Seven Indian Films at TIFF 2026

By Pickle  September 10, 2026

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Dorothy

Karthik Subbaraj
India | 2026 | 150m | Tamil
CENTREPIECE

Set in a world shaped by caste, violence, and toxic masculinity, two childhood friends grow up inseparable in rural Tamil Nadu. Their lives are transformed by the arrival of Dorothy, a woman whose compassion quietly challenges the world around them. Set in the early 1990s, Dorothy follows Karthi and Subbu, two boys who grow up within an unforgiving landscape of rural Tamil Nadu. When a misfortune befalls Dorothy (Keerthy Suresh), a member of the household who always treated the childhood friends with gentleness, the story takes an unexpected turn, shifting from their mere survival into a harsh, scorched-earth reality shaped by rigid patriarchal hierarchies and everyday violence.

The loss profoundly affects Subbu (Sananth), who finds an unlikely community of people living outside society’s expectations, and vanishes. Karthi (Rishikanth) is sent on a mission across rural India to hunt Subbu, the person who once saved him from schoolyard fights. Conflicted and caught between the bonds of friendship and filial demands, the two embark on a journey of friendship, love, and the profound courage it takes to live honestly.

Director Karthik Subbaraj leaps across genres with his striking visual style, inviting viewers along on this wild ride, combining elements of noir thrillers, gangster films, and romances. With references to the action sequences of Bruce Lee and the physical comedy of Howard Hawks, Subbaraj writes a love letter to cinema where tenderness finds a way to thrive in the most unexpected places.

Dorothy offers not only an exhilarating and touching portrait of two individuals whose loyalty is tested by a legacy of violence but a celebration of friendship and a passionate critique of gender oppression.

Producers

Jyoti Deshpande
Guneet Monga Kapoor
Achin Jain

Production Companies

Jio Studios
Sikhya Entertainment

SHOWTIMES

Saturday, September 12
Scotiabank Theatre
Press & Market
9:05 am

Saturday, September 12
Scotiabank Theatre
2:30 pm

Sunday, September 20
TIFF Lightbox
7:15 pm

Phoolan

Richie Mehta
India | 2026 | 113m | Hindi
Special Presentations

In the heartland of India, a young Phoolan Devi becomes one of the most famous outlaws in Indian history and the target of 2,000 heavily armed men sent to kill her over a gruelling 48-hour siege.

A small village in the heartland of India forms the backdrop of a high-intensity 48-hour siege where a young Phoolan Devi and her group of outlaws must outsmart the Indian police. Richie Mehta’s interpretation of the life and legend of Devi centres on a pivotal moment in her life, contextualized by but never exploitative of her traumatic past. Though young, Devi is already mythologized widely and garners support across caste, class, and gender barriers, showcasing precisely why she was a force to be reckoned with.

Mehta (Amal, TIFF ’07) brings his restrained and realistic true-crime sensibilities from Delhi Crime to this biopic, heavily inspired by her 1996 autobiography, I, Phoolan Devi: The Autobiography of India’s Bandit Queen. In the book, Devi recounts the trauma of her child marriage, the caste discrimination she experienced, and her journey to becoming the Bandit Queen. Devi eventually surrendered, served a prison sentence, and ultimately grew to political power as a Member of Parliament before she was assassinated in 2001. Those familiar with her life story will appreciate this immersive, taut thriller that highlights her moment of becoming.

Brought to life by Sneha Kumari, this Devi is riveting — unflinchingly challenging the suffocating patriarchy and commanding respect from the men around her in ways that belie her age. Supported by compelling performances by Anurag Thakur, Vikram Pratap Singh, Aakash Dahiya, Prateek Pachori, and Dev Dutt Budholiya, Kumari shines on screen.

Producers

Shareen Mantri Kedia
Kanwal Kohli
Kishor Arora
Richie Mehta

Production Companies

Namah Pictures
Amazon MGM Studios

SHOWTIMES

Friday, September 11
TIFF Lightbox
Press & Market
10:45 am

Wednesday, September 16
VISA Screening Room at the Princess of Wales
6:00 pm

Thursday, September 17
TIFF Lightbox
12:15 pm

Saturday, September 19
Scotiabank Theatre
2:30 pm

HALF

Samjad
India | 2026 | 96m | Malayalam, Hindi, English, Telugu, Tamil
Midnight Madness

Twin half-blooded vampires (Ranjith Sajeev and Aiswarya Raj) wage war with desert highway hijackers in a gory martial arts curry western from writer-director Samjad and choreographer Very Tri Yulisman (The Raid 2, The Night Comes for Us).

Since its 1970s heyday, the “curry western” has been a popular genre style across the Indian film industry. Indebted to American and Italian varieties of the form, these epics remixed the iconography and style of filmmakers like John Ford and Sergio Leone with culturally specific ingredients to fit a rural Indian frontier beset by roving gangs of bandits known as dacoits. In Samjad’s HALF, the subgenre further mutates with the introduction of vampires, a hallowed horror archetype that has previously permeated neo-Westerns like From Dusk Till Dawn and Near Dark. In this context, it bears down on those aforementioned bandits with a righteous fury and insatiable thirst for vengeance.

