The TIFF51 Experience: Day Seven | Learning When to Listen
By Ross
Every once in a while during TIFF, we have a morning when the alarm goes off, and your body immediately begins negotiating with your brain about whether the first film of the day is really worth getting out of bed for. But on this particular morning, Day Seven, there was never really a negotiation. I was determined with all my heart and soul to get to “La Bola Negra” even while knowing I was about to spend 160 minutes reading subtitles once again (check out my Day Six endurance test), and although my eyes informed me that the contacts were not happening today, my brain was ready, and my curiosity was already wide awake.
That turned out to be exactly the right instinct. Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi’s visually stunning and emotionally powerful homage to Federico García Lorca was simply magnificent, unwrapping its poetry with the kind of beauty that makes an early TIFF morning feel entirely justified. By the time the film ended, I already knew it would be one of those festival discoveries I would be carrying into the days ahead.
What I had to keep reminding myself, though, was that “La Bola Negra” was only the first film on the day’s list. I had five films scheduled, which meant that getting up early enough to catch this one was also me making a fairly serious commitment to everything that came after it. Five films, I had learned from the day before, in one day is a lot to ask of my attention span, my eyes, my brain and, frankly, the rest of my body. The festival has a way of making you believe you can keep going simply because there is another screening waiting for you, but there is a point where enthusiasm has to meet stamina. This morning, I was starting with a 160-minute Spanish-language film, and I still had four more films sitting on the other side of it.
La Bola Negra
Javier Calvo, Javier Ambrossi – CANADIAN PREMIERE – Spain, France | 2026 | 160m | Spanish
Los Javis’ ambitious and captivating homage to Federico García Lorca sees the lives of three men intertwined in love and loss across eras. Featuring powerful performances by Guitarricadelafuente, Carlos González, and Miguel Bernardeau.
At the cusp of the Spanish Civil War, a young man confronts his ideology and sexuality as he is conscripted into the fascist army where he becomes fascinated by a prisoner of war. Another young man in pre-dictatorship Spain finds himself blackballed from his father’s prestigious social club due to rumours about his sexuality. Finally, a young gay historian manoeuvres through his complicated family history and a unique inheritance decades after the dictatorship has ended.
A celebration of famed Spanish writer Federico García Lorca’s enduring legacy, “La Bola Negra” reimagines vignettes of his works that centred on repressed identity and sexuality, specifically his last, unfinished work that featured an openly gay protagonist in the context of extreme societal oppression. Academy Award winner Penélope Cruz (also at the Festival in Bunker), Academy Award nominee Glenn Close (The Wife, TIFF ’17), and Julio Torres (Problemista) star alongside stunning debut performances by musician Guitarricadelafuente and Milo Quifes.
The seamlessly converging storylines make for a sweeping and operatic romantic drama, punctuated by the lasting tragedy of Lorca’s execution at the hands of fascists. Directors Javier Ambrossi and Javier Calvo present a bold and ambitious narrative that delicately balances collective memory with deeply emotional personal histories. With these interconnected arcs, combined with stunning cinematography and a grand score, falling in love with La Bola Negra is inevitable. – ANITA LEE
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By the time I got to “YAGA“, the day had already begun to take on that wonderfully strange TIFF quality where one film can leave you emotionally somewhere completely different from where the next one is taking you. Kat Sandler’s series felt like a wicked dark fairy tale, with the kind of violence and unsettling imagination that made me think of the original Grimm stories rather than the polished animated versions most of us grew up with. It was filled with disturbing imagery and a voice-over that spoke about witches and death. So naturally, I was very glad I had put it on the schedule, although the two episodes being shown meant that just as I was getting pulled into its mystery, the credits rolled and I wasn’t being given the choice for resolution. But there was no time to sit around contemplating that, either. The two episodes had taken about an hour, and “Neverman” had already started a few minutes earlier in the hall across the way, so I bolted for the door as if it was on fire.
