Stars Push for Empathy and Hope at Toronto Film Festival Tribute Awards

The biggest stars at the 2025 Toronto Film Festival hoped to bring light to tumultuous times at the seventh annual TIFF Tribute Awards on Saturday night. Nearly every honoree mentioned the state of the world during their acceptance speeches, while also emphasizing that in times of strife, art is more necessary than ever.

“Even though we don’t really want to talk about it at this celebration of our industry, it is important to acknowledge the pain the world is feeling,” said Idris Elba while accepting the Impact Media award. The star of Kathryn Bigelow’s upcoming film House of Dynamite was being honored for co-founding the Elba Hope Foundation, which focuses on advancing equity through youth advocacy.

“I’m taking this award for us to remind ourselves to make an impact – make an impact on our world by feeling something, no matter where you stand on whatever conflict is going on in the world, feel something,” he added. “Our children, our children’s children, they need to know that we felt something.”

The fundraising gala, in partnership with Rolex, is held annually during the first weekend of the festival at the Fairmont Royal York Hotel. This year’s crop of nominees included Rental Family‘s director Hikari, filmmaker Jafar Panahi, actor Lee Byung Hun, filmmaker Zacharias Kunuk, artist Kazu Hiro, and Emmy winner Catherine O’Hara. The festival, which is celebrating its 50th year, always gives a special spotlight to Canadian talent like O’Hara and this year’s honorary chair Brendan Fraser. Frankenstein director Guillermo del Toro received a standing ovation when he accepted the directors award, in part because he has made many of his movies in Toronto—including Oscar-winning The Shape of Water.

Jodie Foster, who received the Share Her Journey Groundbreaker Award, also urged the audience to lift others up. “In the year we’re living in, which is really cruelty for sports and cruelty as motivation, I’ve been saying I want to be motivated by good work and by goodness—and that has brought more joy than anything else,” she said.

The star of A Private Life added that she feels she’s doing the best work of her career now, because she’s grown out of focusing only on herself. “I was so obsessed with myself – I just wanted to make movies about things that were relevant to me at the time,” she says. “And then I hit a certain age—I think it was hormones—and suddenly I was like, ‘Oh wow, I can support other people and I can use whatever bone wisdom that I’ve accrued and squirreled away in my lifetime to be able to be open-hearted.’”

Channing Tatum, honored with the Performer award, also pushed for more empathy in today’s world. “I think in this time of so much judgment, maybe if we just gave ourselves and other people a little grace, maybe we could just do a little bit better each day,” he said.

Tatum, who stars in Roofman—a true story about the “rooftop robber” who escaped prison and hid out in a Toys R’ Us—was overcome by emotion while thanking his mother, who was in the audience. “She believed in me so much that she would actually do my homework for me in high school,” he said, revealing that she even learned how to write in his handwriting. Tatum’s mother believed that he just had to make it through school, and he would be better off on the other side. “I’ve had so many people believe in me when I didn’t believe in myself,” he said.

The star-studded event also gives a sneak peek into how awards campaign messaging may look like this year on the road to the Oscars. Brendan Fraser, Michelle Yeoh, and Jessica Chastain were all honored at the TIFF Tribute Awards in years where they’d go on to win Oscars.

Nina Hoss, a star of Hedda who was honored with the Performer Award, summed up many of the honorees’ sentiments by emphasizing art’s ability to unite during a divided time. “I believe in the power of cinema, I truly do,” she said. “Film brings us together because we dive into, for a little moment in a very intimate way, into another person’s world. We laugh, we cry, and experience his world… and hopefully we feel empathy. And from empathy comes kindness.”