The Toronto International Film Festival returns from September 10 to 20 for its 51st edition, with films connected to the Middle East and North Africa appearing across Centrepiece, Platform, Gala Presentations, Discovery, TIFF Docs, Short Cuts and Wavelengths.
Palestine and Iran account for much of this year’s regional presence. The programme also includes films set in Lebanon, Türkiye, Iraq and Morocco, alongside stories following migration routes through Yemen, Libya and the Mediterranean.
Director: Muayad Alayan
Countries: Palestine, Netherlands, Saudi Arabia, Qatar
Section: Centrepiece
Premiere: North American Premiere
Running time: 112 min
“In Jerusalem, Kamal, a 60-year-old Palestinian man, is ordered by an Israeli court to pay a large social security debt.”
The debt belongs to Kamal’s son Wael, who was believed to have drowned in the Red Sea decades earlier. With no official death record, Kamal begins looking again for what happened to him. Muayad Alayan wrote the film with Rami Alayan. Conversation With The Sea will have its world premiere in Venezia Spotlight before travelling to Toronto, while MAD World is handling international sales.
Director: Hosam Abu Dan
Country: Palestine
Section: Centrepiece
Premiere: World Premiere
Running time: 77 min
“A father and his teenage daughter navigating everyday life in a refugee camp in the Gaza Strip.”
The film marks the narrative feature debut of Palestinian filmmaker and editor Hosam Abu Dan. Rather than giving the Gaza story a broad political frame, the available description keeps its attention on the everyday relationship between the father and daughter.
Director: Maiken Baird
Country: United States
Section: TIFF Docs
Premiere: World Premiere
Running time: 107 min
“The life and legacy of Palestinian scholar Edward Said through archival footage and his own words.”
Maiken Baird was given access to the Said family and estate archives for the documentary, which follows Edward Said from his childhood in Jerusalem through exile, academic life, music, writing and his engagement with Palestine.
Director: Sabrine Khoury
Countries: Netherlands, Palestine
Section: Short Cuts
Premiere: World Premiere
Running time: 17 min
“During her parents’ visit, a new Palestinian mother living in Amsterdam struggles to connect with her newborn.”
Written and directed by Sabrine Khoury, the Palestinian Arabic-language short takes place during a family visit, where the difficulties of early motherhood meet the expectations and care of the new mother’s parents.
Director: Yuula Benivolski
Country: Canada
Section: Wavelengths
Premiere: World Premiere
Running time: 90 min
“A multimodal, autobiographical essay film that deploys both personal memory and incomplete archives.”
Yuula Benivolski uses that personal archive to return to al-Bassa, a Palestinian village near the Lebanese border connected to her family history and the displacement of 1948. The film is Yuula Benivolski’s feature debut and will premiere in Wavelengths.
Iran has one of the widest spreads across the TIFF programme this year, with films in Discovery, TIFF Docs, Centrepiece, Short Cuts and Wavelengths.
Director: Ghasideh Golmakani
Countries: Iran, Germany
Section: Discovery
Premiere: World Premiere
Running time: 80 min
“A female director forces male actors to wear skirts and headscarves.”
The reversal sits at the centre of Ghasideh Golmakani’s first feature, an absurd political satire set in contemporary Iran. Head to Head will have its world premiere in Discovery.
Director: Afsaneh Salari
Countries: France, Iran, Sweden
Section: TIFF Docs
Premiere: World Premiere
Running time: 84 min
“Afsaneh Salari embeds herself in the offices of Iranian plastic surgeons to interview their clients with humour and empathy.”
The documentary stays close to patients and doctors inside Tehran’s cosmetic surgery clinics. For Afsaneh Salari, those conversations offer a way into the expectations and anxieties surrounding appearance and the body in contemporary Tehran.
Director: Pegah Ahangarani
Countries: Czech Republic, Spain
Section: Centrepiece
Premiere: Canadian Premiere
Running time: 98 min
“Through five portraits of relatives and mentors, five expressions of resistance, Pegah Ahangarani sketches her life story.”
Pegah Ahangarani combines personal archives, home videos, street footage, newspapers and recorded voices to move through more than four decades of Iranian history. The film premiered at Cannes earlier this year and received the L’Oeil d’Or for documentary.
Director: Maryam Tafakory
Countries: Iran, United Kingdom, France
Section: Wavelengths
Premiere: World Premiere
Running time: 20 min
“An essay film that recounts the 1976 boycott of the Shiraz Art Festival.”
Maryam Tafakory brings the history of the Shiraz Arts Festival into a 20-minute essay film connecting personal, national and international histories. Ghazal-e Sorkh will screen in Wavelengths 2: This Suffocating Now.
Director: Parastoo Anoushahpour
Countries: Iran, Canada
Section: Wavelengths
Premiere: World Premiere
Running time: 48 min
“Shot over a decade in multiple Kurdish-majority villages on the border of Iran and Turkmenistan.”
Parastoo Anoushahpour works with a collection of wedding embroideries through workshops with local children. The film connects the objects with the villages and people around them, and will have its world premiere in Wavelengths.
Director: Omid Abdollahi
Country: Iran
Section: Short Cuts
Premiere: North American Premiere
Running time: 18 min
“A young woman gets the chance to have a conjugal meeting with her imprisoned husband after a long time.”
Omid Abdollahi sets the encounter inside the severe environment of a prison, where the woman tries to recover something of the romantic relationship she once shared with her husband. Behdokht Valian leads the 18-minute Persian-language film.
