TORONTO, ON, September 20, 2026. FIGHT KID, the debut narrative short from Canadian filmmaker Michael Del Monte, has won the Best Canadian Short Film Award at the 2026 Toronto International Film Festival. The award was announced Sunday at the TIFF Awards Ceremony in Toronto.
In the working-class neighbourhoods of Miami, Eddie sees his 13-year-old son Isaiah’s talent as their way forward. When an unexpected MMA title fight offers a shot at a better future, father and son have just one day to prepare, and Isaiah must lose 10 pounds before he can step into the cage.
As father and son chase one opportunity after another, each promising a way out of their financial pressures, FIGHT KID explores the complicated relationship between love, ambition and the pressure placed on children to fulfil dreams that may not be entirely their own.
FIGHT KID is written and directed by Michael Del Monte. Starring a real-life MMA fight family, Eddie, Isaiah and Wanda Triana alongside coaching legend, Roger Krahl, the film captures the intensity of a family pushed to its limits, both inside and outside the cage.
“I came to FIGHT KID as a documentary filmmaker,” says Del Monte. “This project started as a doc series and became a narrative short and now the foundation for a feature film. With a documentary you’re waiting for things to happen. With narrative you can shape it, you can do another take. But the truth was already there because this family actually lives it. I wasn’t inventing anything. I was giving it a structure.”
The film grew out of Del Monte’s personal experiences as both a son and a father. Starting with his lived experiences as a talented childhood runner, a father who pushed him toward international competition, and the complicated emotions that remained when love and ambition became difficult to separate.
“At its heart, the film is about a father who loves his son and doesn’t want to see his talent go to waste. Eddie’s doing what we’d want a parent to do: show up, sacrifice, believe in your kid. The problem is that every virtue, pushed far enough, becomes something else.”
FIGHT KID is produced by Jackie Pal, Tad Munnings and Andrez Gonzalez, with executive producers Jon Kamen, Derek Cianfrance and Mark Bone. Alexander Alexandrov served as director of photography, with Del Monte also serving as editor.
The film marks Del Monte’s first narrative short following a body of documentary work that includes Transcend, Transformer, His Name Is Ray and Clear Sky. His films have received recognition at major documentary festivals, including the Rogers Audience Award for Best Canadian Documentary and the Emerging Canadian Filmmaker Award at Hot Docs for Transformer. Del Monte is also the co-founder of The Art of Documentary, a documentary school he runs with filmmaker Mark Bone.
FIGHT KID is currently being developed into a feature film, expanding the story’s exploration of the complicated relationship between parents and children, and the limits of parental influence over who children become.
