How to find films at TIFF you might never get to see again

A little-known fact about TIFF is that many smaller international films that play at the festival will never again be available to Canadian audiences. I've spent the last 20 years trying to track down 2003's Audience Award Winner, Noviembre, an inventive and passionate Spanish film about a group of actors doing guerilla theatre in Madrid. (I finally found a DVD to import from another region code, but it didn't have English subtitles.) I saw the film at my first TIFF, and I learned quickly that the festival's screenings of foreign films are not to be taken for granted.

Seeing smaller films you wouldn't otherwise have access to is what the festival experience is all about whether at TIFF, VIFF, CIFF, AIFF, or beyond. Because these films often hail from countries whose cinema we don't usually have access to, watching them offers you a tour around the world.

Only at a film festival can you start your day with a Belarusian film, then spend the afternoon in Bhutan and the evening in Senegal. Even if a film from a faraway place doesn't end up being amazing, they still tend to be beautifully shot and drop you into a completely different world.

Having spent much time in Cuba as a kid, I've always been interested in Cuban cinema, which is hard to see in Canada outside of a festival context. I stumbled upon Ernesto Daranas' wonderful film Behaviour, a contemporary slice-of-life drama about people living in Havana, at TIFF 2014; it was so good that I knew I had to see his next film, Sergio and Sergei, when it came to TIFF in 2017. And that was before even reading the amazing plot description: a ham radio enthusiast in Havana unexpectedly befriends the last Russian astronaut stuck on the MIR space station via radio just as the Soviet Union falls.

The film delighted audiences with its lighthearted look at life under a totalitarian regime, and it ended up being one of my top ten films of the 2010s. But neither of Daranas' films found a distributor in Canada, so neither film is available on VOD.

Over the years, I've collected many films and stories like this. Leanne Pooley, a Canadian director working in New Zealand, has premiered numerous boundary-pushing documentaries at TIFF that have never been available to Canadian audiences again. I first discovered her work at TIFF 2013 when she premiered her 3D Edmund Hillary documentary Beyond the Edge; the film is available on VOD now but never screened in 3D in Canada outside of festivals. Meanwhile, her 2015 animated documentary 25 April, about the 1915 Gallipoli campaign, changed how I thought about the line between fiction and reality in documentary (and was an early inspiration for my book Subjective Realities: The Art of Creative Nonfiction Film) but it's still impossible to find in Canada.

Even the films that beat the odds and make it to VOD, like Palestinian filmmaker Maysaloun Hamoud's In Between or French filmmaker Katell Quillvr's Heal the Living (both from 2016), arrive so quietly that if you weren't paying attention to the film's run on the festival circuit and looking for them, you'd never even know they were available.

Where to look for hidden gems at TIFF

The hidden gems in danger of disappearing are unlikely even to be discussed by major press outlets, and they're unlikely ever to win Audience Awards again. So you have to look a little harder and take some chances if you want to reap the rewards.

Most of the films that fall into this category will play in the festival's Centrepiece section, where world cinema from major auteurs that isn't very star-studded tends to land (celebrity vehicles land in Special Presentations and, occasionally, the Gala program), as well as the Discovery section, which is dedicated to first and second features.

This is a little research-intensive, but you'll want to look for films that don't already have a Canadian distributor attached. On the film's page on the TIFF website, click on the "cast and crew" section and scroll through the credits. If it lists a "Canadian distributor," the film should safely be available in Canada at VOD sometime in the next two years; a theatrical release is not guaranteed.

A good rule of thumb is that if a major celebrity is attached, it'll probably get picked up, though it might take years. And films with lots of festival buzz tend to land on their feet (though not always).

How to find quality films

A world premiere isn't always a good sign. If you choose films that other festivals have selected, not only does that mean the film has the stamp of approval of another festival, but it also means there will already be reviews, which you can Google to get a sense of whether it might be a film for you. Try searching X, formerly known as Twitter, for the film title and/or the hashtag for the festival where it premiered (e.g. #Berlinale2023). You can also check out a filmmaker's previous credits to see if they've made something you've liked or heard about and wanted to see.

TIFF's increasing tendency to chase world premieres means they often get films that other festivals reject. They still program plenty of great world premieres like Sergio and Sergei and 25 April but there's no way of knowing until after the film's first screening. There's a lot of trial and error, but if you plan on making festival-going a regular venture, the choices you make this year will help inform even better choices in the future. To better navigate the festival, I recommend looking for writers and outlets whose taste aligns with yours. Among my favourite Canadian publications to find films are Film Freak Central and Cinema Axis. (Throughout the festival, I maintain an updating list of the best films still seeking distribution on Seventh Row, where I'm Editor-in-Chief.)

Ultimately, catching films that interest you matters more than whether a film has critics' seal of approval. Read the program notes on the TIFF website and see if the description of the film piques your interest. There are all kinds of reasons why major publications do or do not cover particular films, so there just might not be reviews of the best films for you, or they may be written by someone who isn't that film's target audience.

If you wait until a world premiere film's first screening at TIFF, you can look for reviews or reactions on X (search the film and the hashtag #TIFF23) and then buy tickets to the second or third screening if they're not sold out yet. Fortunately, the tickets to these under-the-radar films are relatively affordable, usually under $35, unlike higher profile films which can go for hundreds of dollars.

What to see this year that doesn't have Canadian distribution

Start in Asia with Pema Tseden's Snow Leopard, set in the stunning Tibetan Plateau. It follows a monk dubbed Snow Leopard Monk, who becomes internet famous for taking a video of a snow leopard, and the team of journalists he invites to film the snow leopard trapped in his brother's backyard.

Then, head to Nepal for A Road to a Village by Nabin Subba, a moving drama about a family in a remote mountain village coping with the new road into town and all the comforts and troubles of capitalistic modernity that come with it.

Over in Bhutan, they're holding the country's first elections, which are as baffling to people as a monk with a gun, giving Pawo Choyning Dorji's film its title, The Monk and the Gun.

Journey to a remote village in Senegal for Ramata-Toulaye Sy's Cannes-feted directorial debut Banel & Adama about star-crossed lovers. Sy was previously at TIFF as the co-screenwriter of the excellent but impossible-to-find-in-Canada Our Lady of the Nile, about the lead-up to the Rwandan genocide.

Finally, jet-set over to northern Norway for The Tundra Within Me for some stunning arctic scenes, including the Northern Lights. The first feature from Smi director Sara Margrethe Oskal is about a Smi artist (the only Indigenous nation in Europe) who returns home after years spent living in Oslo and struggles to find her place in the community.

If you follow these tips, you'll have an unforgettable TIFF that will open your eyes to new people, places, and issues around the world.