# 2020 Toronto International Film Festival

The 2020 Toronto International Film Festival, the 45th event in the Toronto International Film Festival series, was held from September 10 to 21, 2020. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic in Toronto, the festival took place primarily on an online streaming platform, although limited in-person screenings still took place within the constraints of social distancing restrictions.
Officially the festival concluded on September 19, with the final film premieres and events taking place that day; however, due to the 48-hour rental period applying to film viewings on the online platform, the festival platform remained open until September 21 to honour tickets purchased on closing day.

## Planning

The festival's executive director Joana Vicente and artistic director Cameron Bailey spoke about the festival's plans in a video conference call launching the international We Are One: A Global Film Festival; Bailey also discussed some of the festival's plans in an interview on IndieWire's "Screen Talk" podcast. Plans included efforts to act as a "united platform" to screen films that had been slated to premiere at other cancelled festivals such as the 2020 Cannes Film Festival, and efforts to capitalize on the resurgence of drive-in theaters by staging some live screenings at drive-in venues. In a joint statement with the Venice Film Festival, the Telluride Film Festival and the New York Film Festival, which along with TIFF are generally considered the "big four" autumn film festivals that often compete with each other to land major film premieres in a normal year, the organizers of all four festivals committed to a spirit of collaboration and unity, designed "to serve the filmmakers, audiences, journalists and industry members who keep the film ecosystem thriving."
On June 24, organizers indicated that a smaller program of 50 films would be screened in a conventional manner, using social distancing strategies such as drive-in or outdoor screenings, over the first five days of the festival, and would then remain available on a dedicated streaming platform for the remainder of the festival. The digital platform was launched in July 2020 as the Digital TIFF Bell Lightbox, with a curated selection of past TIFF films available for short-term digital rental in the weeks leading up to the festival. The digital platform included both a professional option for international critics and industry, and a public option available only to Canadian viewers; ticket prices were the same regardless of whether the viewer was attending a physical screening or watching the film online. The industry platform also included an additional program of 30 films not part of the official public program, designed to act as a film market due to the pandemic-associated shutdown of international travel.
Venues for the festival included the TIFF Bell Lightbox, with social distancing strategies in place, as well as two outdoor screens at Ontario Place and one at Polson Pier. The Isabel Bader Theatre was initially announced as one of the screening venues, but was removed from the event calendar due to social distancing restrictions remaining in place at the University of Toronto. Initially, organizers announced that in-person film screenings would be "masks optional", but were criticized for creating a potential superspreader event as the social nature of the festival could increase the risk for COVID-19 transmission. The festival reversed the decision within 24 hours, citing a surge of new cases in Ontario, and made masks mandatory at the physical screenings.
With a smaller than normal program, both festival programmers and critics noted that films which have a tendency to be overlooked at a normal TIFF, such as documentaries and titles by emerging film directors in the Discovery program, could potentially have a better chance than usual of standing out and gaining attention.
In 2021, Bailey and Vicente indicated that although the 2020 festival saw reduced ticket sales compared to 2019, it was simultaneously the most successful event in the festival's entire history in terms of business activity and sales to film distributors.

## Ambassadors

Due to the unprecedented nature of the 2020 festival, and the fact that celebrities and filmmakers were largely not able to attend the festival in person, the festival announced a roster of 50 "TIFF Ambassadors", actors and filmmakers who helped to promote the festival through interactive digital experiences and events.
* Hiam Abbass
* Riz Ahmed
* Haifaa al-Mansour
* Shamier Anderson
* Darren Aronofsky
* Olivier Assayas
* Gael García Bernal
* Rachel Brosnahan
* Tantoo Cardinal
* Priyanka Chopra
* Derek Cianfrance
* Mark Cousins
* David Cronenberg
* Alfonso Cuarón
* Julie Delpy
* Claire Denis
* Ava DuVernay
* Atom Egoyan
* Sarah Gadon
* Isabelle Huppert
* Barry Jenkins
* Jia Zhang-ke
* Rian Johnson
* Anurag Kashyap
* Nicole Kidman
* Barbara Kopple
* Hirokazu Kore-eda
* Brie Larson
* Nadine Labaki
* Kasi Lemmons
* Tatiana Maslany
* Viggo Mortensen
* Carey Mulligan
* Genevieve Nnaji
* Alanis Obomsawin
* David Oyelowo
* Rosamund Pike
* Natalie Portman
* Zachary Quinto
* Jason Reitman
* Isabella Rossellini
* Martin Scorsese
* Albert Serra
* Denis Villeneuve
* Taika Waititi
* Lulu Wang
* Wim Wenders
* Olivia Wilde
* Donnie Yen
* Zhang Ziyi

