Tiff's People's Choice Awards 2026

TIFF 2026 Awards

1. People’s Choice Award presented by Rogers: La Bola Negra, dirs. Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi

   First runner-up: I Play Rocky, dir. Peter Farrelly

   Second runner-up: Being Heumann, dir. Siân Heder

   
   

   International People’s Choice Award presented by Rogers: Elsinore, dir. Simon Stone  

   First runner-up: Possible Love, dir. Lee Chang-dong

   Second runner-up: The Assassin(s), dir. Hur Jin-ho

   
   

   People’s Choice Documentary Award presented by Rogers: Darlene Love: I Know Where I’ve Been, dir. Barry Avrich 

   First runner-up: Black Sunflowers, dir. James Marcus Haney

   Second runner-up: The Ultra Runner dir. Mila Aung-Thwin

   
   

   People’s Choice Midnight Madness Award presented by Rogers: Ladies and Gentlemen, Brian Mulroney, dir. Matthew Rankin 

   First runner-up: The Spiral, dir. Paolo Strippoli

   Second runner-up: Arrested Memory, dir. SABU

   
   

   PLATFORM PRIZE

   
   

   Launched in 2015 and inspired by Jia Zhang-ke’s groundbreaking film, TIFF’s Platform Prize honours filmmakers with strong directorial vision and distinctive storytelling. All films in the programme are eligible for the prize. TIFF’s Platform Prize is one of only six international festival awards with a direct pathway to the Oscars. Building on this newly established status, the 2026 Platform programme expanded to 12 films, with an international five-member jury selecting the winner of the $20,000 CAD prize. This year’s jury was led by President Pablo Trapero, alongside Amma Asante, Sylvia Chang, Luc Déry, and Albert Lee.

   
   

   Platform Prize:

   Angh, dir. Theja Rio | India

   
   

   Platform jury’s statement: “The Platform Prize goes to Angh. For its refreshing perspective, strength of filmmaking, and deeply resonant portrait of a world. We praise the filmmaker’s vision, audacity and courage.”

   
   

   Special Jury Award:

   Brace Your Heart (Garrat Du Váimmu), dir. Amanda Kernell | Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Iceland, Bulgaria

   
   

I didn't get to see too many of these films this year, but I'm super happy to see Darlene Love: I know where I've been winning for PCA Documentary.  Congrats to my friend,  Producer Mark Selby, on a spectacular Documentary.

I just posted a review on Thirteen in Gaza, a film that will stick with you every time you see reports about the war in GAZA.

I was at TIFF for the Red Carpet for Smudge the Blades, and I can tell you that the cast was just super excited to be there, so I'm sure there will be a big party for them tonight.  

Smudge the Blades

Angh

Thirteen in Gaza- A teen's worst nightmare

 

Thirteen in Gaza

2026 - 1h 17m Language: Arabic 

Country: Palestine

World Premiere at TIFF-Toronto International Film Festival

*NETPAC AWARD WINNER 2026

Director

Hosam Abu Dan

Writer

Khalil al Mozian

Stars

    Nawaf Abu Amra

                                                            Feras Al Masri 

                                                            Ghassan Salem

This is Palestinian director Hosam Abu Dan’s first feature film, shot entirely inside the Gaza Strip with a fully Palestinian crew. And honestly, it couldn’t have been made anywhere else. The landscape itself becomes a character—its danger, its exhaustion, its quiet desperation woven into every frame. Filming it elsewhere would have stripped the story of its truth.

The film follows Raghad (Mary Ziyara), a 13‑year‑old girl who has lost her home and most of her family after an airstrike during the Gaza war. She and her father (Feras Al Masri) are forced into a displacement camp, where life becomes a daily negotiation of survival. For a teenage girl, this new reality is a nightmare: sharing a tent with her father, learning to bake bread over open flames, hauling water, and navigating puberty without a mother to guide her.

Her father, gentle and devoted, tries desperately to protect her and preserve some sense of normalcy. But desperation pushes people toward impossible choices. He takes on a dangerous opportunity he believes will help his daughter—only for it to unravel with devastating consequences.

Dialogue is sparse, but the film speaks volumes through Raghad’s eyes and her father’s weary silence. Their performances are subtle, expressive, and heartbreakingly real. Abu Dan’s choice to film inside actual encampments lays bare the collateral damage of war—what greed, politics, and power do to ordinary people who never asked to be part of any conflict.

If this isn’t a film that shows why wars must end, I don’t know what is. The ones who pay the highest price are always the young, the elderly, the vulnerable, and the poor—while those who profit from conflict remain untouched, growing richer off the suffering of others.

This film is a quiet, devastating reminder of who war really destroys.