The Toronto International Film Festival has confirmed that Siân Heder's activist drama "Being Heumann" will open its 51st edition, with a world premiere on 10 September at Roy Thomson Hall. The film is significant as the follow-up to Heder's "CODA", which sold to Apple for $25 million and won the Oscar for best picture, and it stars Ruth Madeley as the late disability rights advocate Judith Heumann.

Adapted from Heumann's memoir, the film depicts her leading more than 100 disabled people in a 28-day protest to press the government to enforce accessibility provisions of the Rehabilitation Act. Alongside the opener, TIFF announced two further world premieres: "Prima Facie", starring Cynthia Erivo as a London barrister whose faith in the legal system is shattered after she is raped by a colleague, based on Suzie Miller's acclaimed one-woman play; and "The Assassin(s)", Hur Jin-ho's political thriller about the 1974 assassination attempt on Korean president Park Chung-hee. The full 2026 line-up, running from 10 to 20 September, has yet to be released.