YAGA
Kat Sandler – WORLD PREMIERE – Canada | 2026 | 56m | English, Ukrainian
Starring Canadians Hudson Williams, Noah Reid, and Carrie-Anne Moss, this adaptation of Kat Sandler’s award-winning play unfurls the truth behind a mysterious disappearance in a small coastal town.
Carson (Clark Backo, The Changeling) is a local detective, at once weary and protective of the small coastal town she serves and its inhabitants. After the disappearance of commercial fishery heir and local party boy Henry Park (Hudson Williams, Heated Rivalry), Carson begrudgingly partners up with Rapp (Noah Reid, Cardinals, TIFF ’17; Broadway’s The Minutes), a private investigator hired by the Park family. Rapp arrives on the scene with a bemused swagger and a personal connection to the case that immediately raises Carson’s hackles. When their initial lines of questioning lead them to an enigmatic and seductive university professor (Carrie-Anne Moss, The Matrix franchise), it becomes clear that it’s going to require all hands on deck to uncover the truth hidden underneath these shrouds of secrecy.
Adapted from the hit stage play of the same name by writer and showrunner Kat Sandler, YAGA is infused with a preternatural air: the feeling that no one is giving a straight answer, everyone has something they’d rather keep hidden, and something uncanny and monstrous might just be lurking in the shadows. With a strong ensemble cast of Canadians, and a powerfully subversive story, YAGA blends elements of horror and whodunnit, conjuring an ancient magic to examine our modern myths — why they persist, and who benefits from their continued survival. – GEOFF MACNAUGHTON
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Then “Neverman” slowed everything down again. Rodrigo Barriuso’s poignant second feature, with Justin Vivian Bond at its centre as Lucia, a transgender gay-rights activist living with Alzheimer’s disease, hit me in a very different place. The film’s questions about memory and identity stayed with me because they are so deeply tied to the work a person can spend a lifetime doing to understand and define themselves. What happens to that understanding once memory begins to disappear? Can someone forget what they fought so hard to know about themselves, particularly something as fundamental as gender identity or sexual orientation? And how much control can caregivers ultimately have over the way someone is seen, understood, or presented when that person can no longer speak for themselves? The film was poignant and upsetting, and by this point in the day I was beginning to understand that the festival was asking as much of me emotionally as it was physically.
Neverman
Rodrigo Barriuso – WORLD PREMIERE – Canada | 2026 | 97m | English
Broadway and cabaret icon Justin Vivian Bond stars as a transgender gay rights activist with worsening Alzheimer’s disease suffering from the treatment in her nursing home, in Rodrigo Barriuso’s poignant second feature.
Lucia (Justin Vivian Bond) has spent her life fighting for gay and trans rights, often to the detriment of her own personal relationships. As she gets older, all she wants is to find a facility that can help her with her worsening Alzheimer’s and that shares her fundamental values. But when she enters the nursing home — one that claimed to be trans-friendly — she quickly notices that the treatment she’s receiving, particularly from one very involved nurse, is a far cry from the supportive safety that was promised.
The cold, austere, and threatening institution is a sharp contrast to Lucia’s colourful, gorgeous dresses and the vibrant life that she’s lived — experiences we see in flashback and that she’s increasingly struggling to hold on to. With the help of some newly formed friendships she makes in the home, she must navigate this difficult environment as best she can, even as her memory begins, sadly, to let her down.
This second feature film from award-winning Cuban-Canadian filmmaker Rodrigo Barriuso (A Translator) features strong supporting turns by Eva Everett Irving — who plays the younger Lucia in flashbacks with vivacious energy — as well as Marie-Josée Croze (The Barbarian Invasions, TIFF ’03), Elias Koteas (Crash, TIFF ’94), Jess Salgueiro (TIFF 2018 Rising Star), and Zaiba Baig (Sort Of). But it is Bond’s captivating performance — it’s no wonder that they have long been a muse for Jonathan Anderson, the creative director at Christian Dior — that is the heart of the film and its enduring presence. – KELLY BOUTSALIS
Ink
Danny Boyle – CANADIAN PREMIERE – United Kingdom, France, United States of America | 2026 | 116m | English
Director Danny Boyle (TIFF ’08’s People Choice Award winner Slumdog Millionaire) stylishly adapts playwright James Graham’s wild recounting of how The Sun became one of the most successful newspapers in British history while launching tabloid culture.
