Andrea Werhun and Nicole Bazuin challenge toxic misconceptions about sex work and sex workers with great audacity and high style.

An impassioned and insightful rebuttal to the assumptions, misconceptions, and faulty representations that surround sex work and sex workers, Modern Whore may also be the most audacious and engaging movie ever made about the oldest profession.

Successfully expanding on their 2020 short film and book of the same name, director Nicole Bazuin and subject and co-writer Andrea Werhun take viewers on a very eventful journey through Werhun’s experiences as an escort and exotic dancer, a career she began when she was a university student in Toronto. As Werhun recounts with great flair and frankness in the film’s stylized, fourth-wall-breaking re-enactments, there were many lessons to be learned and challenges to be faced, including the lack of protection from toxic clients and her own internalized versions of the shame that society associates with female pleasure and the sex industry.

In this mesmerizing film by Kunsang Kyirong, the deepening bond between two young women threatens to have repercussions throughout a community of Tibetan immigrants living in an apartment complex in west Toronto.

Indeed, one of the most impressive aspects of this fully realized first feature is Kyirong’s ability to combine a detailed portrait of this wider network of intersecting lives with a similarly specific and empathetic look at two people resisting the roles they’ve been assigned.

Ten years after moving to Vancouver, struggling visual artist Kana Yamamoto (Mayumi Yoshida) returns to Tokyo to attend the funeral of her beloved grandmother. Arriving in Japan, she rekindles a tentative flame with her bashful ex-boyfriend, Hiro (Ryo Tajima), an aspiring thespian who vanished from her life a decade prior. As Kana digs deeper into her grandmother’s past, she uncovers a family secret that prompts her to reconsider everything she thought she knew about love, duty, and belonging.

A feature adaptation of writer/director/actor Mayumi Yoshida’s autofictional short film of the same name, Akashi’s largely black-and-white cinematography evokes the solemnity of Kana’s grief, with select scenes brought to life in vivid colour. Themes of identity, class struggle, and artistic aspiration coalesce as the film shifts between the past and present to explore contrasting tales of star-crossed romance. Awash in synth soundscapes and driven by emotionally resonant performances, this tender drama asserts love’s ability to bridge any and all distances.

Francesco Sossai’s latest is an effortlessly charming and utterly delightful romp through the Italian countryside from the POV of a passenger in a car with two old-timers reliving their long-gone glory days.

Loosely pulling from their own experiences, co-writers Francesco Sossai and Adriano Candiago brilliantly revive the beloved Commedia all’italiana style. Impeccably shot on film stock by director of photography Massimiliano Kuveiller (who also shot Diciannove, TIFF ’24), The Last One for the Road is director Sossai’s sophomore film. Inspired by filmmakers like Marco Ferreri, Elio Petri, Francesco Rosi, and Carlo Lizzani, his latest is an homage to special places that live in our memories — bars and streets from our youth, now demolished to make way for new development — and a call to redraw our inner maps.

Dutch director Nanouk Leopold’s seventh feature provides uncommonly vivid views of southern Irish scenery and the driven, haunted woman (Natasha O’Keeffe) at the story’s core.

A slow-burn thriller about reckoning with trauma and containing the furies that threaten to reduce everything to ashes, Whitetail is rife with the same tightly coiled tension that exists deep within its protagonist. It’s just as remarkable for its vivid portrayal of its Irish setting, which director Leopold captures with great authenticity.

Whitetail benefits most of all from an extraordinary performance by O’Keeffe, an actor best known for her parts on such TV hits as Peaky Blinders and The Wheel of Time yet whose own formidable presence in the lead makes the experience of seeing Leopold’s film even richer.

40 Acres is a 2024 Canadian post-apocalyptic thriller film written and directed by R. T. Thorne (in his feature directorial debut). The film stars Danielle Deadwyler as a matriarch of descendants of African American farmers who settled in 1875 in rural Canada after the first Civil War. Two hundred years later, they are trying to survive in a decimated future.

In a post-apocalyptic future where food is scarce, the last descendants of a Black family of farmers who settled in Canada after the American Civil War must protect their homestead from an organized militia hell-bent on taking their land.

R.T. Thorne is a Canadian filmmaker known for his bold visual style and commitment to equality in the industry. As a dynamic and diverse visual storyteller, Thorne has evolved from directing music videos to directing, screenwriting, and producing. His notable works include the Emmy nominated, 12-time Canadian Screen Award winning series The Porter for CBC & BET, and the award-winning Hulu original Utopia Falls. His bold visual style and character-driven approach have earned him multiple award wins across short film, music videos and television, including being named the 2023 Playback Magazine Director of the Year. As Chair of the Director’s Guild of Canada BIPOC members committee, Thorne advocates for equality in the film and TV industry. He makes his debut as a feature film director with 40 Acres, bringing a fresh and authentic perspective to the genre.

The film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 6, 2024. It was theatrically released on July 4, 2025, by Mongrel Media in Canada.

Ali's life in Canada as a young immigrant turns upside down when his naïve cousin Omid arrives from overseas under mysterious circumstances to live with him in a newcomers settlement house. On the cusp of achieving his goal to settle in Toronto, a tide of misadventures derails Ali's plans, costing him his job opportunity and romance, which ultimately drives him to his wits’ end.

Neema Naz is an Iranian-Canadian stand up comedian, actor, and content creator. During the fall of 2014 he launched his comedy career in Toronto. His inaugural headline stand up comedy tour in 2022, “I’m Your Sugar Daddy" welcomed over 15,000 fans from Los Angeles to Vancouver, New York to Montreal, San Francisco to Toronto, and many more. He has also headlined shows in Sydney, Berlin, and Melbourne.

Neema has toured with and supported several comedy greats including Russell Peters, Theo Von, Howie Mandel, Omid Djalili, and Maz Jobrani. His online presence has garnered him over 1.5 billion views and has been co-signed by the likes of Gary Vaynerchuk, David Goggins, Gordon Ramsay, Kevin Hart, and Andrew Schulz. Neema has several acting credits for The Boys (Amazon Prime)

Egghead & Twinkie is a colorful teen road movie directed by Sarah Kambe Holland and starring Sabrina Jie-A-Fa and Louis Tomeo. Known as the first feature to successfully crowdfund on TikTok, this indie production has taken the film festival circuit by storm.

Available now on VOD in North America