Wikileaks thriller to open film gala
Toronto Film Festival runs September 5-15
TORONTO — A dramatic thriller about controversial WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange will open this year’s Toronto International Film Festival.
British actor Benedict Cumberbatch stars as the infamous Australian in The Fifth Estate, the Bill Condon-directed film that will kick off the star-studded Toronto fest on Sept. 5.
Cumberbatch is also among the stars of director Steve McQueen’s 12 Years a Slave, which tells the true story of a free black man who was kidnapped and sold into slavery in 1841 and features turns from Chiwetel Ejiofor, Michael Fassbender, Paul Dano and Paul Giamatti.
TIFF will be premièring All the Wrong Reasons, the Canadian independent film that features one of the late Cory Monteith’s final big screen performances, The Hollywood Reporter says.
The film, directed by fellow Canadian Gia Milani, also stars Emily Hampshire, Kevin Zegers and Karine Vanasse. Calgaryborn and B.C.-raised Monteith, who was found dead in a Vancouver hotel room July 13 after an overdose of heroin and alcohol, plays James Ascher, a store manager whose wife is suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.
All the Wrong Reasons was shot in Halifax in 2012, making it one of the Glee star’s final film performances. His final performance will come when McCanick, currently in post-production, is released.
Films from directors Atom Egoyan, Alfonso Cuaron and Jason Reitman were also among the first batch of programming for this year’s festival announced at a press conference Tuesday morning.
Cuaron will bring his thriller Gravity, which stars Sandra Bullock as a brainy medical engineer who embarks on her first shuttle mission with help from an astronaut played by George Clooney, while Reitman’s Labor Day casts Kate Winslet, Josh Brolin and Tobey Maguire in a tale about a 13-year-old and his isolated mother unwittingly taking an escaped convict into their home.
The festival, which runs Sept. 5-15, will also mark the world pre- mière of celebrated Quebec filmmaker Denis Villeneuve’s Prisoners, which stars Hugh Jackman as a father pursuing his missing six-year-old daughter with help from a detective portrayed by Jake Gyllenhaal.
Egoyan, meanwhile, will debut Devil’s Knot, based on the true story of three teens dubiously convicted of killing three children in a small Arkansas town and starring Reese Witherspoon, Colin Firth and Kevin Durand.
Other potential highlights of the packed lineup include: Montreal director Jean-Marc Vallee’s Dallas Buyers Club, a fact-based drama about an HIV-afflicted Texas electrician starring Matthew McConaughey, Jennifer Garner and Jared Leto; Third Person from London, Ont.-born director Paul Haggis, which follows three couples in three cities and stars Liam Neeson, Mila Kunis and James Franco; and You Are Here, the feature-film debut of Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner that stars Owen Wilson and Zach Galifianakis as childhood friends who struggle to handle a large inheritance.
The festival will also feature the directorial debuts of several wellknown actors, including Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s Don Jon, Keanu Reeves’ Man of Tai Chi and Jason Bateman’s Bad Words.