It’s year two for the Toronto Intl. Film Festival’s Centrepiece programme – the place where we find films from the film festival circuit as old as this year’s Sundance and as fresh as the future film premieres to be found in Locarno and Venice. Oh and there are indeed some world premieres in the mix as well. From Sundance, Steven Soderbergh‘s Presence receives a showcase and from the Berlinale, Kazik Radwanski receives a hometown showcase with Matt and Mara (The Cinema Guild folks are releasing it in September). From the Cannes competition Mohammad Rasoulof‘s The Seed of the Sacred Fig will receive the spotlight and Lou Ye‘s masterwork An Unfinished Film also gets some love. From the Un Certain Regard section we get a quintet of items in Gints Zilbalodis‘ Flow (which is also headed to Telluride and could be a front-runner in Best Animation categories), Mo Harawe‘s The Village Next to Paradise, Hiroshi Okuyama‘s My Sunshine , Souleymane’s Story by Boris Lojkine and Sandhya Suri‘s Santosh. From the Quinzaine section we have Mahdi Fleifel‘s To a Land Unknown and Canada’s very unique Matthew Rankin‘s Universal Language. And finally from the Croisette’s Critics’ Week section we find Leonardo Van Diji‘s Julie Keeps Quiet.
From Locarno we get a solo item from Hong Sang-soo in By the Stream, and from Venice they’ve lassoed three competition titles in Luis Ortega‘s Kill the Jockey and Dea Kulumbegashvili‘s April. From the other programmes we have Kiyoshi Kurosawa‘s Cloud, Neo Sora‘s Happyend, Scandar Copti‘s Happy Holidays and Türker Süer‘s Edge of Night.
And finally in some appetizing world premieres we are looking forward to we find Measures for a Funeral by Sofia Bohdanowicz and Guillaume Senez‘s A Missing Part – which is set in Tokyo and features a Romain Duris searching for his daughter everyday as a cab driver. Here is the Centrepiece programme:
WP = World Premiere
NAP = North American Premire
IP = International Premiere
CP = Canadian Premiere
Addition – Marcelle Lunam | Australia (WP)
A Missing Part – Guillaume Senez | Belgium/France (WP)
An Unfinished Film – Lou Ye | Singapore/Germany (NAP)
Anywhere Anytime – Milad Tangshir | Italy (IP)
April – Dea Kulumbegashvili (NAP)
Beloved Tropic – Ana Endara | Panama/Colombia (WP)
Bound in Heaven – Huo Xin | China (WP)
By the Stream – Hong Sangsoo | South Korea (NAP)
Cloud – Kiyoshi Kurosawa | Japan (NAP)
Crocodile Tears – Tumpal Tampubolon | Indonesia/France/Singapore/Germany (WP)
Don’t Cry, Butterfly – Dương Diệu Linh | Vietnam/Singapore/Philippines/Indonesia (NAP)
Edge of Night – Türker Süer | Germany (NAP)
Fanatical: The Catfishing of Tegan and Sara – Erin Lee Carr | USA (WP)
Flow – Gints Zilbalodis | Latvia/France/Belgium (CP)
Front Row – Merzak Allouache | Algeria/Saudi Arabia/France (WP)
Happyend – Neo Sora | Japan/USA (NAP)
Happy Holidays – Scandar Copti | Palestine/Germany/France/Italy/Qatar (NAP)
Jane Austen Wrecked My Life – Laura Piani | France (WP)
Julie Keeps Quiet – Leonardo van Dijl | Belgium/Sweden (NAP)
Ka Whawhai Tonu – Struggle Without End – Michael Jonathan | New Zealand (NAP)
Kill the Jockey – Luis Ortega | Argentina/Mexico/Spain/Denmark/USA (NAP)
Little Jaffna – Lawrence Valin | France (NAP)
Los Tortuga – Belén Funes | Spain/Chile (WP)
Matt and Mara – Kazik Radwanski | Canada (NAP)
Measures for a Funeral – Sofia Bohdanowicz | Canada (WP)
My Sunshine – Hiroshi Okuyama | Japan/France (NAP)
Pimpinero: Blood and Oil – Andrés Baiz | Colombia (WP)
Presence – Steven Soderbergh | USA (IP)
Santosh – Sandhya Suri | United Kingdom (CP)
Seven Days – Ali Samadi Ahadi | Germany (WP)
Souleymane’s Story – Boris Lojkine | France (IP)
Sunshine – Antoinette Jadaone | Philippines (WP)
Sweet Angel Baby – Melanie Oates | Canada (WP)
The Mother and the Bear – Johnny Ma | Canada/Chile (WP)
The Mountain – Rachel House | New Zealand (NAP)
The Seed of the Sacred Fig – Mohammad Rasoulof | Iran/France/Germany (CP)
The Swedish Torpedo – Frida Kempff | Sweden (WP)
The Village Next to Paradise – Mo Harawe | France/Austria/Germany/Somalia (NAP)
To a Land Unknown – Mahdi Fleifel (NAP)
Under the Volcano – Damian Kocur (WP)
Universal Language – Matthew Rankin (NAP)
When the Light Breaks – Rúnar Rúnarsson | Iceland/Netherlands/Croatia/France (NAP)
The Legend of the Vagabond Queen of Lagos – Agbajowo Collective: James Tayler, Ogungbamila Temitope, Okechukwu Samuel, Mathew Cerf, Tina Edukpo, Bisola Akinmuyiwa, A.S. Elijah | Nigeria/Germany/South Africa/USA (WP)
