- TIFF 2019
- September 5-15
This morning, TIFF announced their full Contemporary World Cinema, Masters, Wavelengths programmes, as well as additions to their Gala and Special Presentation programmes!
Contemporary World Cinema is always an incredibly dense programme that doesn’t feature too many boundaries as it’s essentially any film at the fest that’s either not shot in Canada or the U.S. and/or not spoken in English. A film announced today worth mentioning was Bacurau, a film which promises to be an incredibly zany, genre-bending trip of a film that premiered to excellent reviews at this year’s Cannes. Another festival film from this year that’s included here is Hala, one of Apple’s only film acquisitions to date. The film is a coming of age story that follows an American Muslim teenager played by Geraldine Viswanathan (Blockers), who must balance the expectations set by her immigrated parents as well as her own desires. Overall, this is an incredibly dense programme that usually has a few hidden gems.
Wavelengths is TIFF’s experimental programme that arguably includes the fest’s most inaccessible films. The films announced today consisted with a handful of feature length films as well as many shorts which will be grouped together into different short film showcases during the fest. While its running time is nothing like some of the lengthy films last year, a special shout out goes to Heimat is a Space in Time, a film that appears to be one of the longest films playing at the fest currently, clocking in at 218 minutes!
As for the Masters category (films from directors who have many groundbreaking films under their belts), the standout is definitely the Cannes hit A Hidden Life from director Terrence Malick. The film takes place during WWII and follows an Austrian farmer who refuses to follow the Nazi regime. Also included in the programme is director Ken Loach’s newest film Sorry We Missed You.
Only two new Galas were announced today. The first being The Aeronauts, which follows a scientist and hot-air-balloonist in the 19th century (played by The Theory of Everything costars Eddie Redmayne and Felicity Jones), directed by Tom Harper (Wild Rose). Interestingly enough, this film (under Amazon Studio’s belt) was initially given a two-week-before-streaming-deal with IMAX for this October, but was then stripped of the IMAX format and delayed to December. It will be interesting to see if the film will be shown in the huge format at the festival. The other Gala announced was The Burnt Orange Heresy, starring Elizabeth Debicki, Donald Sutherland, Mick Jagger and Claes Bang.
Finally, a handful of new special presentations were announced. This includes Hirokazu Koreeda’s follow up to last year’s Shoplifters, The Truth. This is his first non-Japanese film, and it stars Juliette Binoche and Ethan Hawke. Also announced was the highly-anticipated Lucy In The Sky, which stars Natalie Portman, Dan Stevens and Jon Hamm, which is the first feature from Fargo and Leigon showrunner Noah Hawley. Lastly, another anticipated and promising feature under A24’s belt, Waves, the newest film from Trey Edward Shults, starring Lucas Hedges, Sterling K. Brown, and Alexa Demie. The film is an alleged musical-drama, with music composed by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross.
Which of the 108 films announced today are you most excited for? Let me know in the comments. To read up on any of the films we discussed, and the ones that we didn’t, view the entire lineup at tiff.net/films.
*still courtesy of Fox Searchlight Pictures*
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