Toronto directors explore the Canadian experience in short films premiering at TIFF

Five short films premiering at the Toronto International Film Festival explore what it means to be Canadian or Indigenous today.

The short film showcase called REDEFINED premiers this week at TIFF.

Produced by the National Film Board of Canada in collaboration with the Toronto International Film Festival to celebrate TIFF’s 50th anniversary, the project brought together five next–generation (30 years old and under) filmmakers from across Canada to explore culture, belonging, identity and sovereignties through personal storytelling.

“At a time when understanding one another has never been more important, the filmmakers of REDEFINED are bringing fresh perspectives to the conversation about who we are as Canadians and who we are becoming,” said Suzanne Guèvremont, government film commissioner and NFB chairperson.

REDEFINED was announced in August 2025 and the five filmmakers, including two from Toronto, were chosen from over 240 submissions, the NFB said.

Toronto director Prajj said he is excited to have his short, Butter Chicken to Go, at TIFF.

“It’s so surreal, you know,” Prajj told YourCityWithin. “It kind of didn’t hit me until we had the press release.”

Butter Chicken to Go follows three South Asian delivery drivers as they brave Toronto’s winter dinner rush, zipping through slushy, frigid streets. 

Delivery drivers push through snow in Toronto in Butter Chicken to Go. Photo: NFB

Through intimate portraits of the drivers, the film exposes a deep contradiction: a country that eagerly consumes South Asian cuisine while increasingly excluding the people whose labour sustains it.

“Butter chicken was the most ordered dish in Canada for two years in a row,” Prajj said. “This was the same time that the discourse around invasions was really contentious in Canada, and there was this whole anti-South Asian movement that was bubbling throughout Canada. So it was this really sharp contrast of the culture being so widely loved and accepted, but the people’s presence being so contested.”

When the NFB call-out came, Prajj thought about food delivery drivers working through Toronto’s winter to earn enough money to support their families.

“I was thinking about these immigrants who so desperately want to be Canadian and who are fighting every single day to just make a little bit so they can stay here or they’re pursuing it with so much grit and vigour, and I wanted to explore that,” he said.

Toronto emerging filmmaker Prajj will show his short film, Butter Chicken to Go at TIFF. Photo: NFB

Prajj hopes people will get a glimpse into what it’s like to be a delivery driver and immigrant in Canada.

“I think that my film and art can kind of help humanize these really complex individuals and show the more nuanced perspective of things rather than just give them one label,” he said.

Fellow Toronto director Sylvia Mok returned to her hometown of Halifax for her short film, Restaurant Kids.

The children of Halifax’s Chinese restaurateurs share stories of family, hard work and identity in the film. Restaurant Kids celebrates a tight-knit community whose businesses became gathering places, livelihoods and second homes for a generation growing up between cultures.

“I was also a restaurant kid, so I grew up in the very community that I was interviewing,” she said.

Growing up a Chinese Canadian and having a restaurant as a second home felt mundane and average, and Mok said she didn’t think it was a story worth being told.

“I just thought it was just way too normal for anyone to be interested in it,” she said.

A scene from Restaurant Kids. Photo: NFB

But then she saw the immigrant experience moving into the spotlight with shows such as Kim’s Convenience. When she saw the NFB and the TIFF REDEFINED wanted proposals for films that redefine what it means to be Canadian, Mok thought about her own experiences growing up.

“I thought maybe I should look at my own upbringing through a different lens,” she said.

She also wanted to create a record of the Halifax Chinese Canadian community.

“I think that this community, especially in Halifax, there’s so little documentation around it,” she said.

A scene from Restaurant Kids. Photo: NFB

Mok has just graduated from York University, and she was surprised when her proposal was chosen.

“I still feel like a baby who doesn’t know anything, but it just feels like such a huge shift in my inner world of just finishing school and mentally preparing to have to work for a very long time before getting that first film at TIFF and then just being like, ‘oh my gosh OK this is happening right now,'” Mok said.

Emerging filmmaker Sylvia Mok will show her short film Restaurant Kids at TIFF.

Three more films offer a window into the lives of Canadians, Indigenous people and places.

Montreal filmmaker Gabrielle Côté’s RE/REROUTE explores two visions of urban life and questions how the cities we build shape our lives and the future we are creating.

Tyra Delver’s pahkwêsikan sâkihitowin: Bannock is Love traces the enduring power of cultural knowledge passed between generations through the practice of making bannock. Delver is a Two-Spirited artist, photographer and filmmaker from Saddle Lake Cree Nation in Treaty 6 territory, Alberta.

In Red River Métis Maxime Kornachuk’s film, Where Our Flowers Grow, Métis people of all ages share their journeys of cultural reconnection in an animated documentary where personal stories become the seeds of a collective resurgence.

The films will stream on NFB platforms at the same time as the TIFF screening at the TIFF Lightbox on Sept. 16 at 6 p.m.

See more about the TIFF premiere here.

Lead photo of Butter Chicken to Go: NFB