Toronto International Nollywood Film Festival (9)

Festival start: 06 September 2025      Festival end: 13 September 2025

The Toronto International Nollywood Film Festival (TINFF) is a film festival that embraces diversity and inclusivity! TINFF is a Telefilm Canada and IMDb-qualifying film festival. https://www.imdb.com/event/ev0010686/2019/1

The Toronto International Film Festival (TINFF) invites you to come to enjoy the diversity that brings local and international films, filmmakers, and artists to the beautiful city of Toronto every year.

The objective of TINFF is to be a prominent film festival in Toronto that celebrates the diversity that defines our beautiful city. The primary goal is to advance creative, independent filmmaking through diversity, innovation, and uniqueness by capturing a series of movements and experiences in a single film. We support, screen, and present music and films from around the world in order to help them find an audience and diversify the film industry as a whole.

The festival's programs and activities will initiate programs that address the capacity building of its organizational structure and personnel while also investing heavily in the development of its stakeholder group and providing support for strategic activities that address major challenges and opportunities.

This year's festival and activity projects will include conferences, screenings with Q&A, live music performances, stage plays, and dance, as well as several audience development activities involving workshop training and mentorship programs in various capacities geared toward increasing workforce capacity and putting diversity and inclusion at the center of its annual program and objectives.

The CBDFM Summit:

As part of the annual festival program, the TINFF-Market, also known as the "Canada Black & Diversity Film Market," will focus on business development, providing support to organizations for business-to-business (B2B) industry activities and business-to-consumer (B2C) audience development activities that bring opportunities for new business leads, collaboration, sales, distribution, and relationships.

Our programs and activities will be offered in three phases to ensure effective planning and execution:

• Festival programs will feature, among other things, screenings with Q&A, interviews, conferences, and seminars.

• Workshops and Training, Mentorship, and Masterclasses: Bridging the Gap in Skills Development Programs

• Acquisitions, networking, production collaboration, negotiations, sales, exhibition screenings, meetings (one-on-one or group meetings), and conferences are all part of the Film Market Summit.

Our initiatives, as a creative hub for filmmakers and industry stakeholders, are geared toward developing opportunities for all Canadians and international filmmakers and stakeholders, with a focus on the marginalized Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) groups.

The Toronto International Nollywood Film Festival (TINFF) is a year-round award competition and live screening festival held in Toronto each year. Every year, we hold a festival event and an award ceremony to celebrate diversity in film. We warmly welcome filmmakers from all around the world to Toronto.

Following the announcement and notification of the Official Selected Films, we will go on to the next stage of the selection process and announce the TINFF Festival Finalists who will compete at the live festival event in Toronto. The names of all Finalists will be published on the TINFF festival website and on the TINFF Facebook page.

TINFF is a music and film festival with an awards ceremony that honours and fosters filmmakers by recognizing, promoting, challenging, and building knowledge of equality, social justice, non-discrimination, diversity, and multiculturalism.

Awards & Prizes

TROPHY STATUE / AWARD CERTIFICATES
Best Project and Audience Choice Award
InkTip publishing opportunity
True Sail Distribution (Cinema Deal) In Toronto

We award the best independent filmmakers after a comprehensive evaluation process. All official selection and finalist get LAURELS. Finalist will have an opportunity to contest again at a combination of audience and judges vote for a TROPHY at various categories and a DISTRIBUTION OFFER which is optional to you. Also, thanks to one of our sponsors, winners of the “Top Three Screenplays” will receive an InkTip Script Listing to promote themselves and their scripts to InkTip’s entire network of producers, managers, and agents. Producers have made more than 375 from scripts and writers they found through InkTip.

In addition, all entries are eligible for an award from the list below. A certificate suitable for mounting and display will be given to the winners of each category. Winners of our annual TINFF-Festival Gala will receive an engraved Toronto International Nollywood Film Festival (TINFF) Audience Favorite Trophy. The event will be held at The Toronto York Woods Theatres. Filmmakers will have access to festival Screenings, Red carpet Interviews, Awards Ceremony and Networking opportunities in Toronto, Canada.

