A closer look at five standout Canadian titles headed to TIFF 2026

TORONTO – When writer-director David Bezmozgis set out to adapt his 2014 novel “The Betrayers” for the big screen, he wasn’t just changing its format. He also had to adjust to a new geopolitical landscape.

The film, which is set in Ukraine and Israel, is one of 61 Canadian features and shorts programmed at this year’s edition of the Toronto International Film Festival.

The Canadian Press spoke to Bezmozgis and four other homegrown directors about their films.

THE BETRAYERS

Bezmozgis’s second novel was an unmitigated hit when it was published. It made numerous best-of-the-year lists — from the Wall Street Journal to the New Yorker — and was shortlisted for the Giller Prize.

Twelve years later, Bezmozgis has revisited the story of a disgraced Israeli politician who flees to Crimea and comes face-to-face with the former friend who betrayed him.

Those 12 years were consequential, Bezmozgis said. The book deals with Russia’s relationship with Ukraine and Israel’s relationship with the occupied West Bank.

“That subject has continued to be current and pressing, and also of interest to Canadians, which is why it was worth doing (the story) again,” Bezmozgis said.

In 2014, Russia had annexed Crimea and Israel was at war with Gaza. In 2026, Russia is four years into a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and Israel is three years into its war on Hamas.

Bezmozgis said that in writing the script, he found himself “choosing different storylines that relate to what’s happening in the world right now. It made sense at the time, dealing with Ukraine and Crimea, and Israel, and we’ve updated it.”

Showtimes: Saturday, Sept. 12 and Monday, Sept. 14

-Nicole Thompson

BA’S BOOK

Ashley Da-Le Duong only ever knew the barest outline of her father’s young life: that he had grown up in Vietnam during the war, and eventually moved to Canada to work as an engineer. She asked him for more, but he never gave it. Until, that is, he emailed her his memoir — a project she didn’t know he was working on — written in the form of letters to her.

As a way to process what she learned about her father’s childhood, Duong decided to adapt it into a documentary.

The resulting film is as much an adaptation of the memoir as it is a chronicle of making that adaptation.

Duong flew to Vietnam to connect with her father’s family and recreate scenes from his memoir. Also caught on film are interactions between the family and the young actors cast to play them as children, and conversations about what will be included in the documentary and why.

“He’s not in contact with his family in Vietnam, so It was a way of bringing the family together to talk about these difficult things,” she said.

In the end, the family members’ questions about how their story will be shown on screen are just as revelatory as the re-enactments themselves.

Showtimes: Tuesday, Sept. 15; Thursday Sept. 17; Saturday, Sept. 19

-NT

NEIL PEART: NO ONE’S DISCIPLE

For legions of music nerds who measure greatness in polyrhythms, Neil Peart was a prog-rock deity. The lyricist and stickman for Canadian power trio Rush was considered one of the greatest to ever sit behind a kit before his death from brain cancer in 2020.

But while he played the tom-toms virtuosically, he played his cards close to his vest.

So when making this heartfelt documentary about Peart, filmmakers Scot McFadyen and Sam Dunn spoke to those closest to him: Rush bandmates Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson, as well as drumming titans Stewart Copeland, Danny Carey, Chad Smith and Gavin Harrison.

“I didn’t really have a sense of how much of an inspiration he was to people that knew him, and how loyal of a friend he was,” said Dunn.

“He was a notoriously private person… but when we sat down with his close friends, we learned he was a real inspiration, a real motivator. He set the bar really high for everyone. It gave us a deeper sense of what Neil was like as a person — the person behind the genius.”

Showtimes: Wednesday, Sept. 16; Saturday, Sept. 19

-Alex Nino Gheciu

SUNBURN

Director Serville Poblete’s latest feature is a sweaty contribution to the pantheon of coming-of-age hangout films.

Inspired by Greta Gerwig’s “Lady Bird” and its ability to put him in the shoes of a white girl from the Sacramento suburbs, Poblete set out to paint a portrait of the kids in his community.

“There aren’t a lot of stories that just allow kids that are darker-skinned, POC backgrounds to have fun and be themselves,” he said.

“And so ‘Sunburn’ is really a ‘Lady Bird’ for the hood.”

Set in Toronto during a blackout on the hottest, stickiest day of the year — much like a massive 2003 power outage — the film follows a group of teens cut off from their phones, wandering around their neighbourhood and finding themselves.

It revels (sometimes simultaneously) in the grossness of city heat and the sweetness of adolescent summer.

Showtimes: Monday, Sept. 14; Wednesday, Sept. 16; Saturday, Sept. 19

–NT

TURTLE ISLAND RAP

This documentary about three Indigenous rappers has been in the works for nearly five years.

“We were interested in exploring what the Indigenous hip hop scene looked like five years ago and we found some really exciting things happening,” said director Alexandra Lazarowich.

She ended up connecting with Wiidaaseh, a Toronto-based Anishinaabe rapper from Wiikwemkoong Unceded First Nation; A$h Da Hunter, who lives in Phoenix and is from Yavapai-Apache Nation; and Travis Thompson, a Navajo artist from the suburbs of Seattle.

Before she brought out the cameras, Lazarowich spent time connecting with the musicians and their communities, leading to an intimate portrait of their lives and artistic processes.

“It’s more of a snapshot of the culture that’s happening right now than it is sort of a prescriptive documentary about indigenous hip hop,” Lazarowich said.

Showtimes: Sunday, Sept. 13 and Tuesday, Sept. 15

–NT

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 1, 2026.