2026 Toronto International Film Festival Short Cuts Roundup: Part 1

It's been a wonderful and busy week at the Toronto International Film Festival. With the new festival market, the Student Academy Awards and more screenings than you can imagine, there is a little something for everyone. Throughout the next week or two we will be posting reviews of some of our favourites starting with two animated gems in Please and 2:Love and the sharply written and imaginiative Leftover Women.

Please, dir. Anna Mantzaris

In English, the word love feels very restrictive. Perhaps the ancient Greeks did it best as they had many words to describe love. Eros, meaning romantic passion, Agape, meaning unconditional love, Ludus, meaning playful love, Mania, meaning obsessive love and so on. 

Anna Mantzaris’ hilarious and imaginative stop-motion short follows a carousel of characters, all looking for love in different ways. Some crave physical intimacy, some deep romance, as others try to find it through religion or cult. 

The set pieces and individual stories Mantzaris creates through exquisite craftsmanship are ingenious. Among them are characters being swiped through on dating apps (soon to be seen crying in the grocery snack aisle), wine dates continually going wrong, a character whose clinginess gives no personal space, a woman a little too attached to cuddling a dog, a man whose hair just needs a little brush, a kinky medieval roleplay and more. 

Pulling from Ancient Greek, although we see many types of love in this short, the type of love this short most reminded me of was Mania. Mania is defined as an extreme, unstable form of emotional attachment driven by dependency that could lead to madness. This short definitely follows through on the “leading to madness” portion, as displays of love and emotional outbursts lead to a chaos that perfectly ties the stories together and wraps a bow around this short. Through chaos, the ending brings more of a collective realization that we all could use a little love. 

“The desire to be loved is the last illusion. Give it up and you will be free.”

Depending on perspective, perhaps Please can be seen as either a thesis or anti-thesis to this Margaret Atwood quote. It’s naturally human to desire love. It’s okay to be needy, to want companionship and to show emotions that society sees as imperfect. On the other hand, obsession with love can be destructive and letting that go will go a long way to being free. 

Overall, Please provides a lot of food for thought on love with dark humour at every turn. It was a joy to watch from beginning, to its lyrical, unhinged end. 

Review by; Brandon MacMurray

2:LOVE, dir. Ronni Shalev

Set at a huge tennis championship game, it’s not the muscle-popping tennis stars that take centre-stage in 2:LOVE but two ball girls, eager to prove they are the best ball girl out there. If you know anything about tennis, and as the latin choir background suggests, ball girls must remain discrete at all times, working in the shadows, not to be noticed. 

In terms of this subtlety 2:love goes against the grain in this visually striking short that mixes the fluorescent vibrant colours of pink and yellow against the deep blue colour of the court. Competitiveness turns into seduction as the two girls take their eyes off the ball and towards each other. The eagerness to beat each other turns changes into an eagerness to impress as their rivalry becomes a bit heated. 

The soundtrack and sound design really raises the bar as the latin choir of ball boys and girls mixes with upbeat music, the grunts of tennis players hitting the ball and the sounds of the ball bouncing off the ground and rackets. It creates a perfect cadence for the match and ensuing ball battle. 

What I always find very impressive in shorts is the ability for a director to seamlessly change animation styles. In a dream-like moment Robbi Shalev briefly changes to a computer-generated 3D animation and just as easily slips right back into the initial style, shows versatility within the short itself. 

In summary, 2:LOVE is an electric watch from the standout visuals to the cute story plot. It feels like a fresh take on enemies to lovers, using the idea of needing to be discrete/meek to subvert expectation and create a palpable tension of love in the air. 

Review by: Brandon MacMurray

Leftover Women, dir. Atalanta Swire

Taking place in a dystopian society where woman who are single and childless must report to a government facility to determine their desirability, Leftover Woman succeeds at its deeply comical and absurd premise. 

This premise isn’t so far from the truth today in certain cultures or religions who see woman no more than a helper or a child-bearer, a way to progress population and to “be fruitful and multiply”. Leftover Women takes this to the extreme with the government getting involved. 

One of the most impressively written scenes I have seen all of TIFF is when our protagonist Erin is being questioned in a room. The back and forth keeps you on your toes as the government worker questions Erin’s personality and reasons why she is single and childless. Anjana Vasan gives a standout performance throughout but especially kills it in this scene where she matches confusion with wit and confidence. 

“It’s because of your inefficiencies to find a partner that the taxpayer has to fund facilities like these.”

The burden on society point is really hammered home with this quote that you too often see from modern day governments when they feel like someone in society isn’t contributing. 

Leftover Women thrives in the small touches it adds throughout. Like in the production design with Love is patient… and You had me at what if…..  plastered on a wall. Both drastically ironic sayings given these women are being rushed into love. The government worker who is more concerned with their personal phone call than they are with greeting the incoming women also adds a nice touch of the stereotypical government worker who is just there for a pay cheque without a real job to do. 

All in all, none of this should ever be a reality. Leftover women is a sharp and witty commentary on how society views aging women far too often. A woman’s worth is not in her ability to find a partner or reproduce. Women are complex and deserve to live whatever life and story they choose, whether its forging a path forward in a career, choosing not to have children, taking their time to fall in love, or just loving being by themselves. It’s no one’s business but their own. 

Review by: Brandon MacMurray