Director: Ashley Duong
Country: Canada
Section: TIFF Docs
Premiere: World Premiere
“A father writes a memoir ... about his harrowing experiences of the Vietnam War and the Iranian Revolution.”
Ba’s Book is primarily a Vietnamese Canadian family documentary, but the Iranian Revolution forms a direct part of the history Ashley Duong is working through. Ashley Duong responds to her father’s memoir by filming participatory recreations with members of her family.
Director: Rami Kodeih
Countries: Lebanon, Brazil
Section: Centrepiece
Premiere: North American Premiere
Running time: 134 min
“The banks freeze millions of depositors out of their own life savings.”
Rami Kodeih turns Lebanon’s banking crisis into a heist story. Sisters Maro and Dalia decide to recover their own money from the bank when they need it for urgent medical treatment. Rami Kodeih co-wrote the film with Nora Mariana Salim, and Furies will premiere in Venezia Spotlight before Toronto.
Director: Bahman Ghobadi
Country: Türkiye
Section: Centrepiece
Premiere: World Premiere
Running time: 112 min
“Darya, a writer obsessed with the spiritual resonance of trees, returns to her hometown of Mardin with her deaf daughter.”
Past memories of twin sisters begin to trouble Darya after the return home. TIFF lists Trees Are Watching as a Turkish production in Kurdish, Turkish and English. Bahman Ghobadi will present the film’s world premiere in Centrepiece.
Director: Ferit Karahan
Country: Türkiye
Section: Platform
Premiere: World Premiere
Running time: 132 min
“Four estranged siblings reunite in their remote Anatolian village for their sister’s wedding.”
The reunion brings old memories and family tensions back into the present. Ferit Karahan follows the siblings across different stages of their lives, building the film around a family history spanning three generations. Djinn Wedding will compete in TIFF’s Platform section.
Director: Reed Van Dyk
Country: United States
Section: Gala Presentations
Premiere: North American Premiere
Running time: 118 min
“A troubled marine seeks to reconcile with the survivors of an Iraqi family he and his unit fired on back in 2003.”
Reed Van Dyk’s drama returns to the Iraq War through the Marine’s later attempt to meet Mariam, one of the survivors. The cast includes Hiam Abbass, Boyd Holbrook and Kenneth Branagh. The film premiered in Directors’ Fortnight at Cannes before travelling to Toronto.
Directors: Sameh Alaa, Robin Vouters
Countries: France, Egypt, Belgium
Section: Short Cuts
Premiere: World Premiere
Running time: 13 min
“Alaa and his three siblings prepare to welcome their father who is returning from prison.”
Set in Cairo in the 1960s, the animated short is co-directed by Sameh Alaa and Robin Vouters. The project was previously presented at Annecy’s MIFA, where it received development support, and now reaches TIFF as a completed film.
Director: Yza Nouiga
Country: Canada
Section: Short Cuts
Premiere: World Premiere
Running time: 15 min
Language: Amazigh
“In 1975, in a village in southern Morocco, Meriem braves her modesty and illiteracy to find a way to write to her husband.”
The husband has left for France and Meriem has received no news from him. Yza Nouiga places migration and distance inside a small act of communication, in an Amazigh-language short receiving its world premiere at TIFF.
Director: Avi Nesher
Country: Israel
Section: Centrepiece
Premiere: World Premiere
Running time: 117 min
“About the ways that love intensifies and second chances are possible in the face of adversity and mayhem.”
Avi Nesher sets the ensemble drama around the Hamas-led attacks in southern Israel on October 7, 2023. Five characters’ lives become connected during the events of the day. TIFF will present the film’s world premiere in Centrepiece.
Director: Sine Plambech
Countries: Denmark, Italy, Germany, Sweden, Iceland
Section: TIFF Docs
Premiere: World Premiere
Running time: 90 min
“A Libyan militia intervenes and abducts Roro and the children, dragging them back to Libya.”
Roro is a Yemeni mother travelling across the Mediterranean with her husband Hani and their children. Sine Plambech follows what happens after the family is separated, while also looking at European border policy and the role given to North African authorities along the migration route.
A few other films reach TIFF through filmmakers with roots in the region, although their stories belong elsewhere. May el-Toukhy brings Woman Unknown to Centrepiece after its Venice premiere, but the Danish-Swedish-Latvian production is set in postwar Copenhagen. Palestinian filmmaker Kamal Aljafari presents Masao Adachi Takes a Passport Photo in Wavelengths, a film centred on the Japanese filmmaker and political activist Masao Adachi. Hanaël El Yousfi’s The Daughters of Abraham is also part of Discovery, with its story set in Marseille rather than a MENA country.
The Gulf appears through co-production as well. Saudi Arabia is one of the production countries behind Kamila Andini’s Four Seasons in Java, although the story is Indonesian. Èlia Gasull Balada and Matteo Norzi’s The Hummingbird Paints Fragrant Songs, about Shipibo-Konibo artist Sara Flores in Peru, is a Peru-US-Qatar co-production.
These films sit outside the country sections because their MENA connection comes mainly through a filmmaker, diaspora background or production structure. They still form part of the region’s wider presence at TIFF, particularly as Gulf financing and filmmakers from the region continue to move through increasingly international production networks.
TIFF 2026 Programme & Schedule - Centrepiece - TIFF Docs - Short Cuts - Wavelengths
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