Toronto film festival’s expanded Platform section unveils 12 world premieres

Amanda Kernel’s Sami reindeer herder drama Brace Your Heart, Bertil Nilsson’s UK-set debut Masc, about a neurodivergent gay Londoner, and Nyla Innuksuk’s latest Canadian film with an Inuk protagonist, In the Heart of the South, are among 12 world premieres set for the expanded Platform section of this year’s Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF). 

The section’s opening film will be Children Untold, Japanese filmmaker Miwa Nishikawa’s tale about a 12-year-old trying to survive post-World War II Tokyo. 

The Platform section’s jury, also expanded, will this year comprise Argentinian producer, director, and writer Pablo Trapero as president; British writer and director Amma Asante; Taiwanese actor and filmmaker Sylvia Chang; French Canadian producer Luc Déry; and Hong Kong industry executive Albert Lee. 

Designed to champion directorial vision and auteur voices, the Platform section, which previously has comprised between eight and 10 films, is TIFF’s only competitive section. The jury-selected Platform Award, which comes with a cash prize of CAD $20,000 (USD $14,200), will be presented on the final day of the festival, which this year runs September 10-20. 

For the first time this year, under up-to-date Academy Award rules, any non-English language film that wins the Platform Award is immediately eligible for the best international film Oscar. 

Other films in this year’s section are Jan Holoubek’s World War II thriller Wild, Wild East, which was introduced to buyers at February’s European Film Market; Turkish family tale Djinn Wedding, from Ferit Karahan, whose Brother’s Keeper was a 2021 Berlin prizewinner; and Apartheid-era South African drama The Smell of Apples, from John Trengove, whose first film The Wound was submitted for the 2018 best foreign language film Oscar. 

2026 Platform lineup

Angh (India)
Dir. Theja Rio
World premiere