From September 5th 2024 to September 15th 2024, the Toronto International Film Festival returned and made its mark for the 49th TIFF season. In other words, the city was taken over for yet another 11 days by Canadian and international cinema in combination with noteworthy film industry events and noteworthy film industry guests. This year, I had the privilege to be invited to attend with Press access as a participant of the Media Inclusion Initiative.

After the opportunity of viewing eleven premieres, I have returned with yet another one of my what-to-watch lists, themed around these limited screenings. Granted, there were 278 films on the slate this year which translates into my familiarity being only 3.95% of what there was to offer. Without further ado, a movie critic (an avid Letterboxd user) and film scholar (undergraduate with a cinema minor) presents the ninth issue of this column: THREE TO SEE FROM TIFF2024.

1.  QUEER (2024) Dir. Luca Guadagnino

“I’m not queer, I’m disembodied”

Italian film director Luca Guadagnino has become a household film name from the critically acclaimed Call Me by Your Name to the recent successful summer blockbuster Challengers—and now he has reentered the scene after never truly having left with the captivating, steamy, and sensual cinematic experience that is Queer. The film, which adapts William S. Burroughs’s 1985 novella of the same name, follows Lee (Daniel Craig), a semi-autobiographical version of Burroughs himself. Craig’s mesmerising performance of Lee is one of an aimless man, drug addict, and American expat living in Mexico City during the 1940s, who comes face to face with a younger man named Allerton (Drew Starkey) and soon after becomes infatuated with the boy. Rooted in surrealism and sensitivity, Queer delves deep into depictions of pain and desire with longing eroticism and emotional complexity told through intensely striking visuals. 

2.  ALL WE IMAGINE AS LIGHT (2024) Dir. Payal Kapadia 

“I’m sending you kisses through the clouds!”

Filmmaker Payal Kapadia made history as the first from India to win Cannes’ Grand Prix, the second most prestigious prize at the festival, for the independent film All We Imagine as Light. The fiction feature debut tells a tale about two roommates who work together at a hospital in modern-day Mumbai: head nurse Prabha (Kani Kusruti) and new hire Anu (Divya Prabha). Alongside coworker cook Parvaty (Chhaya Kadam), they all personify urban life and city loneliness. Kapadia puts on poetic display transformative-friendship and self-discovery by entangling women’s desires with India’s class and religion divides. In so doing, she captures metropolis migrants in a dreamlike yet naturalistic manner, resonating with all those who travel in an attempt to better their life yet struggle to find belonging. To witness this watch is to not only examine, but also celebrate, the light, the darkness, the heartache, and the hope in the lives of contemporary, working-class Mumbai residents and their everyday experiences from rent to rights.

3.  MATT AND MARA (2024) Dir. Kazik Radwanski

“Have you ever known two people that were such good friends that they are known for being friends? ”

Canadian writer-director Kazik Radwanski presents Matt and Mara, a close-up conversation of a story that brings an authenticity of and specificity to Toronto. The film follows Mara (Deragh Campbell)—a young, seemingly struggling creative writing academic—who reunites with Matt (Matt Johnson)—a carefree, enthusiastic, notably successful author, who doubles as a college acquaintance from her past that reappears back into her life. United by their history and connected by their interests, the two grow closer, all the while their bond serves as an escape for Mara, away from her growing child and her strained marriage with a distracted emerging artist. In a seamless blend of loose silliness and heartfelt intensity, an uneasy tension within an undefined relationship comes to be, and with it, love and all its layers: the complex, the simple, the changing, and the stable. 

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Photography Credits by article author: (1) Producer Barry Jenkins at The Fire Inside red carpet premiere taken on film; (2) Actor Matt Johnson, Director Kazik Radwanski, and Actor Deragh Campbell at the Matt and Mara red carpet premiere taken on film.