Categories[edit]

Awards are presented in five main categories: Actor, with two performers honoured each year; Director, honouring a film director; Artisan, honouring a craftsperson in a behind the scenes role such as cinematography, editing or sound; Emerging Talent, honouring a film director for their debut feature film; and the Impact Award, honouring a figure whose work has been dedicated to social change. A sixth award, the Share Her Journey Groundbreaker Award, was introduced in 2022 for women who have made outstanding contributions to improving the conditions of other women in the film industry; actress Michelle Yeoh was the inaugural recipient.^[6] An additional Special Tribute award may be presented at the TIFF board's discretion, to honour a person for distinguished achievements in other fields not covered by one of the main categories; both times that a Special Tribute award has been presented to date, it has been to a musician with significant film soundtrack credits who was the subject of a retrospective documentary film screening at that year's festival.


The Impact Award was presented in the inaugural year to the film studio Participant Media, with CEO Jeffrey Skoll accepting the award on the company's behalf; the company subsequently signed on as a direct sponsor of that award, which has since been known as the Jeff Skoll Award in Impact Media.


The 2022 awards marked the first time that one of the actor awards was presented to an ensemble cast instead of an individual performer.^[7]


In 2023, TIFF introduced the Norman Jewison Award, a career achievement award presented to Canadians whose careers in entertainment have had a global impact.^[8]