10 must-see shorts from the Toron­to Inter­na­tion­al Film Fes­ti­val 2020

The chaot­ic nature of major film fes­ti­vals mean that it’s inevitable you won’t get to see every­thing you have on your radar. A sur­pris­ing amount of time is ded­i­cat­ed to stand­ing in line, find­ing time to write and, of course, the bor­ing busi­ness of eat­ing and sleeping.

One of the most over­looked areas of a fes­ti­val as sprawl­ing and glam­orous as TIFF tends to be the shorts sec­tion, which is a cry­ing shame giv­en the vari­ety and scope of the films pro­grammed. But this year’s online iter­a­tion of the fes­ti­val offered the five shorts pro­grammes to audi­ences from the com­fort of their own home; an appeal­ing prospect, if – like me – your atten­tion span has reduced dra­mat­i­cal­ly with­out an actu­al cin­e­ma to set the mood.

The 35 works select­ed as part of the Short Cuts pro­gramme bring togeth­er film­mak­ers from across the world, offer­ing per­spec­tives into lives that have nev­er felt more dis­tant with the world still large­ly locked down. These bite-size movies span gen­res, forms, doc­u­men­tary and fic­tion, and were among the most inter­est­ing and excit­ing films on offer across the festival.

Here are 10 that are well worth seek­ing out, from a very tal­ent­ed crop of film­mak­ers we’ll hope­ful­ly be hear­ing a lot more about in the future.

Naïla Guiguet’s French dra­ma takes place over the course of one wild night at a Parisian ware­house par­ty, and stares trans­gen­der mod­el and musi­cian Dustin Muchu­vitz in the tit­u­lar role. Her per­for­mance is mes­meris­ing as the charis­mat­ic woman whose prin­ci­ple desire is to be seen for who she real­ly is, and while the high of the par­ty doesn’t last, there’s ten­der­ness and hope at the heart of this vivid por­trait of youth in revolt.

Set in mod­ern-day Mon­go­lia, Lkhag­vadu­lam Purev-Ochir’s film runs a tight 14 min­utes, and focus­es on a teenage girl with a heart con­di­tion, whose fam­i­ly hire a shaman to try and cure her ill­ness. Frus­trat­ed by their old-fash­ioned views, she retreats into nature, but a con­fronta­tion with the shaman sees her repressed desire for inde­pen­dence come to the fore­front. Also select­ed for Cannes’ shorts pro­gramme, it’s a del­i­cate, mov­ing glimpse at a coun­try and cul­ture rarely seen on main­stream cin­e­ma screens.

Cana­di­an film­mak­er Sophy Rom­vari is no stranger to TIFF, as her touch­ing canine short Nor­man Nor­man pre­miered at the fes­ti­val back in 2018. Two years lat­er, her the­sis film for York Uni­ver­si­ty is a poignant look at how fam­i­lies cope with tragedy and grief. While view­ing a pris­tine col­lec­tion of pho­tos not seen in decades gift­ed by her par­ents, Rom­vari reflects on the col­lec­tive trau­ma that she shares with her fam­i­ly, and how it has impact­ed their rela­tion­ships and mem­o­ries. It’s a heart­break­ing­ly hon­est and inti­mate short that shows the pow­er of images, and the impor­tance of reflection.

A young woman about to get mar­ried must erase her past in Sene­galese direc­tor Moly Kane’s haunt­ing dra­ma. Against the live­ly back­drop of Dakar by night, she sets out on a per­ilous jour­ney which threat­ens her own body. Touch­ing on the misog­y­ny around pre­mar­i­tal sex and the per­va­sive belief that a woman’s body is not tru­ly her own prop­er­ty, it’s an effec­tive, provoca­tive film with a qui­et sense of anger puls­ing through it.

The title of Sofia Bohdanowicz’s short comes from Kandinsky’s art the­o­ry book of the same name, and the film con­cerns a young woman recov­er­ing from the death of a close friend. She attempts to find mean­ing through the art that they both adored, recall­ing small details and reflect­ing on her for­ev­er-changed world­view. The dreamy visu­als of Bohdanow­icz match per­fect­ly with Der­agh Campbell’s sooth­ing mono­logue; the effect is a melan­choly but beau­ti­ful medi­a­tion on grief and seeing.

Crit­ic and pro­gram­mer Tayler Montague’s first short film is quite an accom­plish­ment; she writes, directs and plays a sup­port­ing role in this sto­ry of a work­ing-class Black fam­i­ly dur­ing the 2003 New York black­out. Nat­u­ral­is­tic and nuanced, it’s a beau­ti­ful­ly shot slice-of-life film about a fam­i­ly try­ing to make ends meet, for­got­ten (or per­haps just ignored) by the peo­ple in pow­er. It might be set 17 years ago but Montague’s film feels as rel­e­vant as ever, and sub­tly shows that even amid hard­ship, mag­ic exists.

Zach Woods is best known for act­ing roles in The Office and Sil­i­con Val­ley, but his debut short (also select­ed for Cannes and Tel­luride pri­or to their can­cel­la­tion) proves he’s got a spark behind the cam­era too. David (William Jack­son Harp­er) suf­fers from severe depres­sion and calls his ther­a­pist Paul (Will Fer­rell) for advice. The ses­sion doesn’t quite go to plan in this off­beat lit­tle gem – and Fer­rell sells it whole­sale as a ther­a­pist deal­ing with prob­lems of his own.

Tiffany Hsiung’s moth­er was sep­a­rat­ed from her par­ents at the age of five and nev­er knew why. Forty years lat­er, Tiffany decides to solve the mys­tery and try to reunite her moth­er with her fam­i­ly, despite the huge obsta­cles in her path. Dis­tant from her own Tawainese her­itage, Tiffany trav­els to Taipei with noth­ing more than a scrib­bled note on a nap­kin. The incred­i­ble sto­ry that unfolds in this pow­er­ful film is one of hard­ship and sac­ri­fice, unveil­ing the ten­sions between gen­er­a­tions and the pow­er of perseverance.

Resigned to her arranged mar­riage, Aniksha begins a job at a call-cen­tre in her native Mau­ri­tius, though wish­es to trav­el out­side of the coun­try. She devel­ops a bond with an old­er co-work­er, but it’s the prospect of free­dom which is the greater pull for Aniksha, who desires to live her own life rather than the one set out for her by her fam­i­ly and hus­band. Writer/​director Vin­cent Toi grap­ples with the clash between tra­di­tion and moder­ni­ty and high­lights that beyond the out­sider view of Mau­ri­tius as a par­adise, there are plen­ty of ten­sions deeply embed­ded with­in the local culture.

Com­bin­ing ani­ma­tion and doc­u­men­tary, Alex Anna pro­vides view­ers with a tour of her body, high­light­ing the scars that are evi­dence of her strug­gle with men­tal health. She reflects on the mean­ing of these marks in this bold and extreme­ly inti­mate film, which shows these scars are noth­ing to be ashamed of, and talk­ing can­did­ly about your ill­ness can be a rad­i­cal act.