Rupert Murdoch (Guy Pearce, The Brutalist, TIFF ’24) persuades newspaper editor Larry Lamb (Jack O’Connell) to oversee his newly acquired but flagging daily, The Sun. But how to grab readers in the highly competitive British media market? Be extreme, throwing anything onto the page that will make a splash, the more titillating, the better. The tactic works, and soon the notorious Sun sees a massive spike in circulation.
The goal of casting a wide net for new readers creates just enough space for one woman (Claire Foy) to break through and pitch articles with a modern woman’s perspective. It’s not long before she starts to brush against the limits of the prevailing boys’ club culture within the industry. And as readership numbers rise, so do the paper’s detractors.
O’Connell is riveting as the ambitious and morally compromised Lamb, pushing the team to go ever further while Pearce gives a carefully calibrated portrayal of Murdoch as both reticent and ruthless, driven by an outsider’s resentment. Fast-paced and gripping, Boyle’s “Ink” traces this dark journalistic legacy that continues to reverberate today. – ROBYN CITIZEN
Atonement
Reed Van Dyk – NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE – United States of America | 2026 | 118m | English, Arabic
Boyd Holbrook (The Bikeriders), Hiam Abbass (TIFF ’25’s Palestine 36), and Oscar winner Kenneth Branagh star in Oscar-nominated writer-director Reed Van Dyk’s searing story of trauma and forgiveness following a horrifying event during the Iraq War.
Grounded in emotionally layered performances from Boyd Holbrook (TIFF ’18’s The Predator), Hiam Abbass (TIFF ’25’s Palestine 36), and Oscar winner Kenneth Branagh (TIFF ’21’s Belfast; The Shed’s King Lear), this searing real-life story follows the lives of several characters in the years following a horrifying event. Based on Dexter Filkins’ 2012 New Yorker essay of the same name, the feature debut from Oscar-nominated writer-director Reed Van Dyk (DeKalb Elementary) considers the consequences of war long after the last shots are fired.
In Baghdad, in 2003, US Marine Lou D’Alessandro (Holbrook) and his unit open fire on two ostensibly hostile vehicles. Three passengers are killed before it’s revealed that those vehicles were carrying three generations of a civilian family. A decade later, following a dishonorable discharge, Lou is back in San Diego, haunted by the incident, unsupported by Veterans Affairs, and unable to continue the life he started before the war.
Meanwhile, Mariam (Abbass), the matriarch of the family torn apart on that fateful day, has begun a new life in Glendale with her daughter’s young family. She’s profiled by journalist Michael Reid (Branagh), who was also in Baghdad when the tragedy unfolded. Desperate to explain his side of the story, Lou asks Michael to broker a meeting with Mariam. Though terrified of reopening old wounds, Lou believes this might be everyone’s best chance to finally heal.
“Atonement” asks difficult questions about reconciliation and trauma while acknowledging that everyone seeks out different means of moving on. This is a story about reckoning with unimaginable pain en route to catharsis and, just maybe, atonement.
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And “Atonement” was the film I had decided I still wanted to have waiting for me at the end of the day, if I could just give myself enough time to recover. Here is where the lesson from yesterday was finally realized and enacted. I was supposed to go to another press screening, “Ink“, but I decided to go home instead. I knew there was still one more ticketed film waiting for me that night, “Atonement” with a 9:20 p.m. start, and on a regular day that would feel very late to be heading out for another movie. During TIFF, apparently, I have different standards. I got home around six, went to bed for a nap, and gave myself permission to stop pretending that I could simply run on enthusiasm forever. When I woke up, that 9:20 screening suddenly seemed entirely reasonable. I had already asked a lot of myself that day, and skipping “Ink” for “Atonement” was not giving up on TIFF. It was figuring out how to keep being part of it.