TIFF 26

Sophie Fiennes is back with her latest Pervert’s Guide, once again made with the maverick Slovenian philosopher, cultural theorist and movie lover, Slavoj Zizek. “I think the absurd is something he embraces,” Fiennes says of Zizek’s freewheeling approach. “It’s a reflection of him being a person who is an outsider, a free thinker - and the deadpan comedy of it is particular to him. I never know what is going to happen when I put him in those situations. I have no idea. It’s an experiment.”

Described as “a psychedelic doom scroll through the mind of a master Canadian politician,” and a “genre-bending collage of Canadiana,” Winnipeg director Matthew Rankin’s Ladies and Gentlemen, Brian Mulroney will premiere in the festival’s Midnight Madness sidebar. Additionally, National Film Board of Canada) will world premiere Carol Nguyen’s feature documentary Still Night, Burning House at TIFF 2026, and oversee the launch of the NFB/TIFF short documentary initiative REDEFINED.

The 2026 TIFF Docs line-up features 21 titles and 18 world prems, and includes new works by celebrated docmakers such as Mila Aung-Thwin, Sophie Fiennes, Alex Gibney, Barbara Kopple and Sine Plambech. More than two-thirds of the films are directed by women. Seven of the selections are Canadian, while 12 hail from both Europe and the US (six each). The final selections originate from Colombia and Peru respectively. The programme will open with Rapinoe, a personal profile of the US soccer star Megan Rapinoe. The 51st edition of TIFF runs September 10–20.