TIFF 2026: Our Review of ‘Eklipse’

Posted in TIFF 2026 by - September 17, 2026
TIFF 2026: Our Review of ‘Eklipse’

Tomy (Moritz Hohlrieder) and Chris (Finley Brown) are Tyrolean boys, roughhousing during a broadcast of a coming solar eclipse. Eklipse, from director Manuel Wetscher, then shows the kind of people who were around children during the late 1990s / early 2000s. Some of the people around them are cool, like people slightly older than them. People who are sexy and occasionally help with the neighbouring farms. Most of the time, they’re alone, or with the salt of the early right wing types who say things around them. One such person tells Chris about Tomy’s father who is, according to him, sick due to a deadly gay disease. Somehow, the words of a relative stranger puts a strain on Chris and treats Tomy differently after learning this new information.

That time period feels appropriate for Eiffel 65 and paranoia about how the year 2000 will mess up everyone’s work computer systems. It feels late, at first glance, to be the time period even for European ‘yokels’ to not know about AIDS. Most gay men just need pills in case of HIV exposure, but ignorance is prevalent during the 1990s and today. Back to Eklipse, one of the film’s last scenes include archive footage of a man caring for his young child. Presumably, that baby is Tomy, but the home videos are actually of Wetscher and his father back in the 1990s. This is a poignant end to a film about a boy and his best friend who hopefully men their friendship.

This post was written by
While Paolo Kagaoan is not taking long walks in shrubbed areas, he occasionally watches movies and write about them. His credentials are as follows: he has a double major in English and Art History. This means that, for example, he will gush at the art direction in the Amityville house and will want to live there, which is a terrible idea because that house has ghosts. Follow him @paolokagaoan on Instagram but not while you're working.
(function(i,s,o,g,r,a,m){i['GoogleAnalyticsObject']=r;i[r]=i[r]||function(){ (i[r].q=i[r].q||[]).push(arguments)},i[r].l=1*new Date();a=s.createElement(o), m=s.getElementsByTagName(o)[0];a.async=1;a.src=g;m.parentNode.insertBefore(a,m) })(window,document,'script','//www.google-analytics.com/analytics.js','ga'); ga('create', 'UA-61364310-1', 'auto'); ga('send', 'pageview');