Following a wintery prologue that establishes our vamps Ethan (Ranjith Sajeev) and Ivy (Aiswarya Raj), twin siblings whose interspecies parentage (human mother, revenant dad) grants them supernatural abilities and spares them from the usual inconveniences, we catch up with the pair as they are traversing the desolate roads of the Rajasthan desert. Suddenly ambushed by local marauders who brutalize their bodies with a viciousness that recalls Mario Bava’s Rabid Dogs, brother and sister soon recover under cover of darkness and set out to maul, maim, and murder everyone responsible for the offense.

With action skilfully choreographed by Very Tri Yulisman — who conducted the martial mayhem of The Raid 2, The Night Comes for Us, and Headshot — HALF is a rousing cavalcade of guts and gore, set to the eclectic Malayalam soundtrack of the nonverbal Ivy’s cellphone playlist and the percussive pummeling of Ethan’s fists.

Producers

Anne Sajeev
Sajeev PK

Production Company

Fragrant Nature Film Creations

SHOWTIMES

Sunday, September 13
TIFF Lightbox
8:15 am

Monday, September 14
Scotiabank Theatre
Press & Market
11:30 am

Friday, September 18
Royal Alexandra
11:59 pm

Saturday, September 19
Scotiabank Theatre
6:15 pm

Angh

Theja Rio
India | 2026 | 103m | Konyak
Platform

In a deserted Nagaland village in the early 1960s, a chief must choose between his family and a transforming world embodied by an incoming American missionary in filmmaker Theja Rio’s gripping feature-length adaptation of his award-winning 2021 short.
Set in the early 1960s in a remote jungle near the Indo-Burma border, Angh follows Anghba, the last surviving chief of a Nagaland village that has been deserted by its people. He remains behind with his ailing wife and non-speaking young son, holding on as the world around them shifts irrevocably.

The arrival of an American missionary (Douglas Henshall, Shetland) sets the region’s transformation in motion, leaving Anghba to guard the beliefs and customs that have been passed down through generations. What emerges is a haunting and intimate story of a father and son, the latter increasingly seduced by the comforts of the mission. The film avoids sentimentality, instead observing how conversion operates deliberately by offering gifts even as the local culture is reframed as deficient.

Theja Rio’s debut feature — strikingly photographed and built on a richly spatial sound design — follows the success of his short film of the same name, which won a special jury award at the Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival in 2021. Shot on 16mm, the film’s grain seems to hold the passage of time. Texture is drawn from the spiritual and storytelling traditions of the Naga people.

Nagaland, an Indigenous region of Northeast India, has rarely been depicted on screen. Rio views the film as an offering, “A gesture of remembrance, of pride, and of presence. A way of saying that we are here, that we have always been here, and that our stories deserve to stand alongside the rest of the world.”

Producers

Nancy Nisa Beso
Theja Rio
Jai Vir Rodgers
Bernardo Angeletti

Production Companies

Winter Hymns Films
Undercover Squirrel

SHOWTIMES

Sunday, September 13
Scotiabank Theatre
Press & Market
11:40 am

Tuesday, September 15
TIFF Lightbox
9:00 pm

Wednesday, September 16
Scotiabank Theatre
12:00 pm

Saturday, September 19
Scotiabank Theatre Torontolocation_on
12:20 pm

Termite

Shaunak Sen
Short Cuts
India | 2026 | 31m | Hindi, Urdu
Shaunak Sen’s follow-up to the Academy Award–nominated documentary All That Breathes is an evocative drama set in the vibrant neighbourhoods of Old Delhi, where the routined lives of two middle-aged termite exterminators are about to drastically change when one of them receives an unexpected marriage proposal

Aman

Rahul Roye
Short Cuts
India, United Kingdom, United States of America, France | 2026 | 16m | Bengali, Hindi
A heart-piercing bond between two trans siblings forms the emotional core of Rahul Roye’s profound exploration of identity, body, and the meaning of manhood, as a trans man’s journey takes an unexpected turn on the eve of his gender-affirming surgery.

Report to Mother

Amma Ariyan

John Abraham
India | 1986 | 115m | Malayalam
TIFF Classics
4K restoration!

A daring clarion call and one of the most significant works of Indian political cinema, John Abraham’s extraordinary final film Amma Ariyan (Report to Mother) follows a young man in 1970s Kerala as he journeys — with a progressive swell of companions — to inform a mother of her son’s death, amid widespread unrest.

Restored by Film Heritage Foundation at L’Immagine Ritrovata laboratory and Digital Film Restore Pvt. Ltd. in association with Odessa Collective. Special thanks to cinematographer Venu ISC and editor Bina Paul. Funding provided by Film Heritage Foundation. Amma Ariyan was restored in 4K from one of the only two surviving prints: the first-generation 35mm release print preserved at the NFDC – National Film Archive of India.

Sunday, September 13
TIFF Lightbox
3:30 pm

(Source: www.tiff.net)