TIFF 2026: The best (The Debut!), worst (smelly cinemas!) and weirdest (Trudeau?) film festival moments

TIFF 2026: The best (The Debut!), worst (smelly cinemas!) and weirdest (Trudeau?) film festival moments BARRY HERTZ PUBLISHED 33 MINUTES AGO Open this photo in gallery: Julianne Moore attends the red carpet for The Debut at the Toronto International Film Festival, on Sept. 13. Written and directed by Jesse Eisenberg, The Debut was a crowd pleaser. CARLOS OSORIO/REUTERS COMMENTS SHARE SAVE FOR LATER The Globe and Mail’s Toronto International Film Festival team presents the highs, lows and all the moments in between from the 51st edition of the festival, which wraps up Sunday. Best star-is-born moments If you didn’t know who Jordan Firstman was before walking into his feature directorial debut, Club Kid (which he also stars in), then you certainly seared his name into your brain upon leaving the New York-set dramedy, so potent is the filmmaker’s charisma. Audiences felt that same sense of discovery watching Canadian actor Zorga Qaunaq inject a feverish intensity in the satiric thriller In the Heart of the South, during Anthony Ippolito’s pitch-perfect interpretation of a prefame Sylvester Stallone in I Play Rocky, and taking in Eldar Isgandarov’s hilarious supporting work in both Club Kid and Jesse Eisenberg’s The Debut. Barry Hertz Busiest politico While Prime Minister Mark Carney popped in to the annual TIFF Tribute Awards gala fundraiser to remind all the Hollywood stars that our closest major body of water is called Lake Ontario and not anything else, it was his predecessor Justin Trudeau who was really making the TIFF rounds. The former prime minister hosted a swanky open-air soiree atop the TIFF Lightbox to launch his new production company, Hope & Hard Work (whatever you do, don’t call it Barack Obama’s Higher Ground 2.0), where he and his former chief of staff, Katie Telford, hobnobbed with well-wishers. He also made the rounds at the annual, and star-packed, Road to the Golden Globes party at the Four Seasons. Will TIFF’s next edition open with Trudeau’s first effort as a big-screen producer? I’m sure that will be controversy-free. B.H. Open this photo in gallery: Former prime minister Justin Trudeau and his former chief of staff, Katie Telford, announce the launch of their new media and entertainment production company at TIFF Lightbox on Sept. 11. LAURA PROCTOR/THE CANADIAN PRESS Biggest scene While several screenings had audiences bursting into applause midway through, only one movie, Eisenberg’s community-theatre comedy, The Debut,…