The time spent at TIFF each year always feels like a blur once the festival wraps up.

This year, I met fellow media friend Emmanuel Akanbi who was covering TIFF for the first time. Emmanuel is a writer and editor with Antler River Media Co-Op, based in London, Ontario, Canada.

We managed to see one film together during the festival but decided to catch up after it wrapped up to discuss our festival experience and some of the films we covered as well.

In Conversation

During our conversation, Emmanuel and I discussed our individual goals for festival coverage for our respective outlets. The idea here is to provide some context as to how media outlets, which I call alternative media, cover festivals like TIFF. We might have different approaches to festival coverage, film picks, and our overall experience.

Being Emmanuel’s first time at TIFF, I was also curious about the films he saw. Happy to also share some of our festival lineup with you here as well.

TIFF 2025 Films Discussed

• Sentimental Value (Dir. Joachim Trier)
• Sink (Dir. Zain Duraie)
• Eagles of the Republic (Dir. Tarik Saleh)
• Ni-Naadamaadiz: Red Power Rising (Dir. Shane Belcourt)
• Palestine 36 (Dir. Annemarie Jacir)
• Under the Same Sun (Dir. Ulises Porra)
• It Would Be Night in Caracas (Dirs. Mariana Rondón, Marité Ugás)
• Noviembre (Dir. Tomás Corredor)
• The President’s Cake (Dir. Hasan Hadi)

In our conversation we did not list all of the films we got to see at TIFF, however, we are hoping you add some of these to your watch lists. Many of these films will come to a festival or cinema near you, or even become available on some streaming platforms. We hope you discover new cinematic gems just like we did.

To read Emmanuel’s TIFF coverage as well as other excellent reporting, please visit antlerrivermedia.ca.