TIFF 2026 – ‘Angh’ and ‘Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother’ hit high notes; others also impress…
There were notable prize winners among South Asian films and filmmakers at the Toronto International Film Festival (September 10-20) this year…
🎥 Angh
🎥 Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother
🎥 The Surgeon
🎥 Phoolan
🎥 Dorothy
🎥 Elephants in the Fog
🎥 Amma Ariyan (Report to Mother)
TWO FILMS – one written and directed by American filmmaker Bassam Tariq, and another from India’s north-east – took prizes at the recent Toronto International Film Festival (September 10-20).
‘Angh’, set in Nagaland in India’s north east, won TIFF’s Platform Prize. It centres on a tribal leader and his son as they struggle to adapt in the 1960s, when an American Christian missionary arrives and their way of life and old traditions appear under threat.
When writer-director Theja Rio returned to Nagaland through Dimapur Airport, he was met with a rapturous reception, with many civil groups and associations there to greet the international award-winning director who had shone a global light on their corner of the world.
Made in the local Konyak language and featuring non-professionals, the film was later celebrated by Nagaland chief minister Neiphiu Rio, who hosted a dinner in Kohima in the director’s honour and welcomed many of the cast and crew, according to reports.
In Toronto, after winning the prize, Rio said it was a big thumbs-up for indigenous filmmakers and their stories. TIFF officially recognises that the land on which the festival takes place first belonged to Indigenous peoples; an announcement is made in the opening credits of all TIFF films.
www.asianculturevulture.com covered TIFF in 2018 and 2019 and heard this for itself.
The TIFF Platform Prize now makes the film eligible for Oscars consideration in the International Feature Film category, alongside India’s official entry this year, the Marathi-language ‘Gondhal’.
Rio expressed shock and delight, telling the audience after the TIFF awards on September 20: “I feel like I’m dreaming and I don’t want to wake up.”
He added that the Platform Prize was “quite overwhelming”, dedicated the award to “people back home” and described it as “a beginning”.
“I come from a small town in the North East of India where dreams don’t often come true for my people.”
It was the first time a film from Nagaland had featured at TIFF, and no recent Indian film has triumphed in quite the same way. The film is set for a full Oscars campaign, with screenings and talks lined up in LA in the run-up to Academy voting.
Also making waves at TIFF, and set for a wide US and Canadian release this coming week (October 9), is Bassam Tariq’s ‘Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother’, an action thriller centred on a devout Muslim assassin played by two-time Oscar winner Mahershala Ali.
Tariq won the Rising Talent Award at TIFF after the film’s world premiere there.
The title comes from a well-known Islamic Hadith. Tariq praised Orion Pictures and MGM Amazon Studios for backing a script about an assassin searching for baby formula after the death of his wife, caring for his two other children and trying to stay true to himself and his faith.
Tariq said he was guided by a sense of his own values in the creative process.
“I’m always in service to the truth and in service of compassion,” he told the TIFF Tribute Awards audience.
Practising doctor and screenwriter-director Roshan Sethi’s ‘The Surgeon’ enjoyed its world premiere at the festival, sparked strong critical praise and saw Sony Pictures win a bidding frenzy, picking up rights for Latin America, Italy, China and Hong Kong. Other territory rights had been purchased at the Cannes market earlier this year.
‘The Surgeon’ stars Oscar winner Michelle Yeoh as a semi-retired surgeon enlisted by a gang led by UK ‘The Office’ star Martin Freeman, who needs medical attention.
Among the other notable films screening at TIFF was London-based Richie Mehta’s ‘Phoolan’, about Indian outlaw Phoolan Devi, who led an armed gang after being kidnapped and attacked herself when she was a teen and then later becoming an Indian MP, and being assassinated in 2001.
Also screening at TIFF was the Tamil-language ‘Dorothy’ – the first such feature in a decade at the festival. Made by Kartik Subbaraj and scored by the legendary Ilaiyaraaja, the film has a progressive LGBTQIA+ theme running through its second half. While its world premiere at TIFF was successful, some critics in India baulked following its September 25 release there.
Screening in the Midnight Madness section was ‘Half’, a Malayalam-language vampire action thriller directed by Samjad. The film has secured an international distribution deal and is currently doing the festival rounds; it is produced by Kerala-based Fragrant Nature Film Creations and is expected to release in India before reaching screens outside the country.
Also continuing their festival runs were the Cannes premiere ‘Elephants in the Fog’ from Nepal, covered previously by www.asianculturevulture.com, and ‘The Difficult Bride’ from Bangladesh.
Another title previously covered by www.asianculturevulture.com at Cannes also screened in TIFF Classics: ‘Amma Ariyan’ (‘Report to Mother’). The 1986 film never received a conventional release but became an influential cult classic. See our coverage below…
In the shorts section, there were screenings for ‘Aman’, ‘Termite’ and ‘Till the Milk Runs Dry’.
