The Toronto Black Film Festival returns for its 14th edition with an ambitious international program and a powerful tribute to legendary filmmaker Stanley Nelson. Taking place during a milestone year for Black History Month, TBFF26 brings bold cinema, music, and community together across Toronto.
The Toronto Black Film Festival (TBFF) returns from February 11 to 16, 2026, reaffirming its position as Canada’s largest Black History Month cultural event. Now in its 14th year, the festival arrives during a landmark moment, marking 30 years of Black History Month in Canada with programming that is expansive, politically engaged, and artistically daring.
Presented by TD Bank Group in collaboration with Global News, the 2026 edition delivers more than 60 films from 15 countries, with 22 world premieres and a strong international presence spanning Africa, Europe, North America, and the Caribbean. For Toronto audiences, TBFF remains a rare space where global Black experiences converge through cinema, music, conversation, and public programming, both in person and online.
Opening night spotlight and lifetime tribute
The festival opens on February 11 at the Isabel Bader Theatre with the Toronto premiere of Of Mud and Blood, directed by Jean-Gabriel Leynaud. Set in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the film explores the precarious lives of miners in the mineral-rich Numbi region, examining survival, memory, and the long shadow of conflict through an unflinching human lens. Its inclusion signals the festival’s ongoing commitment to socially grounded storytelling that centres lived experience over spectacle.
Before the screening, the spotlight turns to Stanley Nelson, who will receive the Toronto Black Film Festival’s 2026 Lifetime Achievement Award. Recognized as one of the most influential documentary filmmakers chronicling the African American experience, Nelson’s career spans decades of rigorous, deeply researched work that has reshaped nonfiction cinema. His films, including Freedom Riders, The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution, Miles Davis: Birth of the Cool, and Attica, have premiered repeatedly at Sundance and earned some of the highest honours in film and humanities.
His most recent documentary, We Want the Funk! (2025), also features prominently in this year’s lineup. The film traces the cultural, political, and musical roots of funk, weaving together archival footage and contemporary voices to explore how the genre reshaped popular culture and collective identity. With appearances from artists such as Questlove, George Clinton, Nona Hendryx, Marcus Miller, and David Byrne, the film underscores TBFF’s embrace of music as a cinematic and historical force.
A closing film grounded in intimacy
The festival closes on February 15 at the Carlton Cinema with the Toronto premiere of Pasa Faho, directed by Kalu Oji. The film follows a struggling shoe salesman whose quiet life is disrupted when his young son comes to live with him. Through restrained performances and understated storytelling, the film examines fatherhood, pride, and emotional distance, offering a reflective conclusion to a week defined by breadth and urgency.
A lineup that reflects the global Black experience
Beyond its marquee screenings, TBFF26 offers a cinematic landscape shaped by genre, geography, and generational voices. Feature films include Snake, The Fisherman, Sabbatical, Sierra’s Gold, Nteregu (A Story to Be Sung), Black Table, and celui qui soigne (Muganga, the One Who Treats), executive-produced by Angelina Jolie and starring Isaach De Bankolé. Collectively, the selections range from realism to Afrofuturism, comedy, political resistance, and deeply personal narratives.
This year’s programming also highlights the Fabienne Colas Foundation’s short film series, "Being Black in Canada." Thirty emerging Black filmmakers from cities including Toronto, Montreal, Halifax, Ottawa, Calgary, and Vancouver will premiere new works in person, continuing the festival’s role as a launchpad for Canadian talent. The films explore themes ranging from mental health and migration to climate change, gender, queerness, and cultural memory.
Beyond the screen
TBFF’s impact extends well beyond film screenings. The 2026 edition marks the return of the TBFF Black Market, the Kids Film Festival, and the Live Music Series, creating multiple points of entry for families, youth, and music lovers. DJs and musicians such as Charmie, Rudy Ray, Joseph Callender, and Mel Dubé will perform alongside spoken word artists Shahaddah Jack and The Wild Woman, reinforcing the festival’s multidisciplinary spirit.
As Fabienne Colas, President and Founder of the festival, notes, TBFF continues to serve as a space for joy, discovery, and artistic excellence, while remaining deeply rooted in community. In a year that honours three decades of Black History Month, the festival stands as a reminder of how cultural institutions can preserve memory, amplify new voices, and imagine future possibilities through art.
The 14th annual Toronto Black Film Festival runs February 11–16, 2026. Full programming details and tickets are available at TorontoBlackFilm.com.
