One of the more unique titles at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival is the science-fiction epic ANIARA, co-directed by Pella Kågerman and Hugo Lilja. Made with modest means and a surplus of ingenuity, ANIARA is based on a 1956 epic poem by Swedish Nobel Prize winner Harry Martinson and details what happens after we destroy our planet and seek refuge elsewhere. Harrowing and sobering in its portrait of what human beings are capable of, ANIARA constantly surprises. It’s part of a string of intelligent, off-genre pictures from Sweden — such as Ali Abbasi’s Cannes hit Border, also screening at this year’s Festival — which are built around issues and which ask probing, disturbing questions.

Blending social realism with touches of lyricism, Imogen Thomas’ engaging debut feature Emu Runner follows a nine-year-old girl growing up in the isolated community of Brewarrina, Australia. When Gem’s (Rhae-Kye Waites) young mother dies unexpectedly, she copes with the loss by bonding with a wild emu, while her father struggles to keep his family of three children together. As Gem connects with her ancestors’ totem animal — a male emu rearing its chicks — her behaviour attracts the attention of an over-eager social worker who may misinterpret grief for parental neglect.

Toronto, August 24 (NITN): The female-led production company Tuffi Films took on the rise of the alt-right in Nordic region, Northern Europe and the West in the simultaneously heartwarming and heartbreaking teen drama Stupid YOung Heart, which is slated for World Premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) 2018.

Toronto, Aug 24 (NITN): The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) has announced that Donnybrook, the powerful new film from Tim Sutton (Memphis, Dark Night), will be the opening film of the festival’s Platform programme.

The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan is a country that is rich in culture and heritage. Over the years, Jordanians have diligently preserved what has been handed over to them through the centuries. The Kingdom has as many as 17 art exhibition spaces ranging from cultural centers, large private art institutions to privately owned exhibition halls.

After bidding farewell to the Fireworks Festival of Japan, which concludes in the summers, the blue sky adopts a gentler hue welcoming the Autumn season.

Toronto: From biryani to samosas, sweets to hakka noodles, you name it, they had it.