## Awards
### TIFF Tribute Awards

The festival presented the TIFF Tribute Awards, which were introduced in 2019 to honour actors and filmmakers for distinguished achievements over the course of their careers. Honorees in 2020 included Anthony Hopkins, Chloe Zhao, Mira Nair and Kate Winslet. For the first time, the ceremony was broadcast live by CTV Television Network, and was hosted by Tyrone Edwards and Chloe Wilde of CTV's eTalk.

### Regular awards

Award winners were announced on September 20. The People's Choice Awards were still presented in all three categories; due to the reduced number of films in the Documentary and Midnight Madness streams, only winners were named for those awards rather than runners-up, although first and second runners-up were still named for the main People's Choice award. However, some of the juried awards were suspended, or presented in a different form than usual; notably, the Platform Prize was not presented as no films were named to the Platform program, and the award for Best Canadian First Feature Film was not presented due to the limited number of eligible films. Canadian singer-songwriter Shawn Mendes, in association with TIFF, announced the creation of the Shawn Mendes Foundation Changemaker Award, which awards filmmakers who create films with a social message.
| Award | Film | Director |
| People's Choice Award | Nomadland | Chloé Zhao |
| People's Choice Award, First Runner Up | One Night in Miami... | Regina King |
| People's Choice Award, Second Runner Up | Beans | Tracey Deer |
| People's Choice Award: Documentaries | Inconvenient Indian | Michelle Latimer |
| People's Choice Award: Midnight Madness | Shadow in the Cloud | Roseanne Liang |
| Best Canadian Feature Film | Inconvenient Indian | Michelle Latimer |
| Best Canadian Feature Film, Honorable Mention | Fauna | Nicolás Pereda |
| Best Canadian Short Film | Benjamin, Benny, Ben | Paul Shkordoff |
| Best International Short Film | Dustin | Naïla Guiguet |
| FIPRESCI Award | Beginning | Dea Kulumbegashvili |
| NETPAC Award | Gaza mon amour | Tarzan Nasser, Arab Nasser |
| Amplify Voices | The Disciple | Chaitanya Tamhane |
| Amplify Voices | Night of the Kings | Philippe Lacôte |
| Amplify Voices, Honorable Mention | Downstream to Kinshasa | Dieudo Hamadi |
| Changemaker Award | Black Bodies | Kelly Fyffe-Marshall |
| Share Her Journey | Sing Me a Lullaby | Tiffany Hsiung |

## Films

American Utopia by Spike Lee was announced as the festival's opening film. The festival also screened Chloé Zhao's film Nomadland, as part of a special arrangement which saw the film open at TIFF, NYFF and Venice all on the same day.
The first batch of films slated for the festival was announced on June 24, 2020, and more were announced on July 30. The final announcement of short films and special events took place on August 25.

### Gala presentations

| English title | Original title | Director(s) | Production country |
| Ammonite | Ammonite | Francis Lee | United Kingdom, Australia |
| Bruised | Bruised | Halle Berry | United States, United Kingdom |
| Concrete Cowboy | Concrete Cowboy | Ricky Staub | United States |
| David Byrne’s American Utopia | David Byrne’s American Utopia | Spike Lee | United States |
| Good Joe Bell | Good Joe Bell | Reinaldo Marcus Green | United States |
| I Care a Lot | I Care a Lot | J Blakeson | United States |
| Nomadland | Nomadland | Chloé Zhao | United States |
| One Night in Miami... | One Night in Miami... | Regina King | United States |
| Pieces of a Woman | Pieces of a Woman | Kornél Mundruczó | Canada, Hungary, United States |

