At tonight’s Toronto International Film Festival Tribute Awards, honorees like Idris Elba, Guillermo del Toro and Nina Hoss urged empathy, invoking the state of the world as in desperate need of human compassion.
The gala, which is an annual fundraiser supporting TIFF‘s core mission of cinema’s transformative power in real life, honored the outstanding impact of leading industry members. This year’s awardees also included Jodie Foster, Hikari, Lee Byung Hun, Kazu Hiro, Channing Tatum, Jafar Panahi, Zacharias Kunuk and Catherine O’Hara.
This year’s event also celebrated TIFF’s 50th Edition.
Though the artists’ statements remained vague in their gesticulations toward various sociopolitical crises currently sending shockwaves through the earth, it’s not difficult to infer veiled references to rising authoritarianism or the wars in Sudan and Gaza, which have led to catastrophic threats of famine.
Hoss, who featured in Hedda and received one of the Performer Awards, said, “We can’t forget what’s going on around us in the world … but I believe in the power of cinema, I truly do. I believe that when we sit in this room together, coming from all kinds of backgrounds — if young or old, it doesn’t matter what education we have — film brings us together because we can dive into, for a little moment in a very intimate way, into another person’s world, another person’s life, and we get challenged, we laugh with the person, we cry and experience his world and in the best way, hopefully we feel empathy. And from empathy, comes kindness, and we need that in this world right now.”
Nina Hoss, recipient of the Performer Award at the TIFF Tribute Awards, speaks to the current state of the world and how more kindness and empathy is needed pic.twitter.com/4YwRveg8C1
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Meanwhile, Frankenstein filmmaker del Toro noted lightheartedly: “Canadians are modest and shy except on traffic and hockey; they go really crazy, yeah? Really violent,” he joked, eliciting audience laughs. “But in the meantime, they don’t like to talk about their achievements, so it takes a Mexican to tell you that Canada is a bastion of hope in the world right now.”
Guillermo del Toro, recipient of the Ebert Director Award at the #TIFF Tribute Awards, speaks to the current times and how Canada offers “hope” pic.twitter.com/QccY1WSZyk
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Elba, who received the TIFF Tribute Award in Impact Media, stated: “Even though we don’t really want to talk about it at a celebration of our industry, it is important to acknowledge the pain the world is feeling altogether, and that pain is something that — no matter what you do, whether we make films or you sponsor events like this — you close your eyes at night, you feel that pain because we’re human beings; we’re empaths.”
The multi-hyphenate added that the award is a symbol encouraging people to “make an impact with your lives, make an impact with our world by feeling something, all right? Feel it. No matter where you stand on whatever conflict is going on in the world, feel something, please. Our children, our children’s children — they need to know that we felt something during this time.”
Idris Elba, recipient of the Award in Impact Media at the TIFF Tribute Awards, speaks to the bittersweet moment of accepting this award amidst the current state but encourages people to make an impact in our world pic.twitter.com/C7cvxgjytI
— Deadline (@DEADLINE) September 8, 2025
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