The 48th annual Toronto International Film Festival is scheduled to be held from September 7 to 17, 2023.

TIFF has announced that its Contemporary World Cinema stream will be renamed Centrepiece. The festival has also announced some changes to its programming team for the 2023 festival, following the retirement of Steve Gravestock at the end of 2022 and the death of Ravi Srinivasan in early 2023. Noted changes include Norman Wilner taking over Gravestock's role as programmer of Canadian films, and June Kim succeeding Srinivasan as programmer for South Asian films.

The festival has further indicated that with the 2022 Toronto International Film Festival having returned to more normal attendance figures, the event will take place exclusively in-person, ending the online platform that had been offered since the 2020 Toronto International Film Festival. An additional change from past years is that the film market screenings for industry professionals will begin on September 6, one day earlier than the festival's official opening to the public.

Festival organizers have acknowledged that the 2023 SAG-AFTRA strike is likely to impact the festival if it is not resolved in time, in particular because the strike prevents actors from taking part in promotional appearances to support their films, but have indicated that the festival will still proceed even if fewer celebrities than usual are in attendance. The rule will not necessarily bar all American actors from attending the event, however; for instance, as Atom Egoyan's Seven Veils was a Canadian production shot under ACTRA rather than SAG-AFTRA contracts, lead actress Amanda Seyfried remains able to attend the premiere, although it has not yet been confirmed whether she will attend. As well, several films in the 2023 program were directed by notable movie stars, who will thus be able to attend the premieres in their capacity as directors.

The festival has indicated that overall, 70 per cent of its planned program for 2023 comes from independent and/or international producers, and will not be affected by the strike.

Key programming announcements
The first film, Taika Waititi's Next Goal Wins, was announced on June 28. Ladj Ly's Les Indésirables and Atom Egoyan's Seven Veils were announced in July, prior to the announcement of the full Gala and Special Presentations programs on July 24. The TIFF Docs lineup followed on July 26. 

The festival's opener will be the Japanese animated film The Boy and the Heron by Hayao Miyazaki, which will mark the first time in history that an animated film has opened the festival. It is slated to conclude with Sly, Thom Zimny's documentary film about actor Sylvester Stallone; Stallone will also participate in an In Conversation event in conjunction with the film.

In Conversation events are also slated to be held with film director Pedro Almodóvar and actors Lee Byung-hun, Park Seo-jun and Andy Lau. Lee and Park are costarring in the TIFF premiere Concrete Utopia, Lau stars in the TIFF premiere The Movie Emperor, and Almodóvar's talk will be paired with the North American premiere of his short film Strange Way of Life (Extraña forma de vida).

Punjab '95, by Indian director Honey Trahan, was originally announced in the "Gala Presentations" section, but was pulled out from the festival. TIFF clarified that the film was pulled by its Indian distributor, with sources telling Variety that political pressure was being applied to the distributor due to the film's "potentially incendiary" content.

The festival has also announced a special 40th anniversary screening of a new 4K restoration of the classic concert film Stop Making Sense.

The festival's annual "Rising Stars" program, a networking and development program for emerging actors in festival films, spotlighted Adwa Bader (NAGA), Almudena González (The Ravaging Wind), Amrit Kaur (The Queen of My Dreams), Aria Mia Loberti (All the Light We Cannot See), Cody Lightning (Hey, Viktor!), Kudakwashe Rutendo (Backspot), Léah Aubert (Sisterhood), Mark Clennon (I Don't Know Who You Are) and Tioreore Ngatai-Melbourne (The Convert).

Awards

TIFF Tribute Awards
The TIFF Tribute Awards, the festival's program of honouring film personnel for their overall achievements in cinema, will be presented early during the festival run.

Spike Lee has been announced as the recipient of the Ebert Director Award, and Pedro Almodóvar has been announced as the recipient of the Jeffrey Skoll Award in Impact Media. Shawn Levy has been announced as the recipient of the inaugural Norman Jewison Award for career achievement. Colman Domingo has been announced as recipient of the Performer Award, although due to the SAG-AFTRA strike he is being honoured for his overall career rather than specifically for his performance in the film Sing Sing.

Polish cinematographer Łukasz Żal has been named the recipient of the Variety Artisan Award, Brazilian film director Carolina Markowicz has been named the recipient of the Emerging Talent Award, and Hong Kong actor and singer Andy Lau will be presented with a Special Tribute award.