### Special presentations

| English title | Original title | Director(s) | Production country |
| Another Round | Druk | Thomas Vinterberg | Denmark, Netherlands, Sweden |
| The Disciple | The Disciple | Chaitanya Tamhane | India |
| Falling | Falling | Viggo Mortensen | Canada, United Kingdom |
| The Father | The Father | Florian Zeller | France, United Kingdom |
| Penguin Bloom | Penguin Bloom | Glendyn Ivin | Australia, United States |
| Shawn Mendes: In Wonder | Shawn Mendes: In Wonder | Grant Singer | United States |
| Summer of 85 | Été 85 | François Ozon | France, Belgium |
| True Mothers | 朝が来る, Asa ga Kuru | Naomi Kawase | Japan |

### Contemporary World Cinema

| English title | Original title | Director(s) | Production country |
| Bandar Band | Bandar Band | Manijeh Hekmat | Iran |
| New Order | Nuevo orden | Michel Franco | Mexico, France |
| Night of the Kings | La Nuit des rois | Philippe Lacôte | Canada, Côte d'Ivoire, France, Senegal |
| Preparations to Be Together for an Unknown Period of Time | Felkészülés meghatározatlan ideig tartó együttlétre | Lili Horvát | Hungary |
| Quo Vadis, Aida? | Quo Vadis, Aida? | Jasmila Žbanić | Bosnia |
| Under the Open Sky | すばらしき世界, Subarashiki Sekai | Miwa Nishikawa | Japan |

### Masters

| English title | Original title | Director(s) | Production country |
| Notturno | Notturno | Gianfranco Rosi | Italy, France, Germany |

### TIFF Docs

| English title | Original title | Director(s) | Production country |
| 76 Days | 76 Days | Hao Wu, Weixi Chen, Anonymous | China, United States |
| City Hall | City Hall | Frederick Wiseman | United States |
| Enemies of the State | Enemies of the State | Sonia Kennebeck | United States |
| Fireball: Visitors from Darker Worlds | Fireball: Visitors from Darker Worlds | Werner Herzog, Clive Oppenheimer | United States |
| Inconvenient Indian | Inconvenient Indian | Michelle Latimer | Canada |
| Lift Like a Girl | Ash Ya Captain | Mayye Zayed | Egypt, Denmark, Germany |
| MLK/FBI | MLK/FBI | Sam Pollard | United States |
| The New Corporation: The Unfortunately Necessary Sequel | The New Corporation: The Unfortunately Necessary Sequel | Joel Bakan, Jennifer Abbott | Canada |
| No Ordinary Man | No Ordinary Man | Aisling Chin-Yee, Chase Joynt | Canada |

### Discovery

| English title | Original title | Director(s) | Production country |
| 180° Rule | خط فرضی, Khate Farzi | Farnoosh Samadi | Iran |
| Beans | Beans | Tracey Deer | Canada |
| Beginning | Dasatskisi | Dea Kulumbegashvili | Georgia, France |
| The Best Is Yet to Come | Bu Zhi Bu Xiu | Wang Jing | China |
| Gaza mon amour | Gaza mon amour | Tarzan Nasser, Arab Nasser | Palestine, France, Germany, Portugal, Qatar |
| Limbo | Limbo | Ben Sharrock | United Kingdom |
| Memory House | Casa de Antiguidades | João Paulo Miranda Maria | Brazil, France |
| Shiva Baby | Shiva Baby | Emma Seligman | Canada, United States |
| Spring Blossom | Seize printemps | Suzanne Lindon | France |
| Wildfire | Wildfire | Cathy Brady | Ireland, United Kingdom |

