Comprising 48 titles from 28 countries, this year’s Short Cuts program at the Toronto International Film Festival doesn’t represent any sort of significant change from 2024 (48 shorts but from 23 countries, so a little more geographic representation this time). Split across seven smaller programs, Short Cuts offers a distilled look at world cinema in short form, with a blend of narrative, documentary, and animated works that offer the festival’s best bang for your buck in terms of discovering new talent.
Of this year’s 48 films, here are ten that only constitute some of the highlights spread across this year’s program.
Agapito (Arvin Belarmino and Kyla Romero)
Arvin Belarmino and Kyla Romero’s endearing Agapito takes place at an old duckpin bowling alley in the Philippines, a place so stuck in time the staff still works in the back to manually adjust pins. Supervisor Mira (Nour Hooshmand) announces an early closing to prepare for a special guest, and in these initial scenes we get a strong sense of the alley’s tight-knit community and bond between Mira and her co-workers as they deal with an irate customer. Once the guest arrives, Agapito takes an unexpected turn into a heartfelt look at unconditional love, with Geia De Vera’s striking cinematography making the most of its characters’ outpouring of affection within their rundown workplace.
A Soft Touch (Heather Young)
A sympathetic look at an octogenarian’s solitary existence turns into an angry indictment of society’s dismissal of its more vulnerable in Heather Young’s terrific A Soft Touch. Octogenarian Ellen (Ellen Pottie) lives on her own in seniors’ housing, spending her days getting around on a motorized scooter and taking different medications for health issues. Young’s no-frills direction, shot by cinematographer Kevin Fraser in muted colors and precise compositions, shows Ellen as someone with a full, rich life, surrounding herself with family photos in her apartment along with meeting friends at a nearby seniors’ center. But when Ellen finds herself in a financial bind after giving money to a scammer, A Soft Touch doesn’t shy from the brutal reality Ellen faces as she sacrifices her quality of life to stay afloat. With the help of a strong, expressive debut performance by 81-year-old Pottie, A Soft Touch is one of the best films in this year’s Short Cuts.
The Contestant (Patrick Bresnan)
Director Patrick Bresnan delves into his past with The Contestant, a strange time capsule comprising footage he shot at 19 years old in 1996. A prankster at the time, Bresnan and his friends entered a contest in their hometown where Baywatch star David Hasselhoff showed up to crown a lucky winner who would get a role on the show. And while Bresnan’s shit-stirring antics offer plenty to laugh at (mainly from the pained expressions of the concert’s organizers) his footage inadvertently captures just how quaint pop culture was almost three decades ago, where a cultural juggernaut like Baywatch could exist, contra today’s more sprawled-out and siloed landscape.
Divers (Geordie Wood)
Geordie Wood’s documentary deconstructs the act of high-diving, filming a group of athletes practicing on one of the world’s largest diving towers (27 meters, to be exact). Editor Luke Lorentzen (director of A Still Small Voice and Midnight Family) fragments the warm-up, anticipation, and dive itself into separate, distinct parts, while cinematographer Adam Golfer juxtaposes the tower and divers against the bright sky above them. The result is a stunning spectacle: as we see carefully framed bodies elegantly fly among the clouds, Divers finds new ways of appreciating the work and grace that goes into these skilled leaps.
I Fear Blue Skies (Salar Pashtoonyar)
Set in Afghanistan during the withdrawal of US troops, Salar Pashtoonyar’s I Fear Blue Skies follows an unnamed man (Ahmad Zaki) as he prepares for a meeting with a Taliban minister (Sami Asir). In trying to find a way to get him and his family out of the country, the man must request government approval to restart a US-backed NGO he worked for, as it’s the fastest way he can get a visa. Down to its title, I Fear Blue Skies portrays Afghanistan through the perspective of its population, a rarely seen perspective that offers a necessary, humanist alternative to the political framing Afghanistan is usually given from the West. Pashtoonyar creates a taut portrait of people caught in the crosshairs of international conflicts they have no choice but to navigate in order to survive, with a devastating finale that reveals the real-life tragedy that inspired his film.
