The Toronto International Film Festival (running from 10-20 September) has announced the 12 features in its 2026 Platform programme, its sole competitive section. Now in its 11th year, the curation champions “exceptional directorial vision and auteur voices”, in the festival’s words, and serves as a launchpad for further awards consideration. For the first time, its winner qualifies for contention for next year’s International Feature Film Oscar, after its eligibility criteria were changed beyond movies nominated by national selection committees. Argentinian director Pablo Trapero will be jury president for this year’s Platform Award, with Amma Asante, Sylvia Chang, Luc Déry and Albert Lee as co-jurors; the winning filmmaker will receive a 20,000 CAD (approximately €12,400) cash prize.

As full production information on the films isn’t available at the time of writing, we can provisionally count five European productions amongst the 12 titles. Carrying the most buzz is Swedish and Southern Sámi director Amanda Kernell’s Brace Your Heart, her follow-up to the acclaimed Sámi Blood and Charter; the festival describes it as a “quietly devastating portrait of love, resilience and the enduring strength of Sámi women”. John Trengove lands in the section with The Smell of Apples, a co-production of his home country, South Africa, as well as the Netherlands and Chile, after he impressed with the hard-hitting The Wound and Manodrome, which were in the Berlinale’s Panorama and Competition in their respective years. Adapted from South African writer Mark Behr’s 1993 novel, the “relentless” drama follows a sheltered 11-year-old white South African boy gradually realising the horrors of the apartheid system. Masc is a UK production by Swedish director and artist Bertil Nilsson, intriguingly drawing upon the filmmaker’s experience as a neurodivergent gay man navigating the contradictory demands of masculinity.

Italian director Irene Dionisio’s Idda sounds like a female spin on The Eight Mountains, following two childhood friends, now in their thirties, whose bond is challenged during a journey hiking up Sicily’s volcanic Mount Etna; rising actresses Tecla Insolia (The Art of Joy) and Romana Maggiora Vergano (There Is Still Tomorrow) play the leads. Wild Wild East by Polish director Jan Holoubek is part-suspenseful western, part-wartime noir, set in occupied Poland in the middle of World War II. The section will be opened by Japanese helmer Miwa Nishikawa’s Children Untold.

The 2025 Platform line-up featured a number of widely travelled films, with Bouchra, The Currents and Hen all making a strong international impact. In the 2010s, the English-language titles Moonlight, Sound of Metal and Lady Macbeth were launched in the section to awards prominence and wide theatrical success.

Below are the 12 films in this year’s line-up:

Children Untold - Miwa Nishikawa (Japan, opening film)
Idda - Irene Dionisio (Italy)
Silenced Nights - Lawrence Fajardo (Philippines)
Wild Wild East - Jan Holoubek (Poland)
In the Heart of the South - Nyla Innuksuk (Canada)
Djinn Wedding - Ferit Karahan (Turkey)
Brace Your Heart - Amanda Kernell (Sweden/Norway/Denmark/Iceland/Bulgaria)
On Behalf of My Son - Gabriel Martins (Brazil)
Masc - Bertil Nilsson (UK)
Angh - Theja Rio (India)
The Smell of Apples - John Trengove (South Africa/Netherlands/Chile)
The World Before - Yoon Dan-bi (South Korea)