By Trevor Anderson
The 50th edition of the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) will take place September 4-14, 2025. The 291 titles on the schedule–209 new features, 6 classics, 66 shorts, and 10 series–include a diverse array of stories created by and featuring LGBTQ talent.
GLAAD previously noted several films of interest to queer audiences, including: Christy, a biopic about the life and career of queer boxing icon Christy Martin; Lilith Fair: Building a Mystery, a documentary by queer director Ally Pankiw; and Sk+te’kmujue’katik (At the Place of Ghosts) by Two-Spirit director Bretten Hannem.
Now, we’re poring over the schedule and getting excited about some other world premieres.
Between Dreams and Hope is a queer love story from director Farnoosh Samadi, about a trans man and his partner who travel to a remote Iranian village to face his estranged father and obtain documents that would permit them to live authentically.
Charli XCX and Lena Góra heat up the screen in filmmaker Pete Ohs’ new semi-improvised romance Erupja, which also features a performance by celebrated playwright and actor Jeremy O. Harris.
Writer-director Gail Maurice returns to TIFF with Blood Lines, a lesbian romance set in a Métis community–with dialogue in the Michif language, which has only about 1,130 speakers in the world, including Maurice.
Festival-goers will get a sneak peek at the new limited series Wayward, created by Mae Martin and Ryan Scott. Martin stars as a detective who moves with their wife–played by Sarah Gadon–to the small town of Tall Pines. Toni Colette plays the unsettling headmistress of the local correctional school in this investigation of the “troubled teen” industry.
While most of the films at this year’s TIFF are world premieres, some prize-winners from other festivals will bow in North America.
A Useful Ghost from writer-director Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke won the Grand Prix at Cannes Critics Week. In this fantastical Thai genre-bender, a ghost inhabits a vacuum cleaner to become useful.
The Mysterious Gaze of the Flamingo from writer-director Diego Céspedes won the Un Certain Regard Prize at Cannes. In this 1982-set Chilean western, 11-year-old Lidia–raised by a fierce queer community–faces fear, violence, and love’s transformative power.
As always, the short film blocks will contain a variety of queer surprises. Notably, Short Cuts 2025 Programme 05 brings us Pink Light, the autobiographical debut of director and star Harrison Browne, an ex-pro hockey player who time travels back to his pre-transitioned self.
Wavelengths is the haute couture arm of the festival, bringing avant-garde work to the screen. Abdellah Taïa’s short film Cairo Streets is presented in Wavelengths 2: Into the Blue. In this dreamy piece, the Moroccan novelist and filmmaker repurposes camcorder footage from two decades earlier as he reminisces about a romance.
Red carpet watchers can hope to catch a glimpse of many glittering LGBTQ stars, including Jodie Foster, who stars in Rebecca Zlotowski’s A Private Life–Foster will also be on hand to accept a 2025 TIFF Tribute Award. Tessa Thompson stars in Nia DaCosta’s Hedda–the two women will appear together in the In Conversation With… series. Angelina Jolie appears in Alice Winocour’s ensemble film Couture. Colman Domingo acts in Gus Van Sant’s true crime story Dead Man’s Wire. Andrew Scott appears in both Richard Linklater’s Blue Moon and Rian Johnson’s Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery. Celebrated Argentine auteur Lucrecia Martel brings the North American premiere of her first feature documentary, Nuestra Tierra (Landmarks).
TIFF 2025 will feature the work of many more LGBTQ artists, both in front of and behind the camera. Below, GLAAD has rounded up a list of queer-centered, and other queer-friendly features, shorts, and series. Visit tiff.net/schedule to view the full schedule and tiff.net/films to see the full list of films.
FEATURE FILMS
A USEFUL GHOST
Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke
North American Premiere
Thai filmmaker Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke upends pre-existing genres with a fantastical story about a ghost that inhabits a vacuum cleaner to become useful. This humorous and visually striking debut feature was the Grand Prix winner of Cannes Critics’ Week.
BABYSTAR
Joscha Bongard
World Premiere
Instagram vs. Reality takes on a whole new meaning in Joscha Bongard’s Babystar, where the teenage daughter of a pair of family vloggers learns she’s not just the star but the victim.
BETWEEN DREAMS AND HOPE
Farnoosh Samadi
World Premiere
A trans man and his partner travel to a remote Iranian village to face his estranged father and obtain documents that would permit them to live authentically, in visionary director Farnoosh Samadi’s bold queer love story.