### Short Cuts

| English title | Original title | Director(s) | Production country |
| 4 North A | 4 North A | Jordan Canning, Howie Shia | Canada |
| Aniksha | Aniksha | Vincent Toi | Canada, Mauritius |
| The Archivists | The Archivists | Igor Drljaca | Canada |
| As Spring Comes | Comme la neige au printemps | Marie-Ève Juste | Canada |
| Benjamin, Benny, Ben | Benjamin, Benny, Ben | Paul Shkordoff | Canada |
| Black Bodies | Black Bodies | Kelly Fyffe-Marshall | Canada |
| David | David | Zach Woods | United States |
| Drought | Drought | Remi Itani | Lebanon |
| Dustin | Dustin | Naïla Guiguet | France |
| Every Day's Like This | Every Day's Like This | Lev Lewis | Canada |
| Found Me | Found Me | David Findlay | Canada |
| The Game | Das Spiel | Roman Hodel | Switzerland |
| History of Civilization | History of Civilization | Zhannat Alshanova | Kazakhstan |
| In Sudden Darkness | In Sudden Darkness | Tayler Montague | United States |
| Loose Fish | Loose Fish | Francisco Canton, Pato Martinez | Argentina, Morocco, United States |
| Marlon Brando | Marlon Brando | Vincent Tilanus | Netherlands |
| Mountain Cat | Shiluus | Lkhagvadulam Purev-Ochir | Mongolia |
| Navozande, the Musician | Navozande, le musicien | Reza Riahi | France |
| O, Black Hole! | O, Black Hole! | Renee Zhan | United Kingdom |
| Our Hearts Beat Like War | Our Hearts Beat Like War | Elinor Nechemya | Israel |
| Pilar | Pilar | Yngwie Boley, Diana van Houten, J.J. Epping | Netherlands, Belgium |
| Point and Line to Plane | Point and Line to Plane | Sofia Bohdanowicz | Canada |
| The Price of Cheap Rent | The Price of Cheap Rent | Amina Sutton, Maya Tanaka | United States |
| RKLSS | RKLSS | Tank Standing Buffalo | Canada |
| Rules for Werewolves | Rules for Werewolves | Jeremy Schaulin-Rioux | Canada |
| Scars | Scars | Alex Anna | Canada |
| Shooting Star | Comme une comète | Ariane Louis-Seize | Canada |
| Sing Me a Lullaby | Sing Me a Lullaby | Tiffany Hsiung | Canada |
| Sinking Ship | La Naufrage | Sasha Leigh Henry | Canada |
| Stephanie | Stephanie | Leonardo van Dijl | Belgium |
| Still Processing | Still Processing | Sophy Romvari | Canada |
| Strong Son | Strong Son | Ian Bawa | Canada |
| Succor | Succor | Hannah Cheesman | Canada |
| Sër Bi | Sër Bi | Moly Kane | France, Senegal |
| Tie | Elo | Alexandra Ramires | Portugal |

### Midnight Madness

| English title | Original title | Director(s) | Production country |
| Get the Hell Out | 逃出立法院 | I-Fan Wang | Taiwan |
| Shadow in the Cloud | Shadow in the Cloud | Roseanne Liang | New Zealand, United States |
| Violation | Violation | Madeleine Sims-Fewer, Dusty Mancinelli | Canada |

### Planet Africa

| English title | Original title | Director(s) | Production country |
| 40 Years a Prisoner | 40 Years a Prisoner | Tommy Oliver | United States |
| Akilla's Escape | Akilla's Escape | Charles Officer | Canada, United States |
| Downstream to Kinshasa | En route pour le milliard | Dieudo Hamadi | DR Congo |
| The Way I See It | The Way I See It | Dawn Porter | United States |

### Primetime

| English title | Original title | Director(s) | Production country |
| A Suitable Boy | A Suitable Boy | Mira Nair | United Kingdom |
| The Third Day | The Third Day | Felix Barrett, Dennis Kelly | United Kingdom, United States |
| Trickster | Trickster | Michelle Latimer | Canada |

### Wavelengths

| English title | Original title | Director(s) | Production country |
| Fauna | Flora y fauna | Nicolás Pereda | Canada, Mexico |
| The Inheritance | The Inheritance | Ephraim Asili | United States |

### Special Events

| English title | Original title | Director(s) | Production country |
| The Boy from Medellin | The Boy from Medellin | Matthew Heineman | United States, Colombia |
| The Truffle Hunters | The Truffle Hunters | Michael Dweck, Gregory Kershaw | Greece, Italy, United States |
| Underplayed also featuring live DJ set by Rezz | Underplayed also featuring live DJ set by Rezz | Stacey Lee | Canada |
| The Water Man | The Water Man | David Oyelowo | United States |
| Wolfwalkers | Wolfwalkers | Tomm Moore, Ross Stewart | Ireland, Luxembourg, France |

