TFS Alumni Take the Spotlight at TIFF 2026

Toronto Film School alumni are once again taking to the big screen at the Toronto International Film Festival this year!

As TIFF returns for its 51st edition next week, at least seven TFS grads played a part in breathing life into projects screening at one of the world’s most celebrated film festivals – bringing their talent, creativity and stories to audiences from Toronto and around the globe.

Here’s a look at the films and series featuring the work of TFS alumni, the roles they played behind the scenes, and how you can catch those projects at TIFF 2026.

Being Heumann

Two TFS Film Production grads helped to bring the inspiring story of disability rights activist Judy Heumann to the big screen at TIFF 2026. 

Laura Loaiza (Class of 2017) and Sebastian Ponton (Class of 2018) both worked behind the scenes on Being Heumann, an historical drama directed by Oscar winner Siân Heder (CODA). Loaiza was part of the camera department as B-Camera 2nd Assistant Camera, while Ponton worked in the art department as a Props Assistant.

Starring Ruth Madeley and Oscar nominee Mark Ruffalo, Being Heumann follows Heumann as she rallies activists with disabilities to demand that the U.S. government uphold its commitment to accessibility, eventually leading a historic occupation of a federal building in San Francisco and taking the fight to Washington, D.C.

For Ponton, the production offered challenges unlike anything he had encountered before. Working with a large cast of actors with disabilities, his props team had to ensure everyday objects – including wheelchairs – worked for each performer while remaining faithful to the film’s 1970s setting.

“We have to create all that because everything has to look like the 1970s,” he explained. “When you have projects like that movie, then the process is easier because you have more time, more budget to go through the process and make it right.”

But the people he worked with made the biggest impression. Ponton said one of his favourite parts of the production was meeting the actors and learning how to communicate with performers with a range of disabilities.

“Usually when we do that, we come in and we put props on them,” he said. “But then you get closer. We get to talk and we start talking and talking.”

Some actors communicated using sign language, prompting Ponton and members of his team to learn basic signs so they could communicate effectively on set.

Ponton also discovered how collaborative a props role can be, working with actors and the director to determine how objects could help bring scenes and characters to life.

“One prop can be their whole thing,” he explained. “It can be related to something that’s important that actually helps them to develop the perfect acting that they need.”

Now, with Being Heumann making its world premiere at TIFF, Ponton is thrilled to see the film reach one of the world’s biggest film festivals – and is already dreaming even bigger.

“I think it’s going to be an amazing film, and hopefully it can win an Oscar,” he said. “We’re manifesting that it’s going to win an Oscar.”

Click HERE for Being Heumann showtime and tickets!

Below

For Chris Hatcher, a 2009 Film Production graduate, TIFF 2026 marks another major milestone in an impressive producing career. Hatcher is an Executive Producer on Below, a six-part Newfoundland-set thriller starring Josh Hartnett and Mackenzie Davis that will make its world premiere as part of TIFF’s Primetime program.

The series follows Calvin Penney (Hartnett), a fisherman in a small Newfoundland town whose life is upended when an unidentified sea creature begins terrorizing the community. As Calvin works with visiting marine researcher Fonda Howander (Davis) to confront the threat, he is also forced to reckon with his family’s past and long-buried secrets.

Hatcher has built an extensive producing résumé since graduating from TFS, with recent credits including Priscilla, Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen, The Madness, Painkiller, and Sweet Angel Baby, which marked its world premiere at TIFF 2024. He now joins Hartnett, series creator Jesse McKeown (The Umbrella Academy) and several other producers on the executive producing team for Below.

Click HERE for Below showtimes and tickets!

In the Heart of the South

Jason Gosbee is heading back to TIFF. The 2006 Film Production graduate is returning to the festival as stunt coordinator on In the Heart of the South, the new psychological thriller from Canadian Inuk filmmaker Nyla Innuksuk that will make its world premiere in TIFF’s Platform program.

Starring North of North’s Anna Lambe, the film follows Yura Ivalu, an Inuk artist whose rising profile in Toronto’s art world is threatened when a childhood friend with a connection to her traumatic past suddenly reappears. As the two women become increasingly entangled, Yura begins to question what – and whom – she can trust.

The project marks another major achievement in Gosbee’s career, which has grown dramatically since he graduated from TFS 20 years ago. He now has more than 100 credits to his name as a stunt performer, stunt double and stunt coordinator, including work on major productions such as Suicide Squad, Man of Steel, Shazam!, The Boys, The Umbrella Academy and Gen V, among many others.

And this isn’t Gosbee’s first TIFF premiere. In 2023, his work as stunt coordinator on Bria Mack Gets a Life brought him to the festival for its world premiere. His journey into stunting actually began while he was a TFS student, after a chance encounter with stunt performers training for 300 inspired him to make a documentary about the profession – and ultimately pursue it himself.

Nearly two decades after graduating, Gosbee is returning to TIFF in a key creative role, helping bring the action and physical storytelling of In the Heart of the South to the screen.

Click HERE for In the Heart of the South showtimes and tickets!

Love is the monster

Two Film Production alumni are helping bring a chilling vision of a fractured society to the screen at TIFF 2026. Yazan Kalaldeh and Romanesh Reynoso, who both graduated from TFS in 2027, worked behind the scenes on Love is the monster, the Costa Rican dystopian thriller making its world premiere as part of TIFF’s Centrepiece program.

Kalaldeh worked as an electrician, while Reynoso served as gaffer, overseeing the film’s lighting team and helping shape its visual look.

Directed by Neto Villalobos, Love is the monster stars Paulina García as a grandmother whose efforts to remain connected to her six-year-old granddaughter are disrupted by a series of devastating events. Set in a dystopian society divided by fear, privilege and extreme inequality, the film follows her as she is forced into increasingly difficult choices to protect the person she loves most.

The TIFF premiere marks another major milestone for Kalaldeh and Reynoso, whose work behind the camera helped bring the film’s unsettling world to life – and puts two more TFS Film Production grads behind the scenes of a project on one of the world’s biggest film stages.

Click HERE for Love is the monster showtimes and tickets!

Neverman

Nearly two decades after graduating from TFS, Moe Rai is bringing his production expertise to TIFF 2026. The 2006 Film Production graduate worked as both line producer and production manager on Neverman, the poignant second feature from Cuban-Canadian filmmaker Rodrigo Barriuso.

The film stars Broadway and cabaret icon Justin Vivian Bond as Lucia, a transgender gay rights activist living with worsening Alzheimer’s disease. After entering a nursing home that promised to be trans-friendly, Lucia finds herself navigating an environment that falls far short of those assurances, even as she struggles to hold on to her memories, identity and independence. Neverman explores aging, identity, memory and dignity against the backdrop of an institution that fails to provide the safety it promised.

As line producer and production manager, Rai played a key role in the practical and logistical side of bringing the feature to life. His TIFF appearance adds another notable credit to a career that began after graduating from TFS in 2006 – and offers a fitting example of where the skills developed in Film Production can lead.

Click HERE for Neverman showtimes and tickets!