Toronto Film Fest lineup generates buzz, debates

Few institutions in cinema can match the teeming, overwhelming Toronto International Film Festival as a conversationstarting force. It simply has a lot of movies worth talking about.

And this year, many of the films that will parade down Toronto red carpets will hope to shift the dialogue not just in terms of awards buzz, but in other directions, too: equality in Hollywood; politics in Washington; even about the nature of the movies, themselves. At TIFF, expect debate.

That’s what the filmmakers behind “The Battle of the Sexes,’’ one of the anticipated films heading to TIFF in the coming days, are hoping for.

After the festival opened Thursday with another tennis movie, the rivalry drama “Borg/ McEnroe,’’ Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris (the directing duo who helmed 2006’s “Little Miss Sunshine’’) will premiere their drama about the 1973 showdown between Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs.

The movie, starring Emma Stone and Steve Carell, holds obvious parallels for a movie industry with its own issues of gender equality, in both pay disparity and directing opportunity. For others, it will recall issues that dominated last year’s U.S. presidential campaign. But “Battle of the Sexes’’ may surprise moviegoers in its broad sympathies on both sides of the net.

“The one thing we didn’t want to have happen was this polarizing political document,’’ said Dayton. “Right now, there’s enough of that in the world. We wanted to tell a more personal story and keep it from becoming too binary.’’

The filmmakers say they are expecting “a variety of opinions in any one audience.’’

“It’s really the best way to release a film, at a festival like Telluride or Toronto,’’ said Faris. “It’s a great way to get the word out about a film. It’s a great thing for the filmmakers to have what is usually a pretty film-oriented, film-loving audience. It gives you hope that they’re still out there.’’

The Toronto International Film Festival comes right on the heels of the Venice and Telluride festivals, but the size and scope of Toronto has long made it the centerpiece of the fall movie season. It’s where much of the coming awards season gets handicapped, debated and solidified. It’s also a significant market for new films, and this year several intriguing films — “I, Tonya,’’ with Margot Robbie as Tonya Harding, and “Hostiles,’’ a brutal Western with Christian Bale — are on the block.

But most eyes will be on the gala premieres of the fall’s biggest films, including Alexander Payne’s “Downsizing,’’ Guillermo Del Toro’s “The Shape of Water,’’ George Clooney’s “Suburbicon,’’ and maybe the most explosive movie of the season, Darren Aronofsky’s mystery-shrouded allegorical thriller “mother!’’