Named after the influential film Platform (2000) by the great “Sixth Generation” master filmmaker Jia Zhang-ke, it’ll soon be a decade since TIFF introduced the Platform section – the fest’s only competition section meant to promote innovative and bold type cinema and comes with a cash award but unfortunately no trophy. Previous winners include Pablo Larraín, Pietro Marcello, Anthony Shim and last year it was Tarsem who won for Dear Jassi (we were there). This year’s batch of ten has a handful of familiar names in Mexico’s Rodrigo Prieto and Spain’s Nacho Vigalondo and Carlos Marqués-Marcet.
Prieto’s Pedro Paramo is the cinematographer directorial debut. Catapulted to success back in 2000 for Amores Perros, Prieto was on a steady diet of big auteur films and then landed on the book to film project which tells the story of Juan Preciado, a man who promises his mother on her deathbed to meet Preciado’s father for the first time in the town of Comala, only to come across a literal ghost town. That is, populated by spectral characters. From Spain, we find the opening film of the section in Vigalondo’s Daniela Forever. This features Beatrice Grannò and Henry Golding in a sci-fi romance. This follows a man as he joins a sleep trial that allows him to rebuild his life with his girlfriend who died in an accident through the use of lucid dreams. Production took place last May in Madrid. Co-written alongside Clara Roquet, Marqués-Marcet tells the tale about a woman diagnosed with an incurable brain tumor who decides to undertake a last trip to Switzerland to decide how and when to end her life with the help of an assisted dying association. Her partner and daughter must work out where they fit in. They Will Be Dust falls into the musical genre. Also worth point out, is a project that actually might have shot back in August of 2022 in Bulgarian filmmakers Kristina Grozeva and Petar Valchanov‘s Triumph. Maria Bakalova who appeared in their last film, toplines here. In the chaotic aftermath of the fall of communism in the 1990s, a task force composed of high-ranking Bulgarian army officers and psychics embarks on a top-secret military operation in the small village of Tsarichina to dig up an elusive alien artifact that would change the course of history and make Bulgaria great again. Platform Jury consists of Atom Egoyan, Hur Jin-ho and Jane Schoenbrun. Here are the ten titles:
Daniela Forever – Nacho Vigalondo | Spain/Belgium (Opening Film)
Daughter’s Daughter – Huang Xi | Taiwan
Mr. K – Tallulah H. Schwab | Netherlands/Belgium/Norway
Paying For It – Sook-Yin Lee | Canada
Pedro Páramo – Rodrigo Prieto | Mexico
The Wolves Always Come at Night – Gabrielle Brady | Australia/Mongolia/Germany
They Will Be Dust (Polvo serán) – Carlos Marqués-Marcet | Spain/Italy/Switzerland
Triumph – Petar Valchanov, Kristina Grozeva | Bulgaria/Greece
Viktor – Olivier Sarbil | Ukraine/USA
Winter in Sokcho – Koya Kamura | France