Official selections

Gala Presentations
The following films were selected to the Gala Presentations section:

Special Presentations
The following films were selected to the Special Presentations section:
{| class="sortable wikitable" width="100%"
! scope="col" width="32%" | English title
! scope="col" width="28%" | Original title
! scope="col" width="20%" | Director(s)
! scope="col" width="20%" | Production country
|-
| colspan="2" | American Fiction || Cord Jefferson || United States
|-
| Anatomy of a Fall || Anatomie d'une chute || Justine Triet || France
|-
| The Beast || La Bête || Bertrand Bonello || France, Canada
|-
| colspan="2" | The Burial || Maggie Betts || United States
|-
| colspan="2" | La chimera || Alice Rohrwacher || Italy, France, Switzerland
|-
| colspan="2" | Close to You || Dominic Savage || Canada, United Kingdom
|-
| colspan="2" | The Convert || Lee Tamahori || Australia, New Zealand
|-
| colspan="2" | The Critic || Anand Tucker || United Kingdom
|-
| colspan="2" | Daddio || Christy Hall || United States
|-
| Days of Happiness || Les Jours heureux || Chloé Robichaud || Canada
|-
| colspan="2" | The Dead Don't Hurt || Viggo Mortensen || Canada, Mexico, Denmark
|-
| A Difficult Year || Une année difficile || Éric Toledano and Olivier Nakache || France
|-
| Evil Does Not Exist || 悪は存在しない || Ryûsuke Hamaguchi || Japan
|-
| colspan="2" | Ezra || Tony Goldwyn || rowspan="2" | United States
|-
| colspan="2" | Fingernails || Christos Nikou 
|-
| Four Daughters || بنات ألفة || Kaouther Ben Hania || France, Tunisia, Germany, Saudi Arabia
|-
| colspan="2" | His Three Daughters || Azazel Jacobs || rowspan="4" | United States
|-
| colspan="2" | Hit Man || Richard Linklater  
|-
| colspan="2" | The Holdovers || Alexander Payne 
|-
| colspan="2" | In Restless Dreams: The Music of Paul Simon || Alex Gibney 
|-
| colspan="2" | Les Indésirables || Ladj Ly || France
|-
| Kidnapped || Rapito || Marco Bellocchio || Italy, France, Germany
|-
| colspan="2" | Knox Goes Away || Michael Keaton || United States
|-
| Last Summer || L'Été dernier || Catherine Breillat || France
|-
| colspan="2" | Memory || Michel Franco || United States, Mexico
|-
| Monster || 怪物 || Hirokazu Kore-eda || Japan
|-
| colspan="2" | Mother, Couch || Niclas Larsson || United States
|-
| The Movie Teller || La contadora de películas || Lone Scherfig || Spain, France, Chile
|-
| colspan="2" | Next Goal Wins || Taika Waititi || United Kingdom, United States
|-
| colspan="2" | North Star || Kristin Scott Thomas || rowspan="2" | United Kingdom
|-
| colspan="2" | One Life || James Hawes 
|-
| colspan="2" | Pain Hustlers || David Yates || United States
|-
| colspan="2" | The Peasants || DK Welchman, Hugh Welchman || Poland, Serbia, Lithuania
|-
| colspan="2" | Poolman || Chris Pine || United States
|-
| The Promised Land || Bastarden || Nikolaj Arcel || Denmark, Germany, Sweden
|-
| colspan="2" | Quiz Lady || Jessica Yu || United States
|-
| colspan="2" | Reptile || Grant Singer || United States
|-
| The Rescue || El Rapto || Daniela Goggi || Argentina
|-
| colspan="2" | Ru || Charles-Olivier Michaud || Canada
|-
| colspan="2" | Rustin || George C. Wolfe || United States
|-
| colspan="2" | El Sabor de la Navidad || Alejandro Lozano || Mexico
|-
| colspan="2" | Seven Veils || Atom Egoyan || Canada
|-
| colspan="2" | Shoshana || Michael Winterbottom || United Kingdom, Italy
|-
| colspan="2" | Sing Sing || Greg Kwedar || United States
|-
| colspan="2" | Stop Making Sense || Jonathan Demme || United States
|-
| Together 99 || Tillsammans 99|| Lukas Moodysson || Sweden, Denmark
|-
| colspan="2" | Unicorns || Sally El Hosaini, James Krishna Floyd || United Kingdom, United States, Sweden
|-
| colspan="2" | Uproar || Paul Middleditch, Hamish Bennett || New Zealand
|-
| colspan="2" | Wicked Little Letters || Thea Sharrock || United Kingdom
|-
| colspan="2" | Wildcat || Ethan Hawke || rowspan="2" | United States
|-
| colspan="2" | Woman of the Hour || Anna Kendrick 
|-
| colspan="2" | The Zone of Interest || Jonathan Glazer || United Kingdom, Poland, United States
|}

Centrepiece

TIFF Docs
The following films were selected to the TIFF Docs'' section:

Discovery

Platform
The Platform Prize jury consists of Barry Jenkins, Nadine Labaki and Anthony Shim.

Midnight Madness

Primetime

Short Cuts

Wavelengths

TIFF Classics

Industry Selects
Films that will be screened for film buyers and all industry professionals at the festival, but not open to the general public:

Festival Street
Older films, usually with some sort of connection to a film screening as part of the main program, shown at David Pecaut Square as part of TIFF's Festival Street event.

References

External links
 

2022
Toronto
2023 in Toronto
2023 in Canadian cinema
September 2023 events in Canada