The Ultra Runner, Canadian filmmaker Mila Aung-Thwin’s documentary following Romanian ultra-marathoner Tibi Ușeriu, will have its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) in the TIFF Docs 2026 program.

The film follows Tibi Ușeriu, a three-time winner of the 6633 Arctic Ultra race, as he “battles endless terrain and his own demons in search of a better life for his family, his country, and himself.”

Tibi Ușeriu fled the country after the 1989 Revolution. He went from serving time in jail for most of his young years to being “an example of reintegration and found running as his outlet for a sense of liberation.” He has won four Arctic competitions, with more than 3,000 km run.

He shared his story in the autobiographical bestseller 27 Steps. The book helped kick-start the initiation of Via Transilvanica, the long-distance trail crossing Romania. The trail is a project of NGO Tășuleasa Social, established by Tibi’s brother, Alin Uşeriu. Last summer, Tibi Ușeriu embarked on a symbolic journey from Rome to Drobeta-Turnu Severin as part of a campaign to promote Via Transilvanica.

The film follows Tibi “across the dark forests of Transylvania, the Arctic’s frozen emptiness, and the towering brutality of the Italian Alps” as he faces a reckoning between the man he used to be and the one he is trying to become.

Multiple award-winning (Sundance, Emmys, CSAs) director Mila Aung-Thwin describes the film as not really about sport but “about an internal struggle with survival, guilt, willpower, family, and the strange human capacity to reshape a life without ever fully escaping it.”

"From the outside, an ultramarathon can look strangely simple: one body crossing a hostile landscape. Pushing forward through snow, darkness, exhaustion, and silence. What drew me to the subject was the motivation to push beyond the limits of the human body. But when I met Tibi Uşeriu, I realized this was not really a physical test, but a mental one. When he started running, he would simply disappear into himself,” director Mila Aung-Thwin explains.

“Tibi’s life contains several lives that seem impossible to reconcile: a childhood marked by violence and deprivation, escape from communist Romania, years in the criminal underworld, armed robberies, prison, and then, improbably, endurance running. He has described running as the force that helped him rebuild himself. The challenge was how to film an interior landscape. In the Arctic, the white emptiness became more than a setting; it became a mirror. The silence, repetition, cold, and isolation allowed Tibi’s past to surface not as explanation, but as sensation. The film moves between physical endurance and memory, between the visible body and the invisible burden it carries,” he added.

Tiberiu Ușeriu, Alin Uhlmann Ușeriu, Maria Mihaela Ștefănuț, David Ușeriu, Eftina Moeșan, and Ana Szekely are featured in the film.

The Ultra Runner is produced by Montreal's EYESTEELFILM and Ontario-based production house winterhouse pictures. Bob Moore and Mike MacMillan are the producers. Mila Aung-Thwin, Daniel Cross, Valerie Shamash, Mandy Chang, Mark Reynolds, and Ada Solomon are executive producers. Van Royko is director of photography; Ryan Mullins is the editor.

The film is then set to be released in theatres across Canada in the spring of next year.

(Photo: press release)

simona@romania-insider.com