The Toronto Film Festival has unveiled its Wavelengths section, its showcase for avant-garde and artist-driven cinema, continuing a trend seen at Cannes this year of international auteurs taking centre stage as Hollywood pulls back from major festivals. Curator Andréa Picard said many of the featured filmmakers are turning inward amid grim world news, producing work marked by introspection and personal reflection, a shift that highlights how global auteur cinema is filling space once dominated by studio productions at top festivals.

Highlights include Beatrice Gibson's debut feature "At Night," shot on 16mm and premiering in North America after bowing in Locarno, and Mariano Llinás's five-and-a-half-hour documentary on Jorge Luis Borges, which doubles as a self-portrait of the director. Lisandro Alonso brings "La Libertad Doble," a loose sequel to his 1999 debut "Freedom" that reflects Argentina's current economic crisis, while the section also hosts North American premieres of Berlin festival titles by Sebastian Brameshuber, Nicolas Pereda and Angela Schanelec, alongside a Cannes entry from Romanian director Radu Jude.