The 50th Toronto International Film Festival has set their first five World Premiere Special Presentation titles in the Official Selection including Alejandro Amenábar’s The Captive, Steven Soderbergh’s The Christophers, Sung-hyun Byun’s Good News, Nia DaCosta’s Hedda, and Chandler Levack’s Mile End Kicks.
The festival runs from Sept. 4-14, presented by Rogers.
“These first five films of our Official Selection reflect the innovation, heart, and global perspective that have made our Festival a home for great cinema over the past 50 editions,” said Cameron Bailey, CEO, TIFF. “We’re excited to kick-off our Special Presentations with Chandler Levack’s Mile End Kicks, a young, Canadian director who has very close ties to TIFF in addition to these established directors. We can’t wait to share more in the weeks ahead as we celebrate this historic year with audiences and filmmakers from around the world.”
These five movies from Canada, Spain/Italy, South Korea, UK and the United State join the previously announced Opening Night Film, John Candy: I Like Me.
This is the tenth time for Soderbergh at TIFF following 1999’s The Limey, 2005’s Bubble, 2008’s Che, 2009’s The Informant, 2013’s The Visitors (as a presenter), 2017’s GFE – season 2 (as a producer), 2019’s The Laundromat, 2021’s Mr. Kneff, and last year’s Presence. The Christophers follows the estranged children of a once-famous artist who hire a forger to complete his unfinished works so they can be discovered and sold after his death. Script is by Ed Solomon, Soderbergh’s collaborator on projects like No Sudden Move and Full Circle. The dark comedy stars Jessica Gunning, Ian McKellen, Michaela Cole, and James Corden.
For Amenábar, it’s his fourth time at TIFF following 2004’s The Sea Inside, 2009‘s Agora, and 2019’s While at War. The Captive, starring Julio Peña as Miguel de Cervantes, a wounded navy soldier who after being taken captive to Algiers in 1575, tries to escape and enthralls those around him with this storytelling.
For DaCosta, it’s her first time at TIFF with a movie. Hedda, which stars Tessa Thompson as Hedda Gabler, is a feature reimagined take of Henrik Ibsen’s 1891 stage drama, Hedda Gabler, about a bored newlywed and daughter of General Gabler who becomes distracted by her father’s pistols and a ne’er-do-well, Judge Brack.
Good News is a Netflix K-drama thriller about a group determined to land a hijacked plane by any means necessary in 1970. The project reps Sung-hyun Byun’s first movie at the festival in the Great White North.
Mile End Kicks stars Jay Baruchel and follows a 24-year-old music critic who gets romantically involved with members of an indie band she decides to publicize. The pic is against Montreal’s indie music scene in 2011. It’s the third time for Levack at TIFF following the 2017 short We Forgot to Break Up and 2022’s I Like Movies.
This year’s official screening venues will include the fest stomping grounds TIFF Lightbox, Roy Thomson Hall, the Visa Screening Room at the Princess of Wales Theatre, Cineplex’s Scotiabank Theatre Toronto, Glenn Gould Studio at the Canadian Broadcast Centre, Cinema Park at David Pecaut Square, and the Royal Alexandra Theatre.
In addition, the seventh edition of the TIFF Tribute Awards Gala will take place on Sunday, Sept. 7, at Fairmont Royal York Hotel.
There’s also the festival’s live post-screening Q&As, the In Conversation With… series, the Industry Conference (Sept. 5–9), as well as Festival Street, which returns for opening weekend along King Street West, from Peter Street to University Avenue, with food trucks and free activations.
The festival is introducing a new award this year — the International People’s Choice Award.
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