The Toronto International Film Festival, returning for its 50th edition next month, is an important platform for films from the Middle East, offering space for emerging and established Arab filmmakers.
Running from September 4 to 14 this year, the annual event is one of the world's largest and most influential film festivals.
This year’s Platform programme jury will be led by Spanish filmmaker Carlos Marques-Marcet, known for 10,000 KM and The Days to Come. The festival opens with John Candy: I Like Me by Colin Hanks and will close with Anne Emond’s Peak Everything (Amour Apocalypse).
The 2025 programme highlights a wide selection of films from the Middle East, spanning feature-length and short formats. Here are some of the titles to look out for.
Palestine 36 by Annemarie Jacir
One of the most anticipated Arab films at Tiff is Annemarie Jacir’s Palestine 36. Set against the backdrop of the 1936 revolt during British rule, the film's cast includes Hiam Abbass, Saleh Bakri, Jeremy Irons, Liam Cunningham and Dhafer L’Abidine.
Jacir has been a central figure in Palestinian cinema for two decades, previously directing Salt of This Sea, When I Saw You and Wajib. Her latest work, a 118-minute historical drama, screens as a Gala Presentation on opening weekend.
Calle Malaga by Maryam Touzani
Moroccan director Maryam Touzani makes a language shift with Calle Malaga, her first Spanish-language feature. The film follows a 74-year-old woman in Tangier, played by Carmen Maura, who refuses to part with her home despite her daughter’s wishes. Marta Etura and Maria Alfonsa Rosso take supporting roles.
Touzani’s profile has grown steadily since Adam and The Blue Caftan, which were both Moroccan Oscar submissions. After its premiere in Venice, this intergenerational drama now heads to Toronto.
The Voice of Hind Rajab by Kaouther Ben Hania
Tunisian filmmaker Kaouther Ben Hania’s film The Voice of Hind Rajab is based on the final hours of a five-year-old Palestinian girl killed by the Israeli military in Gaza in early 2024. Hind Rajab's death gained international attention after audio recordings of her emergency call to the Red Crescent were released, in which she described being trapped in a car surrounded by the bodies of her relatives.
The film has also been selected for the Venice Film Festival, marking another major step for Ben Hania’s bold hybrid filmmaking.
With Hasan in Gaza by Kamal Aljafari
A lost film reel is the starting point for Kamal Aljafari’s With Hasan in Gaza. Shot in 2001 and rediscovered years later, the footage is reworked into a meditation on memory, loss and the persistence of everyday life.
Aljafari, the Palestinian filmmaker known for Port of Memory and Recollection, uses cinema as an archival tool against erasure. Tiff will screen the film alongside Basma al-Sharif’s short It’s So Beautiful Here.
It’s So Beautiful Here by Basma Al Sharif
Only four minutes long but with a powerful impact, BasmaAl Sharif’s It’s So Beautiful Here captures a horse ride through a Gaza farm at dusk. Al-Sharif, a Palestinian artist whose practice moves between film and installation, is also known for Ouroboros and Home Movies Gaza.
Unidentified by Haifaa Al Mansour
Haifaa Al Mansour, Saudi Arabia’s trailblazing female director, turns to crime drama in Unidentified. The plot follows a mother, haunted by grief and true-crime obsessions, who investigates the killing of a teenage girl in the desert.
The film stars Mila Al Zahrani and Shafi Al Harthi and is already set for release by Sony Pictures Classics. Al Mansour is best known for Wadjda, the first feature shot entirely in Saudi Arabia, and The Perfect Candidate.
Flana by Zahraa Ghandour
Iraqi filmmaker and actress Zahraa Ghandour brings a personal lens to Flana, a documentary that examines the disappearances of women in Iraq. Ghandour grew up in a household of midwives, a perspective that informs her exploration of gender and violence. Known on screen for her role in Mohamed Al Daradji’s The Journey, she also co-directed Chaos in 2018.
Cairo Streets by Abdellah Taia
Set in January 2007, Cairo Streets follows a man who returns to the city in search of an old flame. The 19-minute short by Moroccan novelist and filmmaker Abdellah Taia was produced in France and appeared at this month's Locarno Film Festival in Switzerland. Taia's debut feature Salvation Army earned wide acclaim.
Sink (Gharaq) by Zain Duraie
A mother confronts her son’s unravelling mental health in Sink (Gharaq), the debut feature from Jordanian filmmaker Zain Duraie.
Duraie directed the shorts Horizon and Give Up the Ghost, the latter of which was screened in Venice. With the backing of the Doha Film Institute, she has moved on to features with a story rooted in contemporary family struggles.
Land of Barbar by Fredj Moussa
French-Tunisian artist Fredj Moussa draws inspiration from an unexpected source, Giovanni Boccaccio’s 14th-century story collection The Decameron, reimagining it through a North African lens.
