Comedy actor and writer John Early has added director to his resume as he brings his first feature, Maddie’s Secret, to open the Toronto Film Festival Discovery sidebar for first-time and emerging filmmakers.
The film about Maddie, a Food Network content creator trying not to allow her dark past to pierce her perfect veneer, stars many of Early’s colleagues in the L.A. stand-up comedy scene, including Kate Berlant, Vanessa Bayer and Connor O’Malley.
In all, Discovery programmers have assembled 23 world premieres for their 25th edition. Also booked into the Toronto section is director Nadia Latif’s The Man in My Basement, which plays with the horror genre and stars Corey Hawkins as an African American man about to lose his family’s home, until a white businessman (Willem Dafoe) offers to rent his basement to clear his debts in a deal he chose not to refuse, but should have.
Other titles: Cato Kusters’ love story Julian, about two women — Nina Meurisse playing Fleur and Laurence Roothooft as Julian — planning to marry in 22 countries where they legally can, only to tragically halt their journey after four marriages; and Taratoa Stappard’s Maori gothic horror pic Marama, where Ariana Osborne plays a young woman fighting to reclaim her indigenous identity in Victorian-era Britain.
The section has two films with main characters who are deaf: writer/director Ted Evans’ debut thriller Retreat, starring an all-deaf cast led by Anne Zander, James Boyle and Sophie Stone; and Stroma Cairns’ The Son and the Sea, another debut feature and about three boys, one of whom is profoundly deaf, on a trip to the Northeast coast of Scotland.
Other Discovery titles include director Siyou Tan’s coming of age drama Amoeba, about a young woman launching a rebellion at an elite all-girls school by starting a gang; Laundry, from director Zamo Mkhwanazi and set in 1968 during South Africa’s apartheid era; and writer-director Eva Thomas’ solo directorial debut Nika & Madison, about two young Indigenous women, played by Ellyn Jade and Star Slade, who go on the run after a violent encounter with police.
Also in the 2025 Discovery sidebar is Kunsang Kyirong’s first feature, 100 Sunset, a character-driven mystery about a teenage kleptomaniac who spies on her Tibetan community and meets an unexpected confidant; Bikas Ranjan Mishra’s police drama Bayaan, an adaptation of a stage play; Sasha Leigh Henry’s Dinner With Friends drama about eight friends learning staying as a group is as hard as growing up; Joscha Bongard’s pic Babystar, about a child influencer trying to break free of parents deciding to have another baby; and Andy Hines’ debut feature and crime thriller Little Lorraine, starring Stephen Amell and Colombian reggaeton star J Balvin in his first movie role.
There’s also first looks for Tomas Corredor’s Noviembre; Karla Badillo’s Oca; Seyhmus Altun’s As We Breathe; Pella Kagerman and Hugo Lilja’s Egghead Republic; Seemab Gul’s Ghost School; Lucia Alenar Iglesias’ Forastera; Goran Stankovic’s Our Father; Melanie Charbonneau’s Out Standing; and Zain Duraie’s Sink.
The Toronto Film Festival is set to run from Sept. 4 to 14. Additional lineup announcements will be made in the coming weeks.