{https://youtu.be/jhaY0g9_BHE?si=V_aSyO6hF1dOXvBB}

Dinner With Friends is directed by Sasha Leigh Henry, who is well-known in Toronto, especially for the series Bria Mack Gets a Life. Dinner With Friends shows a diverse group of 8 friends in their 30s navigating life and trying to sustain their friend group. Some of the group are siblings, some have been in long-term relationships, blending the group, and some find budding romance within the circle. The audience learns about friend group happenings at each dinner that is held, and through text conversations, reminiscent of real 2025 friend groups. The true moments come while watching the group drift apart, as couples break up, others have babies, and how differing personalities can uplift or tear down others in the group. 

One of the most important Black focused films at this year's festival is The Eyes of Ghana, directed by Canadian Ben Proudfoot and produced by Barack and Michelle Obama’s company Higher Ground Productions. The Eyes of Ghana tells the story of Chris Hesse, the personal photographer to Kwame Nkrumah, the first president of Ghana, after fighting for the country to be free of the British monarchy. 

Chris had hundreds of hours of footage of President Nkrumah during his time championing a United States of Africa. As Nkrumah's power grew, he was seen as radical and was eventually overthrown. Chris found other work, but all of his archival footage was stored in London and deemed unsafe to show to Ghanians. Filmmaker Anita Afonuu worked on a project with Chris, who was in his 90s and working as both a priest and a film professor. Anita became passionate about Chris’s work and sought to counter the historic erasure of President Kwame Nkrumah’s true intentions. She worked with Chris to recover the footage in London, restore it and screen it in Ghana to a younger generation. The underlying message of dismantling misinformation and ensuring communities tell their own stories their way is powerful in 2025, as the opposite happens daily on social media.

{https://youtube.com/shorts/8XqQHQNPnK4?si=PxEI-MzVsSoALw2y}

Torontonian director Clement Virgo’s latest story, Steal Away, can be described as a horror movie touching on modern slavery and is a loose adaptation of the book Steal Away Home by Karolyn Smardz Frost. A Black mother and her teen daughter, Cecil, seek asylum with forged papers in an unnamed country reminiscent of Europe. They find sanctuary in the house of white matriarch Florence, her teen daughter Fanny and the kooky, rarely-English-speaking Grandmother. The story takes a turn when Fanny becomes obsessed with Cecil and tries to copy her hair, clothing style and appropriates her dancing and singing. Florence puts on airs of charity, having rescued many women and girls from their situations before, but her all-Black-staff warns that something sinister is truly going on. What’s clear is Florence is not the white saviour she appears to be, but is her daughter Fanny in on it, and how will Cecil get to safety?

{https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3lgD59KrTw}

Hedda, a modern retelling of the story of Hedda Gabler, is Nia DaCosta’s latest project. While Hedda Gabler tells the story of a woman, unhappy in her marriage, trying to help her husband get a promotion against a man she has had a former relationship with resulting in chaos, DaCoasta’s Hedda takes a deep feminist spin. Hedda herself, played by Tessa Thompson, was in love with her husband’s rival, but DaCosta has made this a lesbian love affair. Hedda cites both her Blackness and the disdain for the queer community as reasons why she must stay with her husband, and try to secure his promotion over her former lovers. Hedda shows how far a woman will go for power and security, and how many obstacles have historically stood in a woman’s path to success including identity, race, and betrayal. 

Youngblood is the Black-focused rework of the 1986 film of the same name starring Rob Lowe. College hockey star Dean Youngblood, is a Black rookie on an all-white team trying to convince the coach of his value, make his dad proud, navigate the bullying and abuse from the other team, and his own feelings for the coach's daughter. Dean, played by Ashton Martin, has great tension on screen with his father, played by Blair Underwood. While based on the tension within the sport, the racial undertones are present as Dean asks about his worth, expressing feelings around being benched, never being chosen to lead, be captain, or feel he has much of a future in the game. The film, directed by Hubert Davis was originally to be directed by Toronto legend Charles Officer, who passed away two years ago and to whom the film is dedicated. 

{https://youtube.com/shorts/bVlOpX4ewZ8?si=N-gY3AoNDsG94Oj3}

For his directorial debut, photographer, activist and Torontonian Jamal Burger tells the story of Masaki Saito in Still Single. Co-directed by Jukan Tateisi, the duo was chosen by Rhombus Media to follow Saito, who is the only Canadian with two Michelin stars. The documentary shows the realities of juggling career success, working in the food industry, and Saito’s favourite vices: drinking, eating and gambling. Jamal is well-known for founding the KickBack project helping youth with access to sports, mentorship, sneakers and the skills to develop out of communities that are often overlooked. Berger built the Kickback Foundation after recognizing the fortune he had, going from a similar life situation to being a full-time photographer, which led him to spend a lot of time in Japan. When approached by Rhombus, Jamal had experienced the culture that Saito grew up in and was comfortable amplifying Saito’s story and travelling with him for a few years to document the rollercoaster that is Saito’s life.

{https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pv0CvEkktXs}

Lastly, part of the primetime programming at TIFF was Origin: The Story of the Basketball Africa League. Championed by former Raptors General Manager Masai Ujiri and Amadou Gallo Fall, the former scouting director of the Dallas Mavericks and a lifelong champion of sport in Africa - the Basketball Africa League took shape in Rwanda during the pandemic. The series, which premiered at TIFF with only two episodes, documents the Basketball Africa League's journey from concept to reality, including the selection of 12 teams, their challenges navigating the pandemic, and their passion for the sport. Basketball is positioned as a sport that teaches kindness, loyalty, discipline, but also as a vector that could contribute to the infrastructure and economy in African countries. The series shows how different the 12 countries are, including Angola, Egypt, Morocco, Nigeria, Senegal, Tunisia, Algeria, Cameroon, Madagascar, Mali, Mozambique and Rwanda. The countries have various infrastructure and budgets, resulting in various degrees of investment in sports, Basketball infrastructure and team success. 

The show also depicts specific players and shows us their character, their goals, their love of the sport and NBA and how important bringing BAL to Africa is to these men. The two episodes that were screened effectively demonstrate what investing in Africa can achieve for the entire continent, extending beyond sports and the men involved in the game.