A new screening venue and 8 exciting film titles announced for TIFF 2025

Festival Director Lisa Hoen and her team unveiled the festival’s first sidebar, three compelling titles from the competition lineup, and an exciting new screening venue.

From Swimming Pool to Cinema

As reconstruction is a central theme for this year’s festival, it is fitting that TIFF will once again repurpose the empty Alfheim swimming pool and transform it into a unique cinema venue.

-This year, we’re exploring how we can reconstruct the world we live in, emphasizing sustainability and innovative ways to use existing resources, said Hoen. This theme will be reflected not only in our programming but also in the way we organize the festival. At Alfheim, we’ll be bringing life to an empty space by filling it with reused cinema seats that would otherwise have been discarded.

The New Musical

This year, Hoen has been impressed by newly produced musical films that push boundaries and reconstruct the genre. A selection of these will be featured in the sidebar: The New Musical.

-I must admit, musicals aren’t usually a personal favorite, but TIFF 2025 will showcase inventive new musicals that both explore and reimagine the genre, says Hoen.

Audiences can look forward to thrilling, dystopian, and heartwarming TIFF-style musicals. Films featured in this program include Emilia Pérez by Jacques Audiard, They Will Be Dust by Carlos Marques-Marcet, Annette by Leos Carax, and The End by Joshua Oppenheimer.

-This year, we’ve seen some incredible musicals that have sparked a newfound interest in this format for me. I believe audiences will love it, no matter if they already enjoy musicals or not, Hoen adds.

Three Titles Revealed From the Competition program

Among the highlights is Gaucho Gaucho, directed by Michael Dweck and Gregory Kershaw, familiar to TIFF audiences as the creators of Truffle Hunters, which was a huge favorite at TIFF 2021, winning both the FIPRESCI and Aurora Awards.

-One of the best things about TIFF is being emerged into other worlds. Gaucho Gaucho feels like a journey back in time to a completely different culture, with every scene exquisitely composed to provide a visual delight, says Hoen.

From the Cannes main competition program comes another selection: Three Kilometres to the End of the World by Emanuel Parvu. It joins a long line of powerful Romanian dramas showcased at TIFF over the years, centering on a conservative village and the turmoil that ensues after a young man is attacked following a night out at the local pub.

-Well-acted and compelling, it becomes both shocking and thought-provoking as the drama unfolds, says Assistant Program Director Henning Rosenlund.

The dark comedy A Different Man by Aaron Schimberg introduces us to Edward, who has undergone facial reconstructive surgery to start a new life but becomes obsessed with the actor cast to portray him in a play based on his life.

-One of the best films we watched in 2024. It’s clever, timely, and hilarious, with Renate Reinsve delivering another stellar performance. This film has earned its place in this year’s competition lineup, concludes Rosenlund.

Documentary With Local Roots

In the Films from the North sidebar, one standout with a special connection to Tromsø and a universal theme is Teenagelife Interrupted, directed by Tromsø local Åse Svenheim Drivenes, who won the Tromsø Palm Award for Best Short Film at TIFF in 2014. At the Kick-off, Drivenes shared that her latest documentary will have its world premiere at TIFF 2025.

The film follows doctors Elin Drivenes and Hans Petter Fundingsrud at the pediatric unit of the University Hospital of North Norway (UNN) as they work to help children and teens with unexplained illnesses. The film documents their efforts to aid four teenagers who have been bounced around the healthcare system for years.

-This film struck a chord with me. It addresses one of the biggest challenges in Norwegian society today: so many children and young people live with severe, undefined conditions that no one knows how to treat, says Film from the North Program Director Astrid Aure.

With close-up access, Drivenes captures the stories of the young patients in a compelling way, allowing the audience to connect deeply with their stories.

-Drivenes has crafted an emotionally powerful and visually engaging documentary, which I predict will be one of the festival’s most talked-about films, Aure concludes.

Read more about the films. 

The full program will be released on December 12th.