“IDDA” Ignites Toronto Film Festival
TORONTO – Although the international festival circuit is usually flooded with high-profile European heavyweights, the 2026 Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) has narrowed its lens to a singular point of focus. Competing as the sole Italian entry in the prestigious competition, Irene Dionisio’s IDDA has quickly become the absolute buzz of the festival.
For close followers of Italian cinema, its solitary status at TIFF might initially come as a shock. Italy, a historic powerhouse that routinely dominates festivals with sprawling ensemble pieces and gritty crime dramas, is represented this year by a single indie feature. But once the lights dim, the surprise vanishes.
IDDA doesn’t just represent Italian cinema, it carries it effortlessly on its back. The film’s selection is a testament to its raw quality over quantity, capturing the exact kind of bold, uncensored creative freedom that modern adult audiences crave.
The stakes for this lone entry could not be higher. Thanks to a monumental new rule change at Toronto, the non-English language winner of the TIFF Platform section now automatically becomes directly eligible for the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film.
With reviews out of the festival trending toward the rapturous, industry insiders are already whispering that IDDA may very well end up winning the section, fast-tracking its way to the Oscars. Following its explosive premiere, FilmClub Distribuzione didn’t hesitate, swiftly acquiring the film for theatrical release in Italy.
At its core, IDDA is a deeply atmospheric drama that follows two childhood friends in their thirties, Adele (Tecla Insolia) and Sofia (Romana Maggiora Vergano), who reunite in the volcanic shadow of Catania. Together, they set off to fulfill a long-broken childhood promise: climbing to the crater of Mount Etna.
What follows is an extraordinary, layered exercise in tension. Dionisio uses the narrative as a vehicle to explore grief, memory, and the terrifying, unspoken anxieties of transitioning into motherhood. The film has deeply personal roots. Dionisio co-wrote the script with Marco Borromei to process the sudden passing of her own best friend, dedicating the piece to her memory.
The true stroke of genius, however, lies in how the film treats Mount Etna. In the Sicilian dialect, Idda means “she” – a maternal, volatile entity that locals revere. The mountain becomes a living character, a physical mirror to the deep-seated trauma and shifting emotional friction boiling between Adele and Sofia.
To ground this visually, the production team combed through ten historical archives across Italy, seamlessly blending modern cinematography with rich archival footage of past eruptions to give the landscape an ancient, luminous weight.
Set against the spiritual, chaotic backdrop of Catania’s traditional Festival of Saint Agatha, IDDA is a masterclass in atmospheric storytelling. It proves that Italian cinema doesn’t need safety in numbers to make a definitive statement on the global stage.
Image courtesy of Kino Produzioni & Rai Cinema International Distribution
Massimo Volpe is a filmmaker and freelance writer from Toronto: he writes reviews of Italian films/content on Netflix
