Miwa Nishikawa’s Post-WWII Orphan Drama ‘Children Untold’ Opens Platform, Winning Film Has Path To International Feature Film Oscar [TIFF]

In September, the Toronto International Film Festival kicks off, and we see a slew of potential awards contenders getting early eyeballs with reviews. While we’re waiting on the festival’s full title lineup, we’ve got a new snapshot about what some of the international movies are alongside the Platform Award at TIFF that is said to help usher a direct path for the winning movie from the Platform Programme to be considered for the Best International Feature Film at The Academy Awards, something that could help give a nominee a potential edge going into the Oscar race for that specific statue. Platform’s jury features Pablo Trapero (Jury President), Amma Asante, Sylvia Chang, Luc Déry, and Albert Lee.

Speaking of those international movies, TIFF has announced the Platform lineup (now in it’s 12th year), which includes the following titles:

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Theja Rio’s “Angh“: Set in the remote jungles of Nagaland near the Indo–Burma border in the early 1960s and shot in richly textured 16mm, Angh follows Anghba, the last surviving chief of an abandoned Indigenous Naga village, who lives in isolation with his ailing wife and mute young son after being deserted by his people. 

Amanda Kernell’s “Brace Your Heart“: Kernell’s luminous third drama is a quietly devastating portrait of love, resilience, and the enduring strength of Sámi women.

Ferit Karahan’s “Djinn Wedding“: Set in a remote Anatolian village, Karahan’s Djinn Wedding is an impressive family drama that unravels family secrets and conflicts across three periods of time. Carried by a supreme cast including Demet Özdemir, Kaan Yildirim, İlhan Şen, and Sarp Bozkurt, the film swings between belief, hope, and dissolution.

Irene Dionisio’s “Idda“: This is Dionisio’s sophomore feature, which she co-penned alongside Marco Borromei. Idda takes an epic approach to unearthing the packed layers of a stewing friendship. When childhood friends Adele and Sofia reunite to fulfill the broken promise of climbing Mount Etna, they realize that like the mountain, old wounds loom over everything.

Nyla Innuksuk’s “In the Heart of the South“: A surprising and exciting swerve away from Innuksuk’s 2022 debut feature Slash/Back. In the Heart of the South is what “Single White Female” would be if it were set in Toronto, with an Inuk protagonist and a dash of supernatural elements, starring North of North’s Anna Lambe as Yura Ivalu, the latest darling of the Toronto art world, whose virtual reality piece promises to blow your mind.

Bertil Nilsson’s “Masc“: Nilsson’s debut feature is a tender, unflinching portrait of self-performance, identity, and learning to exist as oneself in an often prescriptive world. The film draws on the filmmaker’s experiences as a neurodivergent gay man navigating the contradictory demands of masculinity.

Gabriel Martins’ “On Behalf of My Son“: Anchored by a deeply affecting performance from Rejane Faria, Martins’ moving drama follows a grieving mother seeking forgiveness from the families of a tragic bus accident, unfolding as a profoundly humane meditation on guilt and whether forgiveness is even possible.

Lawrence Fajardo’s “Silenced Nights”: For some, staying silent is the only way to survive. Fajardo’s bleak sociopolitical drama Silenced Nights follows a witness to an extrajudicial killing in a Philippines slum as he seeks to make the truth known. The film takes a raw cinema verité approach and echoes the director’s previous works, including “The Hearing.”

John Trengove’s “The Smell of Apples“: In Trengove’s relentless third feature, a sheltered 11-year-old white South African boy gradually comes to realize the horrors of the apartheid system. Adapted from South African writer Mark Behr’s 1993 bestselling novel of the same name.

Yoon Dan-bi’s “The World Before“: In her second narrative feature, Dan-bi (“Moving On”) turns her attention from childhood to adolescence with a tender, sharply observed portrait of first love and growing up. This coming-of-age story follows two teenagers, childhood best friends, who reunite for a summer on a small rural island in Korea.

Jan Holoubek’s “Wild Wild East“: Set in occupied Poland in the middle of the Second World War, Holoubek’s tour de force is part suspenseful western, part gritty wartime noir.

The movie that is set to open the programme is “Children Untold,” from acclaimed Japanese filmmaker Miwa Nishikawa (“Dreams for Sale,” “Under the Open Sky”), is set to open the programme at TIFF Lightbox’s state-of-the-art Cinema 1, where all Platform titles will make their World Premieres at the festival.

In “Children Untold,” the pic stars Ami Koyae, Fumi Nikaido, and Koji Yakusho in the Japanese post-WWII drama based on Nishikawa’s unpublished novel: “Set in Tokyo during the final days and immediate aftermath of the Second World War, the film follows a 12-year-old orphaned girl, the daughter of musicians, who disguises herself as a boy in order to survive the underworld, while her former teacher – burdened by guilt and her own need to survive – retraces her path.”

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Another new element at TIFF will be the launch of its own film market (referred to as TIFF The Market), taking a page from the Cannes Film Market, American Film Market, and European Film Market. There will be various film deals happening alongside distributors buying up titles in the festival lineup that don’t have nationwide or global partners to help reach a larger audience, either in theaters or on streaming services. Film markets tend to be for gestating projects in prep or development stages that are seeking financial help to get them into production by funding budgets or adding to existing ones, unless they’ve already started filming.

You can view a neat teaser trailer for “Children Untold” below.