BLOOD LINES
Gail Maurice
World Premiere
The second feature from director Gail Maurice (Rosie, TIFF ’22) is a singular film: a Métis same-sex romance led by actor Dana Solomon, who is a revelation.
BLUE MOON
Richard Linklater
North American Premiere
Ethan Hawke delivers a charming, lived-in performance as lyricist Lorenz Hart, holding court at Sardi’s on the historic night of his former collaborator Richard Rodgers’ (Andrew Scott) greatest triumph: the premiere of Oklahoma!
BOUCHRA
Orian Barki, Meriem Bennani
World Premiere
Shot using 3D animation, Orian Barki and Meriem Bennani’s singular and affecting debut feature Bouchra combines documentary techniques with an inventive narrative structure, exploring the relationship between Bouchra, a queer Moroccan Coyote filmmaker, and her cardiologist mother (also a Coyote), who lives in Casablanca.
THE CAPTIVE
Alejandro Amenábar
World Premiere
In 1575 Algiers, a young soldier named Miguel de Cervantes is held for ransom—unaware he’s on the path to becoming one of history’s greatest storytellers. This bold, visually stunning film is a reimagining of the true story behind Cervantes’ transformation.
CHRISTY
David Michôd
World Premiere
Featuring a career-best performance from Sydney Sweeney (TIFF ’24’s Eden), the latest from David Michôd (Animal Kingdom) chronicles pioneering boxer Christy Martin’s fierce story of self-actualization in the face of terrifying adversity.
DEAD LOVER
Grace Glowicki
Canadian Premiere
A wily gravedigger (Grace Glowicki) falls for the one man who is attracted to her fetid funk (Ben Petrie), but when fate doth conspire, she takes drastic measures to preserve their love in this camp phantasmagoria.
DEGRASSI: WHATEVER IT TAKES
Lisa Rideout
World Premiere
Creators, superfans, and stars including Aubrey Drake Graham delve deep into all things Degrassi in this engaging history of the Canadian show that changed teen TV.
DINNER WITH FRIENDS
Sasha Leigh Henry
World Premiere
Dinner with Friends brings viewers inside a fractured group of eight longtime friends who intermittently come together for dinner parties to share in the joys and pains of being adults today.
ERUPCJA
Pete Ohs
World Premiere
American filmmaker Pete Ohs observes the combustible chemistry between a Polish florist (Lena Góra) and a British tourist (Charli xcx) in this charming postcard of sapphic synchronicity.
FOLLIES
Eric K. Boulianne
North American Premiere
Eric K. Boulianne’s raucous yet warm-hearted comedy about a couple exploring new sexual frontiers is as frank as it is funny.
HEDDA
Nia DaCosta
World Premiere
Transplanted to mid-century England, Candyman director Nia DaCosta’s bold reimagining of Henrik Ibsen’s play features a magnetic lead performance from Tessa Thompson (Passing) in a fresh, feminist game of power.
JULIAN
Cato Kusters
World Premiere
Two women’s unique campaign for marriage equality inspires a poignant screen love story by director Cato Kusters.
LILITH FAIR: BUILDING A MYSTERY
Ally Pankiw
World Premiere
This galvanizing documentary from director Ally Pankiw (I Used to Be Funny) takes us behind the scenes of Sarah McLachlan’s legendary all-women music festival and features interviews with performers including Bonnie Raitt, Erykah Badu, Olivia Rodrigo, and Emmylou Harris.
THE LITTLE SISTER
Hafsia Herzi
North American Premiere
Hafsia Herzi’s sensitive and affecting coming-of-age drama The Little Sister tells the story of Fatima, a devout young Muslim woman, as she struggles to balance the dictates of her religion with her sexuality.
MADDIE’S SECRET
John Early
World Premiere
Opening this year’s Discovery programme is Maddie’s Secret, the unmissable directorial debut satirizing and skewering content culture from iconic alt-comedian John Early, who plays the titular role, alongside a troupe of comedians including Kate Berlant, Vanessa Bayer, and Conner O’Malley.
MODERN WHORE
Nicole Bazuin
World Premiere
Andrea Werhun and Nicole Bazuin challenge toxic misconceptions about sex work and sex workers with great audacity and high style.
THE MYSTERIOUS GAZE OF THE FLAMINGO
Diego Céspedes
North American Premiere
In a dusty Chilean mining town in 1982, 11-year-old Lidia, raised by a fierce queer community, faces fear, violence, and love’s transformative power in Diego Céspedes’ poetic, absurd, and deeply human modern western.
