10 Most Anticipated Shorts at TIFF 2024

Hello everyone! Welcome to our coverage of TIFF24! It is a personal honour and very special for me to be attending this festival as an official member of the press this year. As a resident of the greater Toronto area I have attended this festival for a decade now and it is what really got me into movies all those years ago. Throughout the next couple of weeks we will be covering our favourite shorts from the six plus a couple extras from the wavelengths program too! The TIFF lineup looks strong as always. From this group of films we have already had the pleasure of watching Percebes, Maybe Elephants and The Man Who Could Not Remain Silent at other fests. If the rest of the lineup lives up to the expectations these three set we are in for an amazing fest. In no particular order, here is a list of ten of our most anticipated shorts for the festival.

-Brandon MacMurray

The Yellow

Fresh off her lead role in Longlegs this year, we are excited to see Maika Monroe team up with Simone Faoro to bring us their new short The Yellow. This blend of comedy and fantasy also brings in a stellar cast with Haley Joel Osment (The Sixth Sense) and Marin Hinkle (The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Two and a Half Men). We are incredibly interested to see what this team brings to the table as this Samantha Hunt short story is turned into a short film.

-Brandon MacMurray

Inkwo for When the Starving Return

You don't have to go further than the above image to realize how incredible the animation in this short will be. Inkwo for When the Starving Return is adapted from a Richard Van Camp story and tells a thrilling story of the battle between an indigenous youth and an ancient evil. I couldn't be more stoked to see this one play out on the big screen.

-Brandon MacMurray

Loser Baby

Perhaps the biggest name in the short film category this year is Dakota Johnson as she makes her directorial debut here at TIFF. Loser Baby tells the story of a queer woman who starts to question the state of her relationship after her friends stories about theirs get in her head. Directorial debuts are always exciting and I am intrigued see what Dakota Johnson and her generally very sarcastic sense of humour brings to this comedy.

-Brandon MacMurray

Quota

Quota is the latest short to come from Dutch animation trio/studio Job, Joris & Marieke. This short may be the shortest at TIFF with a 3 minute run time but these directors have proven they don't need much time to produce an effective short as one of their previous shorts with a 3 minute run time when on to be nominated at the 87th Academy Awards. I can't wait to see how this team tackles the topic of climate change and CO2 emissions in this short!

-Brandon MacMurray

Gender Reveal

If you for some reason find yourself playing Gen-Z bingo, Gender Reveal is sure to give you the jackpot. Alongside the namesake of the dreaded gender reveal party, this offers people pleasing, employee / boss relationship and a trans throuple cherry on top. That is really all you need to say to have me seated, and I’m really hoping this turns out to be the quirky, awkward and intense drama comedy I am imagining it to be.

-Robin Hellgren

Sauna Day

The premise of this drama reveals that we will follow a handful of Southern Estonian men as they share a smoke sauna after a hard day's work. Last year we saw the director Anna Hints compete with Smoke Sauna Sisterhood for Estonia in the international feature race at the Oscars, featuring women sharing their intimate stories and experiences. That film really struck a chord with me and I have found myself thinking back to it since, so naturally I am very intrigued as to what the complexity of toxic masculinity and the male struggle to open up can bring to the setting.

-Robin Hellgren

Scénarios / Exposé du film annonce du film "Scénario,"

In Scénarios, French New Wave master Jean-Luc Godard collages the formal experimentation that he brought to 2018’s The Image Book for his final 18-minute treatise on art, cinema, language and death, completed the day before his assisted suicide in Switzerland in late 2022. At tiff, the film is paired with Exposé du film annonce du film "Scénario," a sort of making-of documentary that gives audiences a final glimpse of the iconoclast at work.

-Joshua Hunt

Perfectly a Strangeness

Director Alison McAlpine, whose starry 2017 documentary Cielo made incredible use of night-sky photography returns to the desert for her new feature Perfectly a Strangeness. Told from the point of view of three travelling donkeys, Perfectly a Strangeness is described by TIFF as “delightfully enigmatic and visually sumptuous,” and based on the trailer will be another beautiful and mysterious offering.

-Joshua Hunt

Amarela

Brazilian director André Hayato Saito will present his Cannes competition short, Amarela, at TIFF. As a fellow Brazilian, there is a lot of interest in this one to see he approaches not only the love for football (not soccer, it’s football) but the pressure of being a member of a migrant family in an overly racist country. Also, the gorgeous poster designed by Gus Kondo and title lettering by Tayná Miessa teases an emotional and sweet coming-of-age story. The film is in the Short Cuts Programme 01. 

-Pedro Lima

O

Earlier this year, Icelandic director Rúnar Rúnarsson was in the Un Certain Regard of Festival de Cannes with his great film, When The Light Breaks. He will debut his latest work, O, in the Orrizonti competition for Short Films in the Bienalle di Venezia. Both works will screen in TIFF, O preceding the When The Light Breaks.I am looking forward to the short. The feature Rúnar released this year is outstanding, and he tackles the futility of life again in O. Curious to see him blend his style into the short film. Rúnar continues to be one of the most fascinating voices of this generation.

-Pedro Lima