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The 50th Toronto International Film Festival will run from September 4 to 14, 2025. Here is the current line-up of Asian films screening at this year’s event. The TIFF 50 official festival schedule will go live on August 12.

A Pale View of Hills by Kei Ishikawa; Japan, United Kingdom (Special Presentations) – North American Premiere

Featuring exquisite performances from Suzu Hirose and Yoh Yoshida, this heartbreaking adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro’s debut novel alternates between 1950s Japan and 1980s England to survey the shadows of war on the lives of survivors. [Source: TIFF]

Amoeba by Siyou Tan; Singapore, Netherlands, France, Spain, South Korea (Discovery) – World Premiere

An exploration of Singapore’s societal and cultural expectations through the lens of a misfit in an all-girls’ school, as she joins a girl gang and tries to pass the all-important final year examinations. As the young nation carves out its own identity through its unmitigated hunger for progress, Choo...

Where South Korean cinema has boomed over the past two decades, making a big impression on audiences worldwide, some subjects are still significantly under-represented within it. Despite some superb efforts – A Distant Place and A Girl At My Door spring to mind – there is very little queer Korean cinema, and this reflects a tendency toward cultural and social neglect of LGBTQ+ communities in the country more generally. Given this, it’s fascinating to get a cinematic glimpse into the history of one of those communities courtesy of director Kwon Aram, whose documentary served as the closing gala of the 2023 Queer East film festival in London.

The subject is South Korea’s lesbian community and its development in the 1990s. To put it in perspective, one must understand that this was a period more equivalent to the 1950s in the West, as far as social awareness was concerned. Many...