Toronto, Sept. 7 -- With seven Indian films selected to premier at the 2026 edition of the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), North America's leading movie events will present its most eclectic collection from the country yet. The range is genre-bending, featuring a Malayalam vampire western, a brooding Naga film in a language that fewer than 250,000 people speak, a Tamil buddy action production, a sharp biopic of Phoolan Devi, a Malayalam classic from 1986 and two short features. Robyn Citizen, TIFF's Director of Programming and Platform Lead, agreed it was a "diverse selection." "The submissions this year from India were just wildly different in narrative tone and genre, which is great. And so we ended up with the final selection because it's reflective of the submissions we received this year," she explained. There isn't a mainstream Hindi film at the festival this year as "release dates and release plans for some of these bigger films just hasn't worked out timing-wise for us," she pointed out. That doesn't detract from the Indian attractions to be screened at the festival, considered among the four major film events globally, along with those in Cannes, Venice and Berlin. Phoolan is director Richie Mehta's version of a slice of the bandit queen's life. The creator of the acclaimed series Delhi Crime is not trying to emulate Shekhar Kapur's 1984 drama, but has focused on a 48-hour segment of her life as she attempts to flee capture by police. In her description of the film, Citizen said Mehta's "interpretation of the life and legend of Devi centres on a pivotal moment in her life, contextualized by but never exploitative of her traumatic past". Grabbing just as much attention will be director Samjad's Half, chosen in TIFF's wildly popular Midnight Madness category. This film with vampires in the Rajasthan desert was described by programmer Peter Kuplowsky as "a rousing cavalcade of guts and gore, set to the eclectic Malayalam soundtrack." In all, the 51st edition of TIFF will feature nearly 300 titles. The festival will begin on Thursday and run through to September 20....