DENTON (UNT), Texas — Students at the University of North Texas traveled to the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), an experience that provided networking and professional development opportunities as well as rare insight into the inner workings of the film industry.

Regarded as one of the most distinguished film festivals in the world, TIFF is the largest film festival in North America, drawing hundreds of thousands of visitors annually. Held in downtown Toronto, TIFF features film screenings, industry panels, special events, filmmaker talks and appearances by celebrity actors and directors.

Students attended the festival as part of a global intensive opportunity (GIO) program through the UNT Study Abroad Office, which offers over 800 courses year-round to students of all classifications and major study areas. The program was co-developed by professor of media arts Jennifer Gómez Menjívar and associate professor of media arts Courtney Brannon Donoghue, whose primary scholarly focus is media industries.

“Most film festivals around the world curate their programming for local or regional public audiences. TIFF has a dual focus on industry professionals conducting business as well as public audiences,” Brannon Donoghue said.

During the seven-day trip, students explored downtown Toronto, joined a group film screening and dove headfirst into the festival experience. With student industry passes in hand, they gained access to exclusive film screenings, panels, filmmaker master classes and high-profile red-carpet events. As part of the GIO program, students completed a self-guided festival programming itinerary — making sure to attend a certain number of panels, screenings and events across genres — and contributed to daily critical discussions. The program wrapped up with a final reflection essay on the experience.

Brannon Donoghue said one goal of the program is to immerse students in a working environment as a route to self-discovery.

“We’re dropping them into a major industry site where they’re going to learn from the professionals around them, but we also want them to figure out where they fit into this landscape,” she said. “They’re learning to communicate professionally. They’re thinking about these things like journalists or media scholars.”

Joining the program was a natural choice for Charlie Mangan, a master’s student in media arts whose research interests include film festivals. In addition to screenings, networking and Q&A sessions, Mangan said a favorite aspect of the trip was discovery.

“My goal is to eventually earn a PhD in film theory, and I learned about a research fellowship opportunity connected to the TIFF Collections archive on this trip,” he said. “The whole experience definitely helped me identify some new study interests.”

Ryn Taylor, a senior majoring in media arts, joined the program to learn about the film industry firsthand.

“As someone who wants to work in the industry, it’s important to know how everything works on both a business level and a practical level,” she said. “This experience opened my eyes to the different pathways I can take.”

Taylor, who hopes to pursue a master’s degree in screenwriting, said meeting working professionals and participating in industry-focused events helped bring her career goals into focus.

“When you’re in school, it feels like, ‘Oh, I’ll get to do this someday.’ But being at TIFF made me realize, ‘This is that day.’”