Canada's Top Ten - Shorts








Programme 1

Fri, February 6 - 1pm

Hand inserting a VHS tape into a black VCR player

Lloyd Wong, Unfinished

dir. Lesley Loksi Chan

In her Golden Bear–winning short documentary, Lesley Loksi Chan brilliantly repurposes the footage of Lloyd Wong’s long-lost video project that traces the late Chinese Canadian artist’s intimate struggle to bring awareness and demystify the challenges of living with AIDS.

Person in olive coat talking on phone while riding public transit, dimly lit with greenish lighting

Jazz Infernal

dir. Will Niava

In Will Niava’s masterfully orchestrated jazz ride, Koffi, son of a legendary trumpet player, must confront the weight of his father’s legacy and leave the ghosts of Ivory Coast behind.

Official Selection, TIFF ’25

Weathered vintage puppet or doll with painted face in dark, shadowy setting

The Girl Who Cried Pearls

dirs. Chris Lavis, Maciek Szczerbowski

Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski, the team behind the Oscar-nominated Madame Tutli-Putli, return with a lavish period stop-motion animation doubling as a timely cautionary tale about greed and susceptibility.

Official Selection, TIFF ’25
Winner, Best Canadian Short Film Award, TIFF ’25

Elderly woman in floral dress sits at striped tablecloth with coffee, flowers, and medications on table

A Soft Touch

dir. Heather Young

A tenant in seniors’ housing is forced to make a heartbreaking decision after she lends money to someone who disappears, revealing the isolation and fragile security experienced by those living on the margins of society in Heather Young’s deeply affecting drama.

Official Selection, TIFF ’25

Dancer in vibrant red costume performing against dark background, dramatic lighting creates ethereal effect

Pidikwe (Rumble)

dir. Caroline Monnet

Transcending time, space, form, and genre, Caroline Monnet’s Pidikwe is a spellbinding celebration of the ancestral feminine and its cultural multiverse, featuring an electric fusion of Indigenous and contemporary dances.

Programme 2

Sat, February 7 - 1pm

Traditional puppet with painted face, black beard, and top hat in close-up view

La Mayordomía

dir. Martin Edralin

For the chosen families of Xochimilco, Mexico, stewardship of Baby Jesus icons is more than just tradition. Martin Edralin’s vibrant snapshot of a community absorbed in the annual handover ceremony captures complex emotions and deeper socio-cultural implications of this all-important custom.

Person in white clothing smelling pale yellow elderflowers against dark background at night

ripe

dir. Solara Thanh Bình Đặng

Earthly and spiritual guides are a young Vietnamese woman’s allies as she decides whether to enter an arranged marriage in Solara Thanh Bình Đặng’s ethereal drama steeped in sensual rhythms of the land.

Official Selection, TIFF ’25

Person in red shirt holding a boom in a concrete archway corridor with dramatic repeating shadows and perspective

Ramón Who Speaks to Ghosts

dir. Shervin Kermani

For Ramón, a sensitive sound recordist and subject of Shervin Kermani’s delightful mockumentary, making sure that the ghosts of La Palma island are given a voice is a life’s purpose.

Official Selection, TIFF ’25

Silhouette of a person standing alone at night against a dark blue sky with shadowy trees below

Klee

dir. Gavin Baird

Body horror meets prairie gothic in Gavin Baird’s mind-blowing period sci-fi that flips the script on colonization as an alien in the form of an Indigenous man infiltrates a remote Saskatchewan community and seduces its members one by one.

Official Selection, TIFF ’25

Nighttime street scene with silhouetted figures against glowing red storefront lights and apartment buildings

Ambush

dir. Yassmina Karajah

Sounds of bustling nightlife, crowded markets, and techno parties fill the air as the lives of two unlikely strangers intersect in Yassmina Karajah’s lyrical and dreamy love letter to the pulsing, vibrant, and deeply charming city of Amman.

Official Selection, TIFF ’25