NOMAD SHADOW
Eimi Imanishi
World Premiere
Eimi Imanishi’s poignant debut feature explores the refugee experience through a young Sahrawi woman who’s deported back to Western Sahara, a very different world than she’s used to among a family that still resents her departure.
POWWOW PEOPLE
Sky Hopinka
World Premiere
A radically immersive, durational portrait and cinematic celebration of a contemporary powwow by Sky Hopinka, one of the most vital artists working today.
SK+TE’KMUJUE’KATIK (AT THE PLACE OF GHOSTS)
Bretten Hannam
World Premiere
This genre-bending otherworldly drama follows two brothers’ journey to avenge the spirits that haunt them from their childhood.
STEAL AWAY
Clement Virgo
World Premiere
Director Clement Virgo returns with a bold, mesmerizing, and erotically charged thriller that’s part fairy tale, part fever dream, fully capturing the daring mix of tones and textures in Tamara Faith Berger’s screenplay—which recalls the genre-busting stories of Octavia E. Butler and Angela Carter.
WAKE UP DEAD MAN: A KNIVES OUT MYSTERY
Rian Johnson
World Premiere
Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) faces his most dangerous mystery yet in the latest entry in Rian Johnson’s beloved Knives Out series.
SHORT FILMS
CAIRO STREETS
Abdellah Taïa
Wavelengths 2: Into the Blue
Moroccan novelist and filmmaker Abdellah Taïa’s beautiful, melancholy Cairo Streets re-edits camcorder footage shot in the Egyptian capital almost 20 years earlier—including an encounter with the great Youssef Chahine—alongside reminiscences of a romance.
DARIA’S NIGHT FLOWERS
Maryam Tafakory
Wavelengths 2: Into the Blue
Emerging from her ongoing, erudite exploration of post-revolution Iranian cinema, Maryam Tafakory’s equally beautiful and harsh Daria’s Night Flowers collects and rewrites scenes of women’s sedative abuse into an act of independence and bodily agency.
KLEE
Gavin Baird
Short Cuts 2025 / Strange Cuts
Body horror meets prairie gothic in Gavin Baird’s mind-blowing period sci-fi that flips the script on colonization as an alien in the form of an Indigenous man infiltrates a remote Saskatchewan community and seduces its members one by one.
MORE THAN HAPPY
Wei Keong Tan
Short Cuts 2025 Programme 04
Dreamy visuals, an evocative score, and a seamless fusion of animated techniques lend a distinctly wistful aura to the intimate conversations between two queer couples in Wei Keong Tan’s profoundly affecting meditation on love, family, and friendship.
THE NON-ACTOR
Eliza Barry Callahan
Short Cuts 2025 Programme 03
Maya Hawke and Victoria Pedretti bring a distinct charm to Eliza Barry Callahan’s sensitive, sensorial exploration of brief encounters, following a woman who spends a day with her ex-lover’s new girlfriend while seeking answers for the cause of her impending deafness.
PINK LIGHT
Harrison Browne
Short Cuts 2025 Programme 05
In this self-assured autobiographical debut, ex-pro hockey player Harrison Browne time travels back to his pre-transitioned self, when he was waiting for life to begin—only to realize that he has always been the person he was waiting to become.
TALK ME
Joecar Hanna
Short Cuts 2025 Programme 02
In a world where speech is a forbidden form of intimacy, a local outsider stumbles from a loveless marriage into true connection with a stranger in Joecar Hanna’s remarkably fresh take on the norms of relational engagement.
THE VEIL
Gabriel Motta
Short Cuts 2025 / Strange Cuts
In Gabriel Motta’s elegantly staged, unsettling horror, communing with the dead under a bridal veil is signature practice of a family-run cult. But repressed dynamics come to a head when a sinister force is unleashed in one of the sessions.
PRIMETIME
A SÁMI WEDDING
Åse Kathrin Vuolab, Pål Jackman
World Premiere
What happens when you mix reindeer herders, family secrets, and a 3,000-person wedding planned in a month? This riotous comedy-drama is both heartfelt and hilarious; a chaotic celebration of culture, kind, love, and imperfection.
WAYWARD
Mae Martin, Ryan Scott
World Premiere
A bucolic small town, a correctional school for troubled teens, and a mysterious headmistress (Toni Collette) are all much more than meets the eye in this new limited series from creator Mae Martin (Feel Good).