### Industry Selects

The Industry Selects program was a film market for films seeking commercial distribution. Due to the pandemic, which prevented members of the North American film industry from travelling to international film festivals where many of the following films were screened, they were available on the festival's industry platform, but not on the commercial platform for the general public. Introduced at the time as a temporary measure due to the pandemic, it was converted into a permanent part of the TIFF program in 2022, and became the nucleus of the festival's plans to launch a full film market in 2026.
| English title | Original title | Director(s) | Production country |
| After Love | After Love | Aleem Khan | France, United Kingdom |
| And Tomorrow the Entire World | Und morgen die ganze Welt | Julia Von Heinz | France, Germany |
| Apples | Μήλα | Christos Nikou | Greece, Poland, Slovenia |
| Baby Done | Baby Done | Curtis Vowell | New Zealand |
| Enforcement | Shorta | Anders Ølholm, Frederik Louis Hviid | Denmark |
| Falling for Figaro | Falling for Figaro | Ben Lewin | Australia, United Kingdom |
| The Garden | Gullregn | Ragnar Bragason | Iceland, Poland |
| A Good Man | A Good Man | Marie-Castille Mention-Schaar | France |
| Here We Are | הנה אנחנו | Nir Bergman | Israel, Italy |
| Holler | Holler | Nicole Riegel | United States |
| In Between Dying | Səpələnmiş ölümlər arasında | Hilal Baydarov | Azerbaijan, Mexico, United States |
| Karnawal | Karnawal | Juan Pablo Félix | Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Mexico, Norway |
| The Kid Detective | The Kid Detective | Evan Morgan | Canada |
| Kill It and Leave This Town | Zabij to i wyjedź z tego miasta | Mariusz Wilczyński | Poland |
| La Verónica | La Verónica | Leonardo Medel | Chile |
| Like a House on Fire | Like a House on Fire | Jesse Klein | Canada |
| Lovers | Amants | Nicole Garcia | France |
| Magic Mountains | Magic Mountains | Urszula Antoniak | Netherlands |
| Monday | Monday | Argyris Papadimitropoulos | Greece, United Kingdom, United States |
| The Monopoly of Violence | The Monopoly of Violence | David Dufresne | France |
| My Best Part | Garçon chiffon | Nicolas Maury | France |
| My Heart Goes Boom! | Explota Explota | Nacho Álvarez | Spain |
| My Name Is Francesco Totti | My Name Is Francesco Totti | Alex Infascelli | Italy |
| Saint-Narcisse | Saint-Narcisse | Bruce LaBruce | Canada |
| Should the Wind Drop | Si le vent tombe | Nora Martirosyan | Armenia, Belgium, France |
| Simple Passion | Passion simple | Danielle Arbid | Belgium, France |
| Sweat | Sweat | Magnus von Horn | Poland, Sweden |
| The Ties | Lacci | Daniele Luchetti | Italy |
| Tove | Tove | Zaida Bergroth | Finland |
| The Translator | Le Traducteur | Rana Kazkaz, Anas Khalaf | France, Switzerland, Syria, Belgium, Qatar, United States |

## Canada's Top Ten

TIFF's annual Canada's Top Ten list, its national critics and festival programmers poll of the ten best feature and short films of the year, was released on December 9, 2020.

### Feature films

* Beans — Tracey Deer
* Fauna — Nicolás Pereda
* Funny Boy — Deepa Mehta
* Inconvenient Indian — Michelle Latimer
* Judy Versus Capitalism — Mike Hoolboom
* The Kid Detective — Evan Morgan
* Nadia, Butterfly — Pascal Plante
* The Nest — Sean Durkin
* No Ordinary Man — Chase Joynt, Aisling Chin-Yee
* Possessor — Brandon Cronenberg

### Short films

* Aniksha — Vincent Toi
* The Archivists — Igor Drljaca
* Benjamin, Benny, Ben — Paul Shkordoff
* Black Bodies — Kelly Fyffe-Marshall
* êmîcêtôcêt: Many Bloodlines — Theola Ross
* Foam — Omar Elhamy
* How to Be At Home — Andrea Dorfman
* Scars — Alex Anna
* Sing Me a Lullaby — Tiffany Hsiung
* Stump the Guesser — Guy Maddin, Evan Johnson, Galen Johnson