Today felt a lot like pieces falling into place and regular reality aligning with the shifted TIFF routines. It was another day that showed the wide array of emotions that only a marathon of films that a festival like this can put you through – from fear, to deep anxiety, to joy, to confusion – in the span of only a few hours.
Karen Shute
I had an opportunity to speak with Maddy Foley, the writer and star of the body horror comedy short Fivehead about what inspired the film and why this genre mash up was the perfect way to tell this story. It’s always a good idea to support the Shorts program, and sometimes you’ll find incredible gems like this one. Stay tuned for the full interview here on BBP!
In Tom Nicoll’s debut feature Salvation, an otherwise unremarkable young man decides to become a life coach and forgets the most important part, which is actually having your own life together first. Nicoll spins a darkly comic tale that casts a sharply pointed side eye at the online manosphere and the way that it turns self improvement into a multi level marketing style grift. The path to success it paved with workout plans and bitcoin schemes, and all you need to do is to convince the next guy down the line to believe that it worked for you. Even if it didn’t. The film illustrates the allure of such promises to someone who feels rudderless, and balances our sympathy and scorn as we watch him fall deeper into desperation and debt to make this scheme work.Â
Sachin Hingoo
I started out the day with a press screening of Joshua Giuliano’s debut and Midnight Madness opener, River. As a way to kick off the morning it was enjoyable enough, but left me wanting more. I don’t really need to like every character in a horror movie to dig the movie overall, but when they keep making frustrating, baffling, self-sabotaging decisions like the three siblings played by Jane Levy, Max Mattern, and Jessica Rothe do in this classically-structured slasher, it tends to lose me pretty quickly. There’s a lot to like in the depiction of violence and especially the sound design here, but River feels like it’s always walking up to the line of doing something meaningful and memorable but inching back to surface-level horror each time. Make sure you stay past the credits for a weirdly large amount of critical plot exposition as well.
On the other end of the spectrum, I caught Deanté Gray’s film Voices (also his feature debut) and was nearly out of my seat with joy in a way I’ve rarely felt at the movies since Ryan Coogler’s Sinners (2025). There’s no vampires in this one, but there might as well be as Gray depicts the soul-leeching seduction of the music industry of 1967 Motown that mostly takes place in a single Detroit hotel room. Featuring a star-making performance by Francis Edemobi as the fiercely ambitious Jordan and Ezekiel Ajeigbe as Derrick and Raél Ba as Mia, this is a movie that feels special in every way.
There are definitely some ‘first feature’ missteps in the execution, but I personally can’t wait to see more work from Gray, Edemobi, and everyone involved with the production of Voices. And I will be getting my hands on the songs as soon as I possibly can.
In what is extremely not his feature debut, I found myself in a packed house next for one of my all timers, Werner Herzog’s 79th film as director, the catchy-titled Bucking Fastard. It seems like a bad joke to say that Kate and Rooney Mara’s performance as love-obsessed sisters who think and speak in unison is a singular experience, but everything about it is unique. We expect nothing less from Herzog after decades of films that challenge our opinions, conventions, and even the idea of what cinema is capable of, and Bucking Fastard – though it leans much lighter than a lot of what Herzog’s known for – does precisely that by allowing Kate and Rooney to introduce some of the film’s biggest laughs. There are some wild deviations in Bucking Fastard that call back to Herzog’s other work and even things as unexpected as his Cave of Forgotten Dreams documentary (a masterpiece of a film that I also saw at TIFF back in 2010) and an ending that will leave you wondering what you just watched, but leaving a ‘Zog in any other way would be really unexpected.
Today was another TIFF day in a row that showed the cross section of experiences that the Festival can offer, and while not all of it was a slam dunk, there’s quite a bit of talent, both established and up-and-coming, on both sides of the camera in these projects. And that’s what we love about TIFF and film festivals in general. It’s not (just) about box offices and splashy trailers, but a celebration of film itself and what it can do for us as an audience. And there’s more to come tomorrow and the next eight days! See you then, friends.
The 51st edition of the Toronto International Film Festival runs from September 10-20, 2026. Ticket and lineup information can be found at the TIFF website, and stay tuned to Biff Bam Pop for all of our coverage all week!