Best Feature Film (Hollywood-USA)
Best Feature Film (Nollywood)
Best Feature Film (Bollywood)
Best Feature Film (International)
Best Feature Film Caribbean
Best Feature Film (Canada)
Best LGBT Feature Film - NEW
Best LGBT Short Film -NEW
Best Short Film
Best Music Video
Best Trailer
Best Actor
Best Actress
Best Supporting Actor
Best Supporting Actress
Best Director
Best Producer
Best Web Series
Best Horror
Best Thriller/Action
Best Comedy
Best Animated film
Best Sci-Fi
Best Student film
Best Documentary
Best Editing
Best Cinematography
Best Visual Effects
Best Original Music Score
Best in Show
Best Costume
Best Art Director
Best Music - Non Visual (Audio Only Category) -- NEW
Best Reality Shows -- NEW
Best vBlog -- NEW
Best Gospel Video -- NEW
Best Female Filmmaker (Producer / Director) -- NEW

NEW CATEGORIES ADDED THIS YEAR

Audience Choice Award: (Online Voting Category, Films with the highest online fan vote wins)
Jury Award
Best of Show
Awards of Excellence
TINFF’s Nollywood Special Jury Awards
TINFF’s Bollywood Special Jury Awards
The True-Sail Award For Outstanding Black Film / Filmmaker
The True-Sail Award For Outstanding Minority Film / Filmmaker
Awards of Merit
Awards of Recognition

TINFF is proud to Announce InkTip as a sponsored partner for our screenplay awards Categories at the Festival this year in Toronto.
In Addition to Winning a Trophy, Winners from our Screen Play Categories will receive an InkTip Script Listing to promote themselves and their scripts to InkTip’s entire network of producers, managers, and agents.

Companies who are InkTip members include: ABC, Anonymous Content, APA, CBS Films, HBO Films, ICM, Paradigm, Paramount Pictures, Hallmark Channel, FX, Universal, WME, Echo Lake, Zero Gravity, Bad Robot, 20th Century Fox, and many more. Producers have made more than 315 films from scripts and writers found through InkTip.

{InkTip: Where producers go for scripts and writers.}

SCREENPLAY:

Screenplay under 30 pages
Screenplay under 60 pages
Screenplay under 120 pages

Rules & Regulations:

• The competition is open to films from Canada, Nollywood, Bollywood, USA-Hollywood, and International entries. Please check individual categories and submit suitable categories to your project.

• Feature films are 30 minutes in length or longer. Short films are under 30 minutes in length. All non-English speaking films must be presented in their original version with English subtitles.

• All Entries with or without distribution deal are welcome.

• Films previously entered into and screened at our festival are eligible for one additional re-entry in subsequent years.

• Entries must be submitted for pre-screening through our online submission platform. If you use a secured link, you are REQUIRED to keep us updated with passwords.

• Works in progress are accepted. We cannot promise that we will be able to watch re-edited submissions. Please only submit works in progress if submitting close to the final deadline.

• TINFF confirms that the festival has the permission to exhibit your film(s) during the festival and /or at any other Festival event. Submission of a work implies that the Festival can employ moving image excerpts and reproduce stills of exhibition promotion. Credit will be given to any filmmaker or screenwriter of such material is used in Festival promotion. The Original copyright holder retains all rights to their work.

• You may submit multiple entries but must pay an entry fee for each.

• If the movie has nudity or sex. The movie should have a strong story line; however, we are strictly not accepting any movies about porn, animal cruelty.

• To submit a Film for Festival consideration, Applicants must complete the registration process at the online submission platform and pay the required fee by the deadlines.

Submissions must be postmarked or an online submitted via submission platform. Submitted DVDs must contain one version only of the Film, in the original language of production, with English subtitles if the original language is not English.

• DVDs must be labeled in the following manner: Title. Production company name, phone number, and address. Director’s name. Length in minutes and submission platform tracking number.

• Where the applicant chooses to forward a DVD instead of an online screener, the Applicant is responsible for ensuring that the submitted DVD screener plays in its entirety on an industry-standard DVD player. If TINFF is unable to view the DVD, TINFF is under no obligation, to contact the Applicant in order to obtain a replacement DVD.

• TINFF will not review multiple versions of a submitted Film. Only one version of the Film may be submitted. If multiple versions are submitted, TINFF will view only the version that was received first.

• Note! DVD screeners will not be returned.

• All Films must be sent by way of prepaid
shipping. TINFF will not accept cash-on- delivery shipments or be responsible for duties, taxes or customs brokerage. Charges are to be billed to the sender. TINFF is not responsible for and will not accept shipments incurring expenses for terminal charges, duties, taxes or customs brokerage. Shipping and customs charges are to be billed to the sender. Any shipping charges incurred by TINFF will be billed back to the Applicant.