The Toronto International Film Festival is back, and we’re excited to once again shine the #ACTRAspotlight on the talented performers and filmmakers who tell our compelling stories.
From September 7 to 17, #TIFF23 will showcase 11 ACTRA Toronto features and four short films spanning various genres, featuring numerous ACTRA Toronto Members delivering unforgettable and captivating performances.
Join us at #TIFF23 for daily coverage of premieres and celebrations of Canadian film featuring ACTRA Toronto performers. Don’t miss our new video coverage this year starring Gabriella de la Torre. Be sure to follow us on Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, and Facebook for the latest behind-the-scenes updates from the festival.
Keep reading for a preview of the ACTRA Toronto productions at #TIFF23 and the talented casts of ACTRA Toronto Members. Get your tickets and we’ll see you at the festival!
AFTERCARE
A tattoo studio becomes the site for an emotionally charged reunion between a woman and the now-grown person she used to babysit in Anubha Momin’s affecting drama.
Part of Short Cuts Programme 03. Premieres Saturday, September 9 at 6:45 p.m.
BACKSPOT
A driven cheerleader (Devery Jacobs) struggles to handle the pressure when she and her girlfriend are both selected for an elite cheer squad, in D.W. Waterson’s feature directorial debut. There are a lot of movies about cheerleaders, but BACKSPOT is out to do something different. It goes behind the phony smiles of its young athletes to explore the ambition and drive that defines them.
Featuring: Devery Jacobs, Kudakwashe Rutendo, Noa DiBerto, Emmerly Tinglin, Thomas Anthony Olajide, Don Stickford, Adrianna Di Liello, Wendy Crewson and Olunike Adeliyi.
Premieres Friday, September 8 at 8:30 p.m.
BLACK LIFE: UNTOLD STORIES
This new CBC documentary series uses contemporary interviews and archival footage to chronicle Canada’s long history of anti-Black racism, including episodes on police brutality and the rise of hip-hop music. BLACK LIFE: UNTOLD STORIES traces the individual and collective histories of Black people in Canada, dedicated to “dispelling common myths and celebrating the many contributions of Black Canadians.”
Featuring: Pierre Simpson, Martin Happer, Jocelyne Zucco, Robert Blair Williams, Maiko Watson, Alex Spencer and Jean-Michel Le Gal.
Premieres Tuesday, September 12 at 2:30 p.m.
BRIA MACK GETS A LIFE
This comedy series from Sasha Leigh Henry shows what adulthood is like for a smart young Black woman reluctantly entering the workforce. This series sees Bria, played by ACTRA Toronto Member Malaika Hennie-Hamadi, navigating the very mundane and awkward world of employment after graduating from university. When Bria returns to her mom’s house in Brampton, expectation does not meet reality. She’s accompanied by an invisible hype girl, Black Attack (ACTRA Toronto Member Hannan Younis), who pops up intermittently to steer Bria in the right, or very wrong, direction.
Featuring: Malaika Hennie-Hamadi, Hannan Younis, Leslie Adlam, Manuel Rodriguez, Amalia Williamson, Shannon Jardine, Robert Bazzocchi, Mark Forward, Preeti Torul, Robert Clarke and Jason Gosbee (Stunt Coordinator).
Premieres Sunday, September 10 at 3 p.m.
CLOSE TO YOU
Sam (Elliot Page) hasn’t been home since his transition, and after four years in Toronto, he takes a long-dreaded trip back to Cobourg for his father’s birthday. On the train there, he runs into Katherine (Hillary Baack), a friend from high school with her own complicated life now, and feelings from their unresolved past begin to bubble to the surface. It’s a serendipitous encounter, as Sam worries about seeing his family after so much time apart — not for fear that they’ll reject him, but because of the unsolicited comments and questions he’ll receive about his transition, placing the weight of his family’s ignorance and discomfort squarely on his shoulders.
Featuring: Wendy Crewson, Peter Outerbridge, Alex Paxton-Beesley, David Reale, Daniel Joseph Maslany, Mark Rendall, Janet Porter, Andrew Bushell and Jim Watson.
Premieres Sunday, September 10 at 2:30 p.m.
DREAM SCENARIO
This satirical swipe at celebrity and groupthink from writer-director Kristoffer Borgli and co-producer Ari Aster stars Nicolas Cage as an inconspicuous academic who is thrust into the limelight after he starts inexplicably appearing in people’s dreams.
Featuring: Michael Cera, Sofia Banzhaf, Jessica Clement, Daniel Skene, Vincent Rother, Joe Alberico, John Kaye and Tracy Baker.
Premieres Saturday, September 9 at 5:30 p.m.
EXPRESS
A young man who prides himself on his drive and determination makes some tough discoveries as he awaits some big news in this energetic and perceptive drama by Ivan D. Ossa.
Featuring: Isaiah Isaacs and Rebecca Ablack.
