What's happening at TIFF: An 'Obsession' victory lap, MIA studios and a taxidermy musical

TORONTO (AP) — The 51st Toronto International Film Festival is underway, with steady parades of premieres running like traffic jams through downtown Toronto. Here are glimpses of what's happening on the ground, and what festivalgoers are talking about.

A year after Curry Barker first premiered “Obsession” at TIFF, the filmmaker and his star, Inde Navarrette, returned for a victory lap.

In the midnight section of last year's festival, “Obsession” first hit audiences, quickly prompting a bidding war. Focus Features landed the $750,000 indie horror film for about $15 million in what would become one of the most lucrative festival acquisitions ever. This year, “Obsession” grossed $512 million worldwide.

“What a difference a year makes!” said Peter Kuplowsky, TIFF Midnight Madness programmer.

Their return was partly strategic. Focus is now gearing up for an awards season campaign for "Obsession," running the film in many categories, including best picture and best actress for 25-year-old Navarrette.

“Everything changed for me. I am now in rooms that I could not even imagine,” Navarrette said. “I’m now pitching my own projects and am hopefully able to produce and direct my own stuff. It’s been really, really exciting because I love cinema and I love filmmaking and being a part of Midnight Madness last year lit that fire for me.”

Barker, 26, and Navarrette spoke in a staged talk at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre, not far from the theater where “Obsession” debuted. In the year since, Barker said he has realized that his movie now belongs to audiences.

“It starts to feel like it’s not mine anymore,” Barker said. “It’s not mine anymore.”

A running question through film festivals this year has been: Where are the major movie studio movies?

The first pang of unease came when Warner Bros. last September skipped all the fall festivals and instead launched Paul Thomas Anderson's “One Battle After Another” right into theaters — even premiering it while TIFF was going on. You could hardly question a strategy that paid off with a best-picture win at the Oscars.

The major studios generally don't produce the kinds of movies that launch at fall festivals anymore. And for the few adult-driven, non-franchise studio movies that get made, the downside of a festival — unpredictable critic response; an inconvenient release date — has sometimes meant festivals aren't worth the risk. Just ask the producers of “Joker: Folie à Deux,” which was immediately slammed at its Venice Film Festival launch in 2024.

“I hope the studios will come back,” Cannes Film Festival director Thierry Frémaux said on the eve of a Cannes that lacked any major Hollywood film.

This fall, Warner Bros.' anticipated “Digger,” directed by Alejandro G. Iñárritu and starring Tom Cruise, is bypassing festivals. But it's not the only big title to do so. Also missing in action are Sony's “The Social Reckoning,” Aaron Sorkin's Facebook follow-up to “The Social Network,” and Netflix's “The Further Mis-Adventures of Cliff Booth,” from David Fincher and Brad Pitt.

At the same time, the potential attention-grabbing showcase of a festival has rarely had more obvious upside. A small, surprise screening at the Telluride Film Festival of A24's “You Can See Everything,” Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim's documentary on Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes, was enough to make it one of the most buzzed-about movies of the year.

TIFF has traditionally been home to the kind of populist, midbudget movie that Hollywood now seldom produces. To make up for that absence, the festival has increasingly programmed movies up for sale, in the hopes of luring studios to acquire something that pops with Toronto audiences. This year, the festival officially launched a movie market.

Companies like Netflix, Apple, Amazon MGM, Neon, A24 and Mubi tend to be the dominant players at festivals — so it can depend where you're looking and how you define “major studio.” On Thursday night, the top brass of Warner Bros. was at TIFF, too. Mike De Luca and Pam Abdy, co-chairs and chief executives of the Warner Bros. Motion Picture Group, attended. They were on hand to trumpet the studio's new specialty label, Clockwork.

Clockwork's first release will be “Ti Amo!” from Sean Baker. Few filmmakers can better attest to the power of film festivals than Baker. Last year, his “Anora” went from Palme d'Or winner at Cannes to best-picture winner at the Academy Awards.

Opening night at TIFF belonged to Siân Heder's “Being Heumann,” a true-story drama about the disability rights pioneer Judy Heumann and the 1977 sit-in that sparked the movement leading to the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Like Heder's last film, the best picture-winning “CODA,” Heder made “Being Heumann” with an ensemble you don't usually see on screen. Actors with disabilities play many of the major roles, including Ruth Madeley, who stars as Heumann.

The film, which Apple will release in November, makes a powerful case not just for a seminal moment in disability rights history but for casts that authentically reflect underrepresented communities.

As the saying goes, the best way to start a film festival is with a taxidermy musical.

One of the first premieres this year was “Stuffed,” and it's sure to remain one of the most peculiar, macabre and oddly sweet entries of the festival. Theo Rhys’ debut feature, the opener of TIFF's Discovery section, stars Jodie Comer as Araminta, a reclusive taxidermist. Her long-held dream of stuffing a human is answered when a lonely man named Bernie (Harry Melling), who works in a sandwich factory, steps forward to volunteer. Araminta, a little like the inverse of Dr. Frankenstein, promises death but a strange kind of frozen-in-time immortality.

It's a tribute to this quirkily gothic tale and its extraordinary leads that it's also quite a tender romance. “Stuffed” would pair remarkably well with Harry Lighton’s not-so-different “Pillion,” from earlier this year, also starring Melling as a timid soul looking for obliteration, or love. Melling remains a singular screen presence, and it continues to be fascinating to see what kind of situations he gets himself into.