His film Land of Barbar, shot in the Tunisian city of Sousse, will premiere in Tiff’s Wavelengths section, marking his first screening at a major festival.
Huddersfield Town permanent signings:
- Steve Mounie (striker): signed from Montpellier for £11 million
- Tom Ince (winger): signed from Derby County for £7.7m
- Aaron Mooy (midfielder): signed from Manchester City for £7.7m
- Laurent Depoitre (striker): signed from Porto for £3.4m
- Scott Malone (defender): signed from Fulham for £3.3m
- Zanka (defender): signed from Copenhagen for £2.3m
- Elias Kachunga (winger): signed for Ingolstadt for £1.1m
- Danny WIlliams (midfielder): signed from Reading on a free transfer
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The President's Cake
Director: Hasan Hadi
Starring: Baneen Ahmad Nayyef, Waheed Thabet Khreibat, Sajad Mohamad Qasem
Rating: 4/5
The biog
DOB: 25/12/92
Marital status: Single
Education: Post-graduate diploma in UAE Diplomacy and External Affairs at the Emirates Diplomatic Academy in Abu Dhabi
Hobbies: I love fencing, I used to fence at the MK Fencing Academy but I want to start again. I also love reading and writing
Lifelong goal: My dream is to be a state minister
No Shame
Lily Allen
(Parlophone)
if you go
The flights
Emirates fly direct from Dubai to Houston, Texas, where United have direct flights to Managua. Alternatively, from October, Iberia will offer connections from Madrid, which can be reached by both Etihad from Abu Dhabi and Emirates from Dubai.
The trip
Geodyssey’s (Geodyssey.co.uk) 15-night Nicaragua Odyssey visits the colonial cities of Leon and Granada, lively country villages, the lake island of Ometepe and a stunning array of landscapes, with wildlife, history, creative crafts and more. From Dh18,500 per person, based on two sharing, including transfers and tours but excluding international flights. For more information, visit visitnicaragua.us.
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THE DETAILS
Kaala
Dir: Pa. Ranjith
Starring: Rajinikanth, Huma Qureshi, Easwari Rao, Nana Patekar
Rating: 1.5/5
Hili 2: Unesco World Heritage site
The site is part of the Hili archaeological park in Al Ain. Excavations there have proved the existence of the earliest known agricultural communities in modern-day UAE. Some date to the Bronze Age but Hili 2 is an Iron Age site. The Iron Age witnessed the development of the falaj, a network of channels that funnelled water from natural springs in the area. Wells allowed settlements to be established, but falaj meant they could grow and thrive. Unesco, the UN's cultural body, awarded Al Ain's sites - including Hili 2 - world heritage status in 2011. Now the most recent dig at the site has revealed even more about the skilled people that lived and worked there.
Keep it fun and engaging
Stuart Ritchie, director of wealth advice at AES International, says children cannot learn something overnight, so it helps to have a fun routine that keeps them engaged and interested.
“I explain to my daughter that the money I draw from an ATM or the money on my bank card doesn’t just magically appear – it’s money I have earned from my job. I show her how this works by giving her little chores around the house so she can earn pocket money,” says Mr Ritchie.
His daughter is allowed to spend half of her pocket money, while the other half goes into a bank account. When this money hits a certain milestone, Mr Ritchie rewards his daughter with a small lump sum.
He also recommends books that teach the importance of money management for children, such as The Squirrel Manifesto by Ric Edelman and Jean Edelman.
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Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
THE%20SWIMMERS
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Fight card
Preliminaries:
Nouredine Samir (UAE) v Sheroz Kholmirzav (UZB); Lucas Porst (SWE) v Ellis Barboza (GBR); Mouhmad Amine Alharar (MAR) v Mohammed Mardi (UAE); Ibrahim Bilal (UAE) v Spyro Besiri (GRE); Aslamjan Ortikov (UZB) v Joshua Ridgwell (GBR)
Main card:
Carlos Prates (BRA) v Dmitry Valent (BLR); Bobirjon Tagiev (UZB) v Valentin Thibaut (FRA); Arthur Meyer (FRA) v Hicham Moujtahid (BEL); Ines Es Salehy (BEL) v Myriame Djedidi (FRA); Craig Coakley (IRE) v Deniz Demirkapu (TUR); Artem Avanesov (ARM) v Badreddine Attif (MAR); Abdulvosid Buranov (RUS) v Akram Hamidi (FRA)
Title card:
Intercontinental Lightweight: Ilyass Habibali (UAE) v Angel Marquez (ESP)
Intercontinental Middleweight: Amine El Moatassime (UAE) v Francesco Iadanza (ITA)
Asian Featherweight: Zakaria El Jamari (UAE) v Phillip Delarmino (PHI)
Listen to Extra Time
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