Part of Short Cuts Programme 04. Premieres Sunday, September 10 at 9:15 p.m.
FINGERNAILS
Starring Jessie Buckley, Riz Ahmed, and Jeremy Allen White, Greek director Christos Nikou’s English-language debut weaves an allegory about our desire for certainty, reliance on technology and the price we pay for losing the connection to our most primal instincts.
Featuring: Christian Meer, Katy Breier, Albert Chung, Tameka Griffiths, Scotty Cook, Sienna Singh and Amanda Arcuri.
Premieres Tuesday, September 12 at 9:30 p.m.
FITTING IN
FITTING IN mines a traumatic, rare reproductive abnormality diagnosis for laughs and tears in director Molly McGlynn’s second feature film, starring Maddie Ziegler as a teen who must confront her new health reality. Maddie Ziegler stars as Lindy, who has moved into her grandmother’s old house with her single mom Rita (ACTRA Toronto Member Emily Hampshire) and is in the early days of deciding to have sex with her boyfriend Adam (ACTRA Toronto Member D’Pharoah Woon-A-Tai) when a visit to the doctor’s office delivers news that will turn Lindy’s world upside down.
Featuring: Emily Hampshire, D’Pharaoh Woon-a-tai, Dale A Whibly, Kataem O’Connor, Vivien Endicott-Douglas, Emma Hunter, Michael Therriault and Rhoslynne Bugay.
Premieres Saturday, September 9 at 8 p.m.
HELL OF A SUMMER
A masked killer terrorizes the counsellors of a summer camp in this sardonic slasher-comedy, the feature directorial debut from ACTRA Toronto Member Billy Bryk and Finn Wolfhard. This sardonic horror-comedy assuredly slides into the requisite rhythms and rituals of a 1980s summer-camp slasher, while adding a dash of the self-reflexivity that defined the masked-killer renaissance of the 1990s.
Featuring: Billy Bryk, D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai, Krista Nazaire, Matthew Finlan, Julia Lalonde, Danielle Gravelle, Julia Doyle, Susan Coyne, Dan Iaboni (Stunt Coordinator) and Brandon Ly (Stunt Performer).
Premieres Sunday, September 10 at 11:59 p.m.
IRENA’S VOW
In occupied Poland, a former nurse risks her own life to shelter a dozen Jewish men and women from the Nazi war machine. Adapted by Dan Gordon from his stage play and directed by Quebecois filmmaker Louise Archambault — working in a very different mode from her previous dramas — IRENA’S VOW is, at its heart, a story of simple moral clarity.
Featuring: John Nelles.
Premieres Sunday, September 10 at 3:15 p.m.
MOTHERLAND
Brandishing all the energy and texture that made her debut feature FIRECRACKERS so special, Jasmin Mozaffari’s new film tells the story of a man whose personal crises are compounded by the tensions that surround him as an Iranian in America circa 1979.
Featuring: Oriana Leman, John Ralston and Birgitte Solem.
Part of Short Cuts Programme 06. Premieres Tuesday, September 12 at 6:45 p.m.
REDLIGHTS
Riveting performances by Kaniehtiio Horn and ACTRA Toronto Member Ellyn Jade add further levels of tension and texture to Eva Thomas’s drama about two Indigenous women whose evening outing takes a dangerous direction.
Featuring: Ellyn Jade, Jason Lee Bell, Stephannie Hawkins and Adam Winlove-Smith.
Part of Short Cuts Programme 02. Premieres Friday, September 8 at 6:50 p.m.
SEVEN VEILS
Atom Egoyan and his CHLOE star Amanda Seyfried reunite for this knotty psychodrama about a young theatre director forced to re-examine her own trauma while working on a remount of Salome. Recently separated from her husband, Jeanine (Seyfried) finds herself adrift, trying to explain her vision to the confused opera stars and taking comfort in reconnecting with an old friend (ACTRA Toronto Member Douglas Smith) who’s understudying. His fellow understudy (ACTRA Toronto Member Vinessa Antoine) worries she’s about to miss her only chance to play Salome — while her partner, prop master Clea (ACTRA Toronto Member Rebecca Liddiard), drifts into a dangerous situation with the blustering star, Johann.
Featuring: Rebecca Liddiard, Douglas Smith, Tara Nicodemo and Vinessa Antoine.
Premieres Sunday, September 10 at 3:45 p.m.
SWAN SONG
Chelsea McMullan’s intimate process documentary takes us inside the National Ballet of Canada’s 2022 production of Swan Lake, choreographed for the first time by the company’s artistic director Karen Kain, who famously debuted in the ballet in 1971.
Featuring: Tomas Schramek, Chelsy Meiss, Stephanie Hutchison, Jenna Savella and Antonela Martinelli.
Premieres Saturday, September 9 at 2 p.m.
Photos and capsule descriptions courtesy of TIFF.
