About Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF)

The Toronto International Film Festival is officially back! Also known as TIFF, is one of Canada’s and the world’s largest and well known film festivals. Located in downtown Toronto, the festival welcomes many filmmakers from around the world to show off their skills and talents.

These are the animated shorts and films that were shown during the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) for this 2021.

Angakusajuajug – The Shaman’s Apprentice

Director: Zacharias Kunuk
CANADA
21 minutes

About: A young shaman must face her first test-a trip underground to visit Kannaaluk, The One Below, who holds the answers to why a community member has become ill.

Anxious Body

Director: Yoriko Mizushiri
France, Japan
6 minutes

About: Living things, artificial things, geometry shapes, and lines. When these different things encounter, a new direction is born.

Boobs

Director: Marie Valade
Canada
8 minutes

About: A young woman drawn in ink is forced to deal with paper breasts appearing on her chest. She must quickly come to terms with these new strange things.

Charlotte

Director: Eric Warin, Tahir Rana
Canada, France, Belgium
92 minutes

About:

An account of German-Jewish artist Charlotte Salomon living in the south of France between 1941 and 1943.

Charlotte

Director: Zach Dorn
United States
13 minutes

About: A pop song transforms the lives of a folk singer and her family. 

DUST BATH

Director: Seth A Smith
Canada
2 minutes

About: A disquieting tale of a humble rooster facing the great questions of existence.

I Gotta Look Good for the Apocalypse

Director: Ayce Kartal
France
6 minutes

About: March 2020. After China, the whole planet locks itself in. Our world, which we call real, is drained of what used to be its substance, and forms of digital life multiply, like these couples whose avatars share a common life in a virtual universe. But what if the crisis we are actually experiencing is not a pandemic, but an accelerated derealization of our lives?

Inu-Oh

Director: Masaaki Yuasa
Japan, China
98 minutes

About: Two boys marginalized by society in 14th-century Japan find power through dance and song, in Masaaki Yuasa’s animated tale about a disturbing curse.

Love, Dad

Director: Diana Cam Van Nguyen
Czech Republica, Slovakia
12 minutes

About: A short film about ties and gaps between a child and a parent. The author rediscovers letters her dad used to write her from prison. That love seems to be gone now. She decides to write back in hope to find the connection again. She puts in writing what could not be said: blaming him for family’s break-up but also trying to understand.

Meneath: The Hidden Island of Ethics

Director: Terril Calder
Canada
20 minutes

About: A stop-motion animation that charts a challenging journey for Baby Girl, a precocious Métis girl contemplating her path to Hell.

Soft Animals

Director: Renee Zhan
United Kingdom
3 minutes

About: Two ex-lovers bump into each other at a train station.