Toronto Film Festival to shine a spotlight on Indian cinema in major push

In an interview at TIFF’s headquarters, the Lightbox, the festival’s chief programming officer Anita Lee said, “That is important to our programme. We do plan to lean into it further going ahead.” The 11-day long festival begins on September 5 and runs through September 15.

In that context, she said TIFF has brought on board a programming advisor based in India, Meenakshi Shedde, who joined last year. “It allows us to actually have somebody on the ground who is very connected with the industry there who is actually recommending films for us.” The final decision on the films selected rests with Robyn Citizen, TIFF’s director of programming.

Five films from India will be showcased at the 49th edition of the festival this year. This will include world premieres of Superboys of Malegaon, directed by Reema Kagti, and Boong, the first-ever Manipuri project at TIFF, directed by Lakshmipriya Devi.

Also, featured is All We Imagine As Light from director Payal Kapadia, which has already won international accolades, capturing the Grand Prix at the Cannes film festival in May. Also screening is the Hindi-language Santosh, directed by Sandhya Suri.

Kapadia is no stranger to TIFF, as her documentary feature A Night of Knowing Nothing also screened at the festival, in 2021, and won the Amplify Voices Award.

Superboys of Malegaon is the gala presentation at this year’s festival, which is for mainstream crowd pleasers. As Lee said, “We understood that there is a real audience here for star driven Indian films.”

Of course, among the principal attractions at the festival will be the high-quality digital restoration of the classic film 1951 Awara, directed by the legendary Raj Kapoor, who also stars in it. That special screening will be to mark his 100th birth anniversary.