The TIFF Tribute Awards are an annual award, presented by the

Toronto International Film Festival The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF, often stylized as tiff) is one of the most prestigious and largest publicly attended film festivals in the world. Founded in 1976, the festival takes place every year in early September. The organi ...

to honour distinguished achievements in filmmaking. Unlike the festival's regular awards, which are presented based on audience or jury voting during the festival, the TIFF Tribute Awards are presented to people or organizations selected by the board and announced in advance of the festival. Recipients are selected from among the cast and crew of the films in that year's festival lineup. The awards were presented for the first time at the 2019 Toronto International Film Festival."Joaquin Phoenix, Meryl Streep among recipients of inaugural TIFF Tribute awards"
CityNews, September 9, 2019. They are organized in part as a fundraiser, with proceeds from audience ticket sales used to help fund various TIFF programs and initiatives.Kelly Townsend
"TIFF Tribute Awards to return as gala fundraiser"
'' Playback'', August 8, 2022. At both the 2020 Toronto International Film Festival and the

2021 Toronto International Film Festival The 2021 Toronto International Film Festival, the 46th event in the Toronto International Film Festival series, was held from September 9 to 18, 2021.Barry Hertz"TIFF planning ‘substantially bigger’ 2021 film festival compared to last year’ ...

, due to the COVID-19 pandemic in Canada the Tribute Awards were conducted as partially prerecorded television broadcasts rather than live gala ceremonies. The presentations were broadcast by

CTV Television Network The CTV Television Network, commonly known as CTV, is a Television in Canada, Canadian English-language terrestrial television network. Launched in 1961 and acquired by BCE Inc. in 2000, CTV is Canada's largest privately owned List of Canadian ...

, and hosted by Tyrone Edwards and Chloe Wilde of CTV's '' eTalk'', and also featured the announcement of the finalists and winners for the People's Choice Award. With the

2022 Toronto International Film Festival The 47th annual Toronto International Film Festival was held from September 8 to 18, 2022. The 2022 festival was staged primarily in-person; a small selection of films were offered on the Digital TIFF Bell Lightbox platform, but this represente ...

returning to in-person screenings, the 2022 Tribute Awards were not televised; with the 2022 ceremony scheduled for early in the festival run rather than the conclusion, it also did not include People's Choice announcements.

Categories

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 first or second feature film; and the Impact Award, honouring a figure whose work has been dedicated to

social change Social change is the alteration of the social order of a society which may include changes in social institutions, social behaviours or social relations. Sustained at a larger scale, it may lead to social transformation or societal transformat ...

. 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 Yeoh Choo Kheng (; born 6 August 1962), known professionally as Michelle Yeoh (), is a Malaysian actress. In a career spanning over four decades, Yeoh has appeared Michelle Yeoh filmography, in projects encompassing a wide array of genres, a ...

was the inaugural recipient. 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; it has been most commonly presented 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 Participant Media, LLC was an American independent Film industry, film and television production company founded in 2004 by Jeffrey Skoll, dedicated to entertainment intended to spur social change. The company financed and co-produced film and te ...

, 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.Jeremy Kay
"Cast of ‘My Policeman’ first ensemble to receive TIFF Tribute Award for Performance"
''

Screen Daily ''Screen International'' is a British film magazine covering the international film business. It is published by Media Business Insight, a British B2B media company which also owned '' Broadcast''. The magazine is primarily aimed at those involv ...

'', August 8, 2022. In 2023, TIFF introduced the Norman Jewison Award, a career achievement award presented to Canadians whose careers in entertainment have had a global impact.Jeremy Kay
"Shawn Levy to receive inaugural TIFF Norman Jewison Career Achievement Award"
''

'', August 16, 2023. In 2024, TIFF also announced the creation of an honorary chair position for the Tribute Awards program.

Recipients

References

{{TIFF , state=collapsed Toronto International Film Festival awards Awards established in 2019 2019 establishments in Ontario