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Valentyn Vasyanovych has built his reputation on quiet yet devastating portraits of Ukraine in crisis, from the haunting near-future visions of ATLANTIS to the clinical, unflinching gaze of REFLECTION. With TO THE VICTORY! he continues this trajectory, shifting from war itself to the space after it ends. The result is a film that resists pride, lingering instead on the emptiness that follows survival.

Weddings are often treated on screen as moments of release, filled with laughter, romance, and chaos that eventually resolve into a neat bow. Philippe Falardeau’s LOVELY DAY has no interest in indulging that fantasy. Instead, it asks what happens when the very rituals meant to unify become suffocating, when the perfect day amplifies every crack already running through a family. What emerges is a sharp and surprisingly deep dramedy that balances humor with a painful honesty, one that explores in a structure as fractured and restless as its protagonist’s mind.

TIFF often thrives on scale—gala premieres, sweeping epics, star-driven dramas. But every so often, it’s the smallest entry in the lineup that makes the strongest impact. With a runtime of just over three and a half minutes, MARRIAGINALIA holds the title of the festival’s shortest short, and yet it hardly feels like it. In fact, it plays like a concentrated dose of surreal comedy, twisting the rituals of marriage into something at once distorted and affectionate.

How do you confront a silence that’s lasted over four decades? Min Sook Lee’s THERE ARE NO WORDS begins with that question and carries it with determination through every frame. It’s a documentary that refuses to look away from a family’s wounds, even when the pain is too heavy to articulate. The result is a deeply personal film that expands far beyond one individual’s story, speaking to generational trauma and the complex intersections of memory, love, and loss.

Some short films lean on whimsy, but what makes THE GIRL WHO CRIED PEARLS compelling is how it threads the timeless qualities of a fable with the artistry of stop-motion animation. In just under twenty minutes, Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski transform grief, devotion, and temptation into a cautionary tale that feels both rooted in centuries-old storytelling and strikingly relevant today.

U ARE THE UNIVERSE catapults us into the not-so-distant future, where Andriy Melnyk (Volodymyr Kravchuk,) a space trucker from Ukraine, embarks on a routine cargo mission that unexpectedly turns into a desperate survival struggle. Following Earth's abrupt end, Andriy discovers he might be the last human floating through space—until a distress call from Catherine (Darya Plakhtiy,) another lone survivor on a distant station, pulls their fates together. Their interaction sparks an epic quest to explore what remains of human connection in a universe seemingly void of it.

SHEPHERDS takes us away to the dramatic expanse of the French Alps, where director Sophie Deraspe crafts a rugged and reflective narrative. In this cinematic journey, Félix-Antoine Duval portrays Mathyas, a Montreal executive whose disillusionment with city life drives him to seek serenity in the pastoral landscapes. However, what begins as a quest for simplicity evolves into a challenging saga of survival and self-awareness. As Mathyas faces the elemental forces of nature, the film becomes a testament to the human spirit's resilience.

THEY WILL BE DUST crafts a poignant narrative under director Carlos Marqués-Marcet's nuanced direction. It successfully melds the elements of drama into profound existential themes. As the storyline unfolds, it doesn't just walk you through the lives of its characters—it carries us, weaving the emotion with the aesthetic.

SEVEN DAYS whisks its viewers into the heart of a tension-filled drama where personal liberty and social justice clash. At the center of this emotional whirlwind is Maryam, portrayed by Vishka Asayesh, whose performance captures a woman at a crossroads. Maryam, a resilient Iranian human rights activist, must decide whether to embrace a fleeting chance at freedom or return to her oppressive imprisonment to continue her fight.