2026 Toronto International Film Festival Short Cuts Roundup: Part 2

Fight Kid, dir. Michael Del Monte

A devoted father of an MMA fighter (Eddie) accepts a fight for his son Isaiah two days before the match is scheduled in Fight Kid. The battle doesn’t start at the ding of the starting bell, but in the days leading up to that moment - Isaiah has to be 115 pounds to fight and he currently weighs 126. With that, the weight cut begins. 

Although a narrative short, there are some moments where this film felt like a documentary. So it wasn’t a surprise to learn that Isaiah is played by real-life 15-year-old MMA fighter Isaiah Triana from South Florida. The acting feels neither over-the-top nor trained, rather like just another day at the office for the father-son pair, which serves to build its authenticity. The time at the UFC competition feels authentic to what a UFC competition environment would look like. 

The inspiration for director Michael Del Monte in taking on this story was his own relationship with his father and his own journey in parenthood. As a kid Del Monte’s father pushed him to run. He even competed internationally as a runner despite the fact that he hated it. 

The heart of the film lies in the complexities of Isaiah’s father Eddie. The film fights the urge to dramatize Eddie’s father as a villain. I don’t imagine the two would have agreed to participate if that was the case anyway. The ethics of forcing a child to lose 11 pounds in two days aren’t faced head-on, allowing the audience to determine what is morally right. Isaiah and Eddie seem to have a great relationship, after all it seems like Eddie truly believes in his son and will go to no end to support him, but little is explored of their relationship beyond that. With financial troubles mounting, it feels at times like Isaiah is being used as a prop or a way for Eddie to live vicariously through him. 

Overall, Fight Kid seems to ask a question it declines to answer. It takes no stance on either side, nor should it have to. It’s a film where the audience can sit and analyze this father-son relationship and ask themselves, "Is this healthy?" In the end, it’s known that weight cuts are hard on the body and can be unhealthy. However, few studies have been done to see its effects both emotionally and physically on minors. In this sense, Fight Kid acts as a fascinating look at when fiction meets reality. 

Review by: Brandon MacMurray

Patronymic, dir. Mariia Ponomarova

Patronymic (n): a name derived from the given name of a person’s father or paternal ancestor. In Ukraine you receive a patronymic middle name based on your father’s first name, as detailed in this documentary short directed by Mariia Ponomarova. 

Mariia Ponomarova goes into great detail of her thoughts on her own patronymic name, Volodymyrivna, and how her thinking on the subject has changed over time. Maria admits how lucky she is to feel tender towards her namesake. Many of her classmates grew up fatherless, raised by single mothers or had a stepfather, and having their father’s name attached to their own acted as an annoying shadow. 

In speaking to my wife about this topic, she shared that she too has felt conflicted by patriarchal nature of North American last names. She feels torn between choosing the last name of a father with whom she has no relationship and adopting my last name, which doesn’t yet feel like her own. 

For Ponomarova, using her patronymic morphed into a way to make her seem more mature. As a 17-year-old camp counsellor, she was addressed by her 9-13 year old campers as Volodymyrivna. Today, the patronymic name has disappeared from any documentation she uses, like a passport to travel. As someone living abroad, it is not a name she uses in her life and society. 

The invasion of Ukraine by Russia has brought difficulty when travelling home to see her dad. A few hour flight is replaced by 26 hour train rides and the threat of bombs at any moment. Creatively, this is where the documentary really picks up - Mariia breaks from a traditional documentary structure (archival footage and voiceover) to more abstract re-enactments in a replica train booth. What fascinated and worked for me most was having a choir singing throughout. The choir sings bursts of thoughts that society, or even you as a viewer may be having about Mariia’s predicament. It almost acts as a Q+A period for Mariia to address the questions she has heard multiple times by now and point out the fact that it isn’t as simple as it looks. It also reveals that Ukrainians as a whole have different feelings about using patronymic names, ranging from indifference to all-out distaste. 

Mariia should never feel the need to validate her feelings, they are valid simply because she feels them. In a world that is constantly changing and feels fragile, Patronymic reminds us how important connection, heritage and identity are, especially as pertains to one's culture. It takes courage to share your story, and Mariia opens the door to her mind and personal life and shines bright as she takes us on her journey of what identity means to not just her but us all.

Review by: Brandon MacMurray

The Dream is a Snail, dir. Thien An Nguyen

“Why rush when you can be slow?” In an era of hyper-accelerated content, director Thien An Nguyen poses a radically simple question and answers it with a surrealist provocation. The Dream is a Snail follows a struggling young artist who takes on a gig as bizarre as it is strangely hypnotic: serving as a completely motionless human racetrack for live snails during a rejuvenation therapy workshop for seniors. What begins as an odd job quickly becomes a full-blown personal addiction, drawing the protagonist and the audience into an intoxicating world where slowness is both a weapon and a sanctuary.

From its opening sequence, Nguyen states the film’s central thesis without hesitation. As a troupe of lithe, shirtless men crawl, roll, and gyrate across a plushly carpeted floor before being systematically wheeled out on tables like living sculptures, a casting director delivers a deadpan monologue: “Art is for the real ones who live in ivory towers. They create art that Western museums will exhibit strictly for the elites to see.”

It is a sharp, biting jab at institutional art culture, placing The Dream is a Snail square in the tradition of modern art-world satires like Ruben Östlund’s The Square. Nguyen uses absurdity not just to shock, but to interrogate the commodification of creative expression. Against the backdrop of high-concept performance art, the film posits an idealistic counter-manifesto: a call for "art-for-all," a creative practice so radical, ephemeral, and universal that everyone can experience it, that no institution, gallery, or wealthy collector can ever truly own.

Yet, the film carries a delicious, self-aware irony. For a project so openly critical of high-culture gatekeeping, its real-world trajectory tells another story: The Dream is a Snail made its grand debut on the prestigious festival circuit, premiering at Cannes before making its way to TIFF. Nguyen clearly understands the joke, embedding the paradox of premiering anti-elite art at the world's most exclusive cinema galas right into the film's DNA.

Visually, the film is a masterclass in texture and atmosphere, thanks to the exceptional lens of cinematographer Chananun Chotrungroj, which captures the human form with rare, unsettling intimacy. The camera daringly eroticizes bodies that mainstream cinema routinely ignores or fetishizes, contrasting the taut, sculpted forms of young Asian men with the weathered, delicate flesh of the elderly workshop participants. There is no cynicism in how these bodies are rendered. Under Chotrungroj’s frame, the slow glide of a snail over bare skin becomes a tactile, almost spiritual meditation on vulnerability, age, and sensation.

Ultimately, the film’s hypnotic power lies in its surrender to its own bizarre logic. As the protagonist succinctly remarks of his descent into the world of gastropod performance art: “It felt strange, but then all I did was submit.” The Dream is a Snail asks the audience to make that exact same leap. It is a work that demands you slow down, cast aside conventional expectations, and submit to its quiet, subversive brilliance.

Review by: Joshua Hunt