concept has been exhausted early in its runtime. Without spoiling too much, there’s also an added racial element to the narrative that feels off-putting, under-addressed (if addressed at all), and completely unnecessary.

For years, Carol Nguyen has explored the nuances of Southeast Asian familial identity through short films centered on her own family’s experiences. In her confident, assured, and well-shot feature debut, Still Night, Burning House, she addresses the death of her uncle who suffered from schizophrenia and was misunderstood by his family before eventually taking his own life. The documentary often feels more adjacent to a visual poem or essay, as Nguyen constantly oscillates between different filmmaking modes to tell this narrative, address the shortcomings of how her family handled his mental health issues in the moment, and honor his legacy. It’s also one of the best-shot documentaries I’ve seen in a while. Nguyen’s camera is patient and unhurried, expertly capturing the complex emotions her family members wear when talking about and reminiscing on her uncle’s life and condition.

Any TIFF isn’t complete without a crowd-pleaser and a hyped-up crowd ready to please, and this year, I had a feeling Canadian hockey film Smudge the Blades would check this box (spoiler alert: it did). Directed by Indigenous actor and filmmaker Cody Lightning, the film tells the stereotypical high-school underdog sports story through the lens of an Indigenous team playing in Northern Alberta. While it’s rousing and the sports sequences are well-shot and entertaining, the story itself often bites off more than it can chew, sacrificing deeper character explorations for cheap jokes and easy laughs. The performances and chemistry between the hockey players make the film worth watching; by the final act, you can’t help joining the audience in cheering.

As an avid surfer, I really wanted to love Phuong-Mai Nguyen’s In Waves, a beautifully animated love story between AJ and Kristen (voiced by Will Sharpe and Stephanie Hsu, in the English dub that screened), two high schoolers connected by their relationship to the sport and the ocean waves. Their connection’s rosy beginning is quickly put to the test when one of them develops bone cancer. Expectedly, the film packs a heavy emotional punch; we barely spend any time with the characters before their world falls apart. The film’s quick pacing works against it, as the lack of character development ultimately makes their dynamic and passion for the sport feel forced and unbelievable (especially since Kristen’s character echoes so many elements of the “manic pixie dream girl” cliché in the film’s opening act). The animation is stunning, and the film still packs an emotional punch, but it’s punching below its weight.