The TIFF51 Experience: Day Eight | Seeing What Was Waiting
By Ross
My eighth day at TIFF began with something I don’t always associate with a film festival: letting other parts of my life make the decisions for me. A few morning appointments and an online lecture about narcissistic injury meant that two press screenings were going to disappear from my day before I could get to them, leaving me with one press screening and two public screenings. Normally, I might have spent some time lamenting what I had missed, but there was something strangely freeing about having the decision made for me. I could simply get on with the films still waiting, and the first, “Alpha Gang“, turned out to be exactly the kind of wild, trippy, retro ride that made it easy to forget about anything else I thought I was supposed to be doing.
Alpha Gang
David Zellner, Nathan Zellner – INTERNATIONAL PREMIERE – United States of America | 2026 | 109m | English
Léa Seydoux, Dave Bautista, Lily-Rose Depp, and Cate Blanchett star in the Zellner brothers’ look at an alien gang coming to Earth to conquer, but finding the human world has a plague they weren’t ready for.
When you think of alien invasions of Earth, you typically think big — epic battles, mass destruction, and ambitions of global conquest. But according to filmmakers David and Nathan Zellner, that takeover would actually be contested by something much smaller and more human: emotions.
The Zellners’ titular “Alpha Gang” includes Léa Seydoux, Riley Keough, and Dave Bautista. Decked out in ’50s-era leather jackets, they look like a badass group of old-school bikers. Here to conquer, their plans begin to falter when they start to feel just how the human world can shift perspectives. Moments of intimacy, art, joy, and sadness start to seep into the gang, and the intended directives become muddled. As they experience the pleasures of music and dance, and observe the beauties of the natural world — down to even the smallest ant colony — each becomes far more impacted by Earth than they could have ever expected.
With creative humour, a fantastic soundtrack, and stellar performances from an eclectic cast, “Alpha Gang” makes a timely statement about the human condition. – ANITA LEE
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Then came “Sunburn“, which I found truly poetic and beautiful in the way it managed to make one hot summer day in Toronto’s St. James Town feel both incredibly intimate and surprisingly expansive. The film stays tightly focused on this particular neighbourhood, on the young people moving through it, and on the heat and disruption caused by the power going out, yet its world feels much larger than those few blocks. With the electricity gone, it is friendship that becomes the relief, bringing meaning, laughter and connection into the hot summer air.
Sunburn
Serville Poblete – WORLD PREMIERE – Canada | 2026 | 82m | English
Over one hot summer day in Toronto, a group of young people try to survive the heatwave and a blackout by making jokes, roaming the city, and forming tangible connections that feel like they can disappear at any moment.
A hang-out movie set in St. James Town, a high-rise community in Toronto, Sunburn follows a group of young people trying to stay cool during the summer’s hottest day. The temperature triggers a power outage, which sends them out of their buildings and into the street. On sidewalks, on rooftops, in parks, and beyond, three pairs of kids chat about crushes or play games, each on their own adventure until their paths ultimately intersect. Despite the shadows from the apartment buildings, and the pockets of greenery, you can feel the heat radiating from the screen — it’s sweaty, vibrant, and saturated with colour.
“Sunburn” is a loose, funny, coming-of-age film that shares the same spirit of Dazed and Confused, if it were set in present-day downtown Toronto, with a cast made up of Filipino, Jamaican, Guyanese, and Black actors. Standouts are Joshua Obra and Dashawn Blackwood, who play Shay and Vince, respectively, the friends who tease each other ruthlessly, like only real friends can.
Throughout the hazy day, connections are made between the pairs, lessons are passed along on everything from the small things, like whistling, to the big ones, like falling in love. The film is directed and written by Serville Poblete, a local talent to watch, whose In the Morning Sun recently won the SXSW Documentary Short Award. – KELLY BOUTSALIS
Hombre al agua
Gael García Bernal – NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE – Mexico | 2026 | 116m | Spanish, Portuguese
The latest directorial feature from Gael García Bernal (TIFF ’19’s Chicuarotes) is a psychologically astute comedy of manners for the modern age, following an ensemble of eclectic characters seeking to become something more than who they are.
The latest directorial feature from superstar multihyphenate Gael García Bernal (TIFF ’19’s Chicuarotes) is a psychologically astute comedy of manners for the modern age. Exploring class, ambition, and the delicate art of social advancement, Hombre al agua follows an ensemble of eclectic characters from across the Americas, each seeking to become something more than who they are.
Everything changes the day Cuban lifeguard Camilo (García Bernal) rescues Mexican businessman Abel (Jorge Salinas, García Bernal’s co-star in TIFF ’00’s Amores Perros) from drowning. A night of drinking at Havana’s best tourist spots leads to an invitation for Camilo to come work for Abel’s seal manufacturing business, which leads to Camilo wooing, wedding, and having a child with Abel’s daughter Juana (Esmeralda Pimentel), and residing in Abel’s luxurious Yucatán country manor.
But paradise soon gets complicated. Camilo is tasked with discreetly looking after Abel’s pregnant Argentine mistress Silvina (Natalia Oreiro), while Juana teams up with a Brazilian film star (Débora Nascimento) to make a movie about her life.
Written by García Bernal and Mariano Pensotti, “Hombre al agua” creates a world of ambiance and intrigue: everyone seems to be playing a character or reinventing their past. The more money and power at stake, the harder it is to know who to believe. The beauty and humour of this sophisticated film lies in its reflection of hidden truth. – ANITA LEE
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I started the day thinking about the films I wasn’t going to see, and I ended it thinking about the three I had. “Alpha Gang” gave me a wild blast of retro science fiction, “Sunburn” brought me right back into the streets of Toronto, and “Hombre al agua” sent me off into a completely different world with Gael García Bernal at the centre of it. None of that was quite the day I had originally imagined, which may have been the best part. Sometimes at TIFF, the day starts making choices before you can make them for yourself, and on this eighth day, I was perfectly happy to run with it.
