TIFF x Instagram Shorts Festival

As a film festival, curation is in our DNA. In 2016, we asked ourselves, “what if we challenged one of the world’s fastest-growing visual creative communities to make one-minute films, and curated their submissions into a (very) short Festival?”

Built in partnership with Instagram, the TIFFxInstagram Shorts Festival was born to bring curated cinematic storytelling to the digital world, and create our lowest-barrier to entry (no submission fee; all you need is access to a phone and a story) platform for emerging storytellers to crossover to the world of traditional filmmaking. With jurors including Isabelle Huppert, Lake Bell, Moonlight’s Ashton Sanders, Director X and Bollywood super producer Karan Johar, TIFFxInstagram has drawn thousands of submissions from over 50 countries, from Colombia to Indonesia and Kenya. Our official selection of 25 films featured 40% female filmmakers, and featured a variety of genres, including documentary, animation, comedy and psychological-thriller.

Running from August 10-20, 2017 we premiered 2-3 films a day on our Instagram channel (@tiff_net) and following a period of deliberation by our esteemed Jury, announced the Fan Favourite Award Winner (selected by the audience, through their Likes on Instagram), and the Jury’s Choice Award Winner. Both winners were profiled on @instagram and invited to the 42nd Toronto International Film Festival in September of 2017 to attend Gala premieres, and TIFF’s Industry Conference where they were given opportunities to network with the global film community, and attend a special Awards Reception where their work was showcased and celebrated by TIFF attendees.

Some films which demonstrate the range of the TIFFxInstagram Shorts Festival:

AWAKENING WINDS (dir. Josue Martinez Paz), Indonesia

INSTRUCTIONS FOR SINGING (dir. Adrian Suarez), Colombia

IN BETWEEN (dir. Gabriela Hansen), USA

CONFESSION (dir. Natalia Gurkina), Russia

HOME MOVIES (dir. Kevin Rios), USA

DISHA (dir. Sugandha Bansal), India

PRESENTING PARTNER