Ivan Grbovic’s feature Drunken Birds (Les oiseaux ivres) will make its world premiere in the Platform programme at TIFF 2021.

The organization on Wednesday (Aug. 11) unveiled additions to its Platform section, Short Cuts programme and a retrospective dedicated to Canadian filmmaking legend Alanis Obomsawin.

Drunken Birds, Montreal-based Grbovic’s sophomore feature, comes almost a decade after his debut film Romeo Eleven (Roméo Onze). The drama, which was shot in 2019, is produced by micro_scope in association with Pimienta Films.

The film world premieres alongside Laurent Cantet’s Arthur Rambo (France), Scott McGehee and David Siegel’s Montana Story (U.S.), and Lucile Hadžihalilović’s Earwig (U.K./France/Belgium), among others.

The Short Cuts programme features more than a dozen world-premiering projects from Canadian filmmakers, among them Albert Shin, Seth A Smith and Paul Shkordoff.

The world premieres include Khadijah Roberts-Abdullah and Araya Mengesha’s DEFUND, Smith’s DUST BATH, Sandrine Brodeur-Desrosiers and Carmine Pierre-Dufour’s Fanmi, Tim Myles’ Little Bird, Terril Calder’s Meneath: The Hidden Island of Ethics, Jack Weisman and Gabriela Osio Vanden’s Nuisance Bear, Jorge Camarotti’s Ousmane, Rosana Matecki’s Saturday Night and Shkordoff’s Twelve Hours.

A number of Canadian coproductions will also have their world premieres in the Short Cuts section, including Hamza Bangash’s Bhai (U.K./Canada/Pakistan), Andrea Nirmala Widjajanto’s Srikandi (Indonesia/Canada), Fawzia Mirza’s The Syed Family Xmas Eve Game Night (U.S./Canada), Albert Shin’s Canada/South Korea copro Together (Ham-Gye) and Lee Filipovski’s Zero (Nula).

In addition, Zacharias Kunuk’s Angakusajaujuq – The Shaman’s Apprentice and Marie Valade’s Boobs have their North American premieres in the short film section.

TIFF will also mark the 20th anniversary of the release of Kunuk’s Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner – which won the Best Canadian Film Award and became the first Canadian film to win the Camera d’Or at Cannes – with a free screening of the film in its digitally remastered form.

The Obomsawin retrospective, titled Celebrating Alanis, will celebrate 19 of the filmmaker and producer’s projects, including the world premiere of her newest title, Honour to Senator Murray Sinclair. The retrospective is co-presented by the National Film Board, where Obomsawin has made 53 films since 1967.

“Alanis Obomsawin is often described as an activist filmmaker,” said Cameron Bailey, TIFF’s artistic director and co-head, in a statement. “Alanis’s body of work focuses on discrimination and injustice, but also on Indigenous strength and resistance. It is an honour to celebrate her work with these 19 films in the retrospective.”

Elsewhere, actor Riz Ahmed, whose film The Sound of Metal premiered in TIFF’s Platform programme in 2019, will head the jury for this year’s Platform competition.