The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) is a publicly attended film festival held each September in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

In 2012, 372 films from 72 countries were screened at 34 screens in downtown Toronto venues, welcoming an estimated 400,000 attendees, over 4000 of whom were industry professionals.TIFF starts the Thursday night after Labour Day (the first Monday in September in Canada) and lasts for eleven days..

The Toronto International Film Festival was founded by William Marshall, Henk van der Kolk and Dusty Cohl.Piers Handling has been the festival’s Director and CEO since 1994, while Noah Cowan became Co-Director of TIFF in 2004. In late 2007, Cowan became the Artistic Director of TIFF Bell Lightbox, while long-time programmer Cameron Bailey succeeded as Co-Director; as of 2013, Bailey also holds the position of Artistic Director.

TIFF was once centered on the Yorkville neighbourhood, but the Toronto Entertainment District later gained a greater level of prominence. TIFF is known for the celebrity buzz it brings to the area with international media setting up near its restaurants and stores for photos and interviews with the stars. With the Fall 2010 opening of TIFF Bell Lightbox,TIFF’s permanent home in the Entertainment District, it seems likely that TIFF will continue to spread out from its traditional centre to embrace other locations in the city.

As of 2013, TIFF’s primary focus is independent cinema, and the festival features retrospectives of national cinemas and individual directors, highlights of Canadian cinema, and a variety of African, South American, and Asian films.In particular, the world premieres of a number of Indian films have occurred at TIFF.