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Amanda Kernell’s Sami reindeer herder drama Brace Your Heart,Bertil Nilsson’s UK-set debut Masc,about a neurodivergent gay Londoner, and Nyla Innuksuk’s latest Canadian film with an Inuk protagonist, In The Heart Of The South,are among 12 world premieres set for the expanded Platform section of this year’s Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF).
The section’s opening film will be Children Untold,Japanese filmmakerMiwa Nishikawa’s tale about a 12-year-old trying to survive post-Second World War Tokyo.
The Platform section’s jury, also expanded, will this year comprise Argentinian producer, director and writer Pablo Trapero as president; UK filmmaker Amma Asante; Taiwanese actor/filmmaker Sylstry executive Albert Lee
Designed to champion directorial vision and auteur voices, the Platform section, which previously has comprised between eight and 10 films, is TIFF’s only competitive section. The jury-selected Platform Award, which comes with a cash prize of CAD $20,000 (USD $14,200), will be presented on the final day of the festival, which this year runs September 10-20.
For the first time this year, under new Academy Award rules, any non-English-language film that wins the Platform Award is immediately eligible for the best international feature Oscar.
Other films in this year’s section are Jan Holoubek’s Second World War thriller Wild, Wild East,which was introduced to buyers at February’s European Film Market; Turkish family taleDjinn Wedding from Ferit Karahan, whose Brother’s Keeper was a 2021 Berlin prizewinner; and Apartheid-era South African drama The Smell Of Apples, from John Trengove, whose debut film The Wound was submitted for the 2018 best foreign-language film Oscar.
2026 Platform lineup
Brace Your Heart(Sweden-Norway-Denmark-Iceland-Bulgaria)
Dir. Amanda Kernell
Children Untold(Japan)
Dir.Miwa Nishikawa
Opening film
Djinn Wedding(Turkey)
Dir. Ferit Karahan
Idda(Italy)
Dir. Irene Dionisio
In The Heart Of The South(Canada)
Dir. Nyla Innuksuk
On Behalf Of My Son(Brazil)
Dir. Gabriel Martins
Silenced Nights (Philippines)
Dir. Lawrence Fajardo
The Smell Of Apples(South Africa-Netherlands-Chile)
Dir. John Trengove
Wild Wild East(Poland)
Dir. Jan Holoubek
The World Before(South Korea)
Dir.Yoon Dan-bi
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