He’s one among twenty administrators who will obtain assist from TIFF to develop their function movie debuts.
Kaelo Iyizoba is a Nigerian-American filmmaker. He holds an MFA in movie from Columbia College, the place he was the primary filmmaker to win high honours for producing and screenwriting. In 2025, he joined the inaugural cohort of Sundance’s Cultural Affect Fellowship. Iyizoba is a recipient of the Gates Basis Media grant and a winner of the Fb Future Filmmaker grant. He’s a Berlinale Expertise, a Rideback Rise’s circle member, a Blackhouse fellow, and a finalist for the Tyler Perry Studios Dream Collective. Iyizoba’s movies have screened at festivals all over the world, and his thesis movie, Mr. Daring, was shortlisted for a BAFTA scholar award.
In Iyizoba’s TIFF Challenge, A Nollywood Story, a grieving younger girl will get sucked into the world of an outdated Nollywood film, the place she should change into the hero of the story to avoid wasting her mom and return to her personal actuality.
Previously generally known as TIFF Filmmaker Lab, the TIFF Administrators’ Lab returns with a larger give attention to directorial debuts. The Lab selects 16 Canadian and worldwide administrators from tons of of purposes to obtain an impactful career-launching mentorship from famend administrators, producers, brokers, distributors, and high business specialists from all over the world.
This yr, choose contributors will likely be awarded the Micki Moore Fellowship, the Share Her Journey Giving Circle Fellowship, the Share Her Journey Administrators’ Lab Fellowship in honour of Viola Desmond, and the Jennifer A. Tory Legacy Fellowship. Some administrators will even obtain monetary assist to be in Toronto during the programme, with specifics of their official invitation.
TIFF Administrators’ Lab is designed to be a catalyst for rising administrators to refine their artistic tasks and put together their tasks for {the marketplace}.