Cast and crew arrive on the red carpet to promote the film Being Heumann at the Toronto International Film Festival, in Toronto, Thursday, Sept. 10, 2026. (Chris Young/The Canadian Press via AP)

Actor Harry Melling poses on the red carpet for the movie "Stuffed" during the Toronto International Film Festival in Toronto on Thursday, Sept. 10, 2026. (Nathan Denette/The Canadian Press via AP)

Actress Jodie Comer poses on the red carpet for the movie "Stuffed" during the Toronto International Film Festival in Toronto on Thursday, Sept. 10, 2026. (Nathan Denette/The Canadian Press via AP)

FILE - Curry Barker poses for a portrait in New York on Thursday, June 11, 2026. (Photo by Andy Kropa/Invision/AP, File)

A person poses for a photo with signage for the Toronto International Film Festival in Toronto, on Thursday, Sept. 10, 2026. (Keito Newman/The Canadian Press via AP)

NEW YORK (AP) — Taylor Townsend was tight, not moving well and could sense she was off swinging her racket early in the U.S. Open women's doubles final.

“I wanted this really badly, and I knew that I wanted it,” she said. “I felt it in my body and my spirit because I was so nervous.”

Partner Katerina Siniakova talked her through the rough start Friday, and then they found their groove and rolled. Townsend and Siniakova completed their career Grand Slam as a team by defeating the wild card pair of Ashlyn Krueger and Robin Montgomery for their first U.S. Open doubles title together.

“It just means the world to me,” Townsend said. “This really means everything to me, not only just to be able to win the U.S. Open but to be able to complete a career Slam.”

It looked dicey early, when Townsend and Siniakova lost the first three games and dropped the first set. At one point, the ball dropped between them, an uncharacteristic mistake for the top two women's doubles players on the planet.

Then the top seeds started looking like it with aggressive shots at the net, and they took control of the match on the way to a 5-7, 6-0, 6-2 victory at Arthur Ashe Stadium.

“The match was very tight, very tough for us, but we found a way to win it,” Sinakova said. “We found a solution. I’m just really happy that we have this one, and we can celebrate it together.”

The result validated Townsend's confidence in her play after getting knocked out in singles by No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka. The 30-year-old American expressed confidence in her tennis at the time, knowing she still had another opportunity in doubles.

That turned into her fourth major championship after she and Siniakova won Wimbledon in 2024, the Australian Open in 2025 and the French Open earlier this year. It was Siniakova’s 12th Grand Slam title after winning seven with fellow Czech player Barbora Krejcikova and one with Coco Gauff.

“It helps to have someone that’s been here so many times and who has been able to get over the hump — what is it, 12? Twelve times,” Townsend said.

It was an impressive run for Krueger and Montgomery, who respectively rank 570th and 610th in doubles and went through each half of defending champions Erin Routliffe and Gabriela Dabrowski separately in the quarterfinals and semifinals. Krueger and Montgomery reunited five years after winning the U.S. Open girls' doubles title and advancing a round at the women's level in 2021.

“We’re both just trying to take it all in,” Montgomery said. “What we’ve just done has been amazing. I think we did forget that we were offered a wild card, so I’m just glad we made good use of it.”

Townsend and Siniakova got retribution after falling short against Routliffe and Dabrowski in the final a year ago. Townsend dropped to her knees after the final point and was all smiles as she said to Siniakova that they finally did it.

“If flipping the script had a face,” Townsend said, “you’d see my face.”

A year after famously sipping the tournament's signature cocktail, the Honey Deuce, at the news conference after losing in the women's doubles final, Townsend had one in each hand this time. Carrying just one, Siniakova asked Townsend, “Next year, you have three and I have two?” — setting the table for the duo to already start thinking about a repeat.

See AP’s full tennis coverage here

Taylor Townsend, of the United States, left, and Katerina Siniakova, of the Czech Republic, right, kiss their trophy after winning the women's doubles final of the U.S. Open tennis championships against Ashlyn Krueger, of the United States, and Robin Montgomery, of the United States, Friday, Sept. 11, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)

Taylor Townsend, of the United States, left, and Katerina Siniakova, of the Czech Republic, right, celebrate winning the women's doubles final of the U.S. Open tennis championships against Ashlyn Krueger, of the United States, and Robin Montgomery, of the United States, Friday, Sept. 11, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)

Katerina Siniakova, of the Czech Republic, bottom left, and Taylor Townsend, of the United States, bottom right, meet Robin Montgomery, of the United States, top left, and Ashlyn Krueger, of the United States, top right, at the net after Siniakova and Townsend won the women's doubles final of the U.S. Open tennis championships, Friday, Sept. 11, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)

Katerina Siniakova, of the Czech Republic, left, and Taylor Townsend, of the United States, right, celebrate winning the women's doubles final of the U.S. Open tennis championships against Ashlyn Krueger, of the United States, and Robin Montgomery, of the United States, Friday, Sept. 11, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)

Taylor Townsend, of the United States, left, and Katerina Siniakova, of the Czech Republic, right, look up to return the ball as they compete against Ashlyn Krueger, of the United States, and Robin Montgomery, of the United States, during the women's doubles final of the U.S. Open tennis championships, Friday, Sept. 11, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

Katerina Siniakova, of the Czech Republic, left, and Taylor Townsend, of the United States, right, celebrate winning the women's doubles final of the U.S. Open tennis championships against Ashlyn Krueger, of the United States, and Robin Montgomery, of the United States, Friday, Sept. 11, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)