Is Siân Heder’s Being Heumann the One to Watch?
In 1977, Judith Heumann chained herself to a bus in New York City because the driver told her she was a fire hazard. She was a schoolteacher trying to get to work.
That image: a woman in a wheelchair, padlock in hand, blocking a crosstown bus, never made the front page. Forty-nine years later, it may finally get the Roy Thomson Hall treatment.
On September 10, the 51st Toronto International Film Festival opens with Being Heumann, director Siân Heder’s first feature since CODA won Best Picture at the 2022 Academy Awards.
It is, by any reasonable measure, one of the most anticipated opening-night selections in recent TIFF memory. Not because of the star power attached, though that is considerable, but because of what the film is actually about.
Oscar Winning director returns with a powerful statement
Heder spent four years in development on CODA, a film about a hearing child of deaf parents that most studios passed on before Apple bought it at Sundance for $25 million; then the largest acquisition in festival history.
It turns out the film about people not being heard was worth listening to. Being Heumann follows a similar throughline: a story about a person the mainstream system tried to make invisible, rendered visible at the highest possible level.
Ruth Madeley stars as Judy Heumann, the disability rights activist who helped write the blueprint for the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Heumann spent 26 days in a sit-in at the San Francisco Federal Building in 1977, the longest occupation of a federal building in U.S. history, to force the Carter administration to sign Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act. The cast includes Dylan O’Brien and Mark Ruffalo, though as of this writing, no celebrity appearances at TIFF have been confirmed by the festival.
The film is an Apple Original, which means it carries the same distribution infrastructure that took CODA from Sundance acquisition to Best Picture. That path is not guaranteed to repeat, but the conditions are familiar.
The rest of TIFF 2026’s early lineup
Two other world premieres round out the first wave of announcements. Prima Facie, directed by Susanna White and starring Cynthia Erivo, adapts Suzie Miller’s celebrated stage play about a criminal defense barrister whose faith in the legal system fractures after she is sexually assaulted by a colleague. The material has been one of the most talked-about pieces of contemporary theater in London and Sydney over the past three years, and Erivo, coming off her Oscar-nominated turn in Wicked, is exactly the kind of casting that turns a prestige adaptation into a conversation. Whether she makes the trip to Toronto is still unconfirmed.
The third film is The Assassin(s), a South Korean political thriller from director Hur Jin-ho, set in the aftermath of an attempted assassination of South Korea’s leader in 1974. The cast includes Lee Min-ho, known globally for his role in Pachinko, alongside Yoo Hae-jin and Park Hae-il.
If the first three films are any indication, TIFF 2026 is not planning to ease anyone in gently. They’re aiming for aggressive cinephiles.
What else to know before September
The full festival schedule goes live August 11. Before then, programming announcements roll out in waves: Gala and Special Presentations on July 20, Platform on July 21, Discovery on July 22, Primetime on July 23, with a second round in early August covering Centrepiece, Wavelengths, TIFF Classics, TIFF Docs, Short Cuts, and Midnight Madness.
The Market Debuts
This year also marks the debut of TIFF: The Market, a new industry event running September 10-16 at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre, designed as a dedicated space for buying, selling, and financing film and television projects. It is the festival’s most direct move yet into the territory traditionally held by markets like Cannes’ Marché du Film and the American Film Market. A new screening venue joins the lineup as well: the John Bassett Theatre at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre.
The eighth annual TIFF Tribute Awards gala takes place September 13 at the Fairmont Royal York. Honorees have not yet been announced. Festival Street returns to King Street West opening weekend. TIFF Member tickets go on sale August 21; general public single tickets open August 31.
The full TIFF 2026 lineup drops August 11. Keep this tab open. Being Heumann is the kind of film that sets the tone for an entire festival — and potentially an entire awards season.
 also premiering.){kind=link}