Jazz Infernal (Will Niava)
Hopping between frenetic and contemplative, Will Niava’s Jazz Infernal drops us in on Koffi (Ange-Eric Nguessan), a trumpet player from the Ivory Coast who arrives in Montreal. The son of a famous trumpet player, Koffi finds himself conflicted over how to distinguish himself from his late father’s legacy, an internal struggle made worse when two jazz musicians discover who he is and take him out for a chaotic night on the town. A restless camera and fast, rhythmic editing keep Jazz Infernal moving at an unpredictable pace, with Koffi getting thrown into impromptu jazz concerts and running into police. But Koffi’s overall arc––finally getting to a place of assuredness outside his father’s shadow––keeps the film grounded for its satisfying conclusion.
Karupy (Kalainithan Kalaichelvan)
Kalainithan Kalaichelvan’s ambitious short crams several generations of a Tamil family’s complicated dynamics into a tight and darkly comedic 12 minutes, which opens with matriarch Karupy (Sumathy Balaram) announcing at her own birthday party that she intends to kill herself in front of her family that evening. Told across five chapters, Kalaichelvan shows vignettes of different relatives roaming through Karupy’s ornately wallpapered home, and through their interactions we get a glimpse of the resentment and dysfunction that led its title character to the point of suicide. Shot on 35mm by cinematographer Shady Hanna, Karupy looks fantastic, with the film’s suffocating framing going a long way to establish the fraught tension throughout this ensemble piece.
The Non-Actor (Eliza Barry Callahan)
Adapted from her own novel, Eliza Barry Callahan’s compelling two-hander takes place over a brief trip to Los Angeles by Elliot (Victoria Pedretti), a young writer who arrives to undergo testing for her hearing loss. Intending to stay the night at her ex-boyfriend’s before heading home the next morning, a last-minute job opportunity puts him out of town, leaving Elliot to spend her time with his new girlfriend Bella (Maya Hawke). Callahan tells the story entirely through Elliot’s perspective, which includes a meticulous soundtrack meant to replicate her hearing issues. The sound design, with dialogue constantly shifting from foreground to background, also underlines the differences between Elliot and Bella, whose brief time together is built on a miscommunication borne of their respective self-serving agendas. Both characters may have got what they needed out of each other, but Callahan closes her film on an enigmatic note, letting implications from this brief window of time linger.
Not Scared, Just Sad (Isabelle Mecattaf)
In 2024, Isabelle Mecattaf visited her family in Beirut during Israel’s invasion and bombing of Lebanon to make Not Scared, Just Sad, a documentary about life during the ongoing conflict. Through a simple but effective use of split screen, Mecattaf contrasts footage of her mother engaged in casual conversation or scrolling on her phone with the terror of hearing Israeli missiles bomb buildings several blocks away. In putting the mundane moments of everyday existence next to the horrors of war, Not Scared, Just Sad could have simply been a powerful representation of how people must reconcile these two extremes when living in a war zone. Mecattaf instead opens her film up to engage with divisions of class and privilege, also filming domestic workers who must carry on cleaning and preparing food for their employers (these are credited as members of her extended family). A shot of Mecattaf’s family’s nice apartment, where she watches TV with her parents in a large solarium, becomes a powerful encapsulation of the privilege and vulnerability they represent.
To the Woods (Agnès Patron)
Agnès Patron’s hand-drawn animated short is a deep dive into the memory of its protagonist, a woman who recalls a time as a child when she ventured into the forest at night with her older brother. It’s an incomplete memory, one filled with suggestions that this period of reflection might be tied to loss. To the Woods doesn’t provide any clear explanation or context, instead letting the story be dictated by the emotions of its main character. That gives Patron freedom to experiment with the animation, finding creative ways to warp and abstract drawings as the younger sister’s memories become more intense. Understated, mysterious, and affecting, Patron’s film is among the highlights of this year’s animated shorts.
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