Ryan McNeilRemember when we were young, every September meant it was time to end summertime foolishness and go back to the place where you could see people you’d been missing all summer? Turns out when we’re adults there’s a way to do that too.
The 43rd Annual Toronto International Film Festival is happening from September 6th to 16th, and for the eighteenth year in a row, yours truly is spending time in its joyous midst.
TIFF 2018 has a lot of sexy selections headlining the show including new works by the directors of MOONLIGHT and LA LA LAND. Beyond that there are new movies by everyone from Steve McQueen, Xavier Dolan, and Alfonso Cuaron to name but a very very few.
While I’m not quite back up to the twenty-to-thirty-film pace that I enjoyed in my younger days, the schedule is a little heavier than it has been the last two autumns. This time around, I have fifteen features selected off the hop, with hopes to add one or two more as the week goes on.
Oh, and there will also be a few shorts to keep me going too!
The feature films will get full reaction pieces here on the site, with the shorts getting little nods befitting their format.
And yes, for the third year running, I’m focusing my selections on works by women in film.
So with tickets confirmed – give or take an exchanged reserved seat or two – here’s a look at what I’ll be seeing this September…
THE ACCUSED
Director Gonzalo Tobal is less concerned with guilt than with the ways media scrutiny can hijack the truth, in this understated crime story about a 20-year-old woman accused of her best friend’s death.
BULBUL CAN SING
Rima Das presents a visceral coming-of-age drama about a young girl living in rural India, fighting her way through love and loss as she figures out who she really is.
DESTROYER
When a new case uncovers traumas from a past undercover operation, an LAPD detective (Nicole Kidman) is forced to face her personal and professional demons, in this genre-defining work from Karyn Kusama (Jennifer’s Body).
ENDZEIT – EVER AFTER
Carolina Hellsgård’s chilling second feature follows two women fighting for their lives in a post-apocalyptic world overrun by zombies — a future Hellsgård presents as both horrific and hopeful.
FLOAT LIKE A BUTTERFLY
In filmmaker Carmel Winters second feature, a young Irish Traveller has to contend with her recently released from prison father in order to pursue her dreams of being a boxer and making her idol Muhammad Ali proud.
JESSICA FOREVER
Caroline Poggi and Jonathan Vinel’s visually striking debut feature presents a dystopian world where violent misfits reign supreme, counterbalanced by one woman and her makeshift family of rehabilitated marauders fighting for peace.
THE LIE
In this thriller from Toronto-born writer-director Veena Sud, two parents wrestle with the consequences of their teenage daughter’s lethal mistake, proving just how far any parent would go to protect their child.
LIONHEART
In order to save her father’s ailing bus company, competent but perennially overlooked Adaeze must find a way to work alongside feckless uncle Godswill, in the sharp and comically observed directorial debut from Nollywood star Genevieve Nnaji.
OUT OF BLUE
A homicide detective’s (Patricia Clarkson) investigation into the shooting of a leading astrophysicist and black-hole expert destabilizes her view of the universe and herself, in the third fiction feature from Carol Morley (Dreams of a Life).
PHOENIX
In Camilla Strøm Henriksen’s startling first feature, a young girl struggles to keep her family together in the aftermath of a tragedy that forces her to grow up far too quickly.
RAFIKI
The latest from Wanuri Kahiu charts a precarious love story between two young Kenyan women in a society where homosexuality is banned.
VISION
As Jeanne (Juliette Binoche) searches for a rare medicinal plant in Japan, she meets a forest ranger who helps her on her quest and also assists in uncovering traces of her past, in Naomi Kawase’s latest film.
THE WEEKEND
An acerbic comedian (Sasheer Zamata) becomes romantically entangled with her ex (Tone Bell), his new girlfriend (DeWanda Wise), and another guest (Y’Lan Noel) during a weekend getaway, in the newest feature from Stella Meghie (Jean of the Joneses).
THE WIND
When a woman moves to the American frontier to settle it with her husband, an evil presence soon makes itself known and infects her with paranoia, in Emma Tammi’s sinister western horror.
WORKING WOMAN
While her husband struggles to keep his restaurant in business, a mother of three lands a job as an assistant to a powerful, but sexually harrassive realtor and brings herself to fight back, in this absorbing drama by Michal Aviad.
If anyone interested in just where and when I’m attending each film, my schedule is here