Canadian titles will make up more than half of the Short Cuts section at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), including projects from Tiffany Hsiung, Igor Drljača, Hannah Cheesman and Kelly Fyffe-Marshall.

In total, 15 Canadian shorts are in among the 35-film lineup, with a further three Canada coproductions taking their place in the festival.

This year’s Canadian shorts selections include Jordan Canning and Howie Shia’s animated NFB-produced 4 North A, Vincent Toi’s Aniksha, Drljača’s The Archivists, Marie-Ève Juste’s As Spring Comes (Comme la neige au printemps), Paul Shkordoff’s Benjamin, Benny, Ben, Fyffe-Marshall’s Black Bodies, Lev Lewis’ Every Day’s Like This and David Findlay’s Found Me.

The other Canadian projects featured in the Short Cuts section are Tank Standing Buffalo’s RKLSS, Ariane Louis-Seize’s Shooting Star (Comme une comète), Hsiung’s Sing Me a Lullaby, Sasha Leigh Henry’s Sinking Ship (La Naufrage), Sophy Romvari’s Still Processing, Ian Bawa’s Strong Son and Cheesman’s Succor.

On the copro front, Alex Anna’s Scars (Canada/France), Sofia Bohdanowicz’s Point and Line to Plane (Canada/U.S./Iceland/Russia) and Jeremy Schaulin-Rioux’s Rules for Werewolves (Canada/U.S.) will also screen in the short film section, which was programmed by Jason Anderson and Lisa Haller.

As well, TIFF will commemorate the founding of Planet Africa – a program dedicated to cinema from Africa and the African diaspora – which was created by Cameron Bailey in 1995 and ran for 10 years. As TIFF celebrates the program’s founding a quarter century ago, it said it will mark 2020’s Black Lives Matter uprisings with special events under the banner of Planet Africa 25. It has also added four films to its Official Selection that “embody the spirit” of Planet Africa: Charles Officer’s Akilla’s Escape (Canada); Dieudo Hamadi’s Downstream to Kinshasa (Democratic Republic of the Congo/France/Belgium), Tommy Oliver’s 40 Years A Prisoner (U.S.); and Dawn Porter’s The Way I See It.

As TIFF’s organizers have repeatedly said, the exact execution of this year’s festival is somewhat of a moving target as the City of Toronto reacts to a fast-changing situation as relates to the pandemic. As such, TIFF announced Tuesday that due to health precautions necessary for the back-to-school season in September, the Isabel Bader Theatre is no longer available as a screening venue. All screenings previously scheduled to take place at Isabel Bader Theatre will now move to TIFF Bell Lightbox.

The festival also unveiled the featured speakers for its In Conversation With series, with Halle Berry, Ava DuVernay and Saoirse Ronan among those participating.

The reveal of the shorts lineup comes almost a month after TIFF announced its 50-film feature lineup. Canadian selections include: Michelle Latimer’s documentary Inconvenient Indian; No Ordinary Man, directed by Aisling Chin-Yee and Chase Joynt; The New Corporation: The Unfortunately Necessary Sequel, directed by Joel Bakan and Jennifer Abbott; horror film Violation, directed by Madeleine Sims-Fewer and Dusty Mancinelli; and Beans, co-written and directed by Tracey Deer.

This year’s festival runs from Sept. 10 to 19.