TIFF ’26: “Everything Else Is Noise” crowns Nicolás Pereda the Wavelengths king!

by Cláudio Alves You may have noticed over the last few years of TIFF coverage that one particular section holds a special place in my heart. It’s the Wavelengths program, curated by Andréa Picard and committed to celebrating some of the most audacious works of cinema today. They are films that push boundaries and challenge, not just, or even primarily, through dramatic provocation, but by offering new ways of understanding the filmic form. Think of Gomes’ Grand Tour and Santos Arias’ Pepe and Koberidze’s Dry Leaf. Think of Nicolás Pereda’s Lázaro at Night and Copper. Indeed, the Mexican-Canadian auteur has become a section mainstay, something of a Wavelengths king that asserts his rule through seemingly simple, almost simplistic, exercises, where storytelling is depurated and elasticized, stretched betwixt off-screen and on-screen realities, apparent convention and quiet eccentricities. The director’s latest, Everything Else Is Noise, fittingly starts with a sleight of hand that…