Ry me to the moon
Festival’s first roster revelation includes Gaga’s A Star is Born
This year’s gala lineup includes Ryan Gosling as pioneering Apollo astronaut Neil Armstrong in First Man.
The Toronto International Film Festival has unveiled its slate of 17 films that will have gala presentations, including
First Man, starring Ryan Gosling as astronaut Neil Armstrong and directed by
La La Land’s Damien Chazelle, and a remake of A Star is Born, featuring the directorial debut of actor Bradley Cooper, who co-stars alongside Lady Gaga.
Both films will make their world premieres a month earlier, in Venice. Beyond the galas, a total of 28 other movies — five by Canadian filmmakers — were named Tuesday as part of the special presentations program for the festival, which runs from Sept. 6 to 16. Among the Canadian offerings: Through Black Spruce, Don McKellar’s adaptation of Joseph Boyden’s novel; Mouthpiece by Patricia Rozema; Montreal-born director Jason Reitman’s latest film, The Front Runner, which looks at the rise and fall of U.S. presidential hopeful Gary Hart (played by Hugh Jackman); The Hummingbird Project by Kim Nguyen, whose film Rebelle received a best foreign film Oscar nomination; and Giant Little Ones by Saskatchewan native Keith Behrman, starring Maria Bello and Kyle MacLachlan. There’s also The Sister Brothers, based on the acclaimed comic-Western novel by Vancouver Island native Patrick deWitt and starring John C. Reilly, Joaquin Phoenix and Jake Gyllenhaal, which is also part of the special presentations program.
Both programs features a range of international movies from veteran filmmakers, dealing with currently relevant issues like addiction and racial tension:
The world premieres of three American films: Beautiful Boy, starring Steve Carrell and Oscar nominee Timothée Chalamet, features a story of a father whose son is dealing with methamphetamine addiction; Ben Is Back, directed by Peter Hedges and starring Julia Roberts as a mother whose son — Manchester by the Sea’s Lucas Hedges — returns home for the holidays with substance-abuse issues; and If Beale Street Could Talk, a drama with racial themes directed by Moonlight’s Barry Jenkins.
The Hate U Give, starring Amandla Stenberg and directed by George Tillman Jr., tells the story of a young Black woman who witnesses the death of her best friend at the hands of police.
The Public, written and directed by Emilio Estevez, follows a group of homeless people who stage an occupation of a public library during a winter storm.
Elsewhere, venerable British star Judi Dench stars in Red Joan, by director Sir Trevor Nunn, based on a true story about a woman who spies for the KGB. And David Lowery’s bank robber biopic, The Old Man & the Gun, features Robert Redford in what is expected to be his last onscreen performance, as well as co-stars Danny Glover, Sissy Spacek, Tom Waits and Casey Affleck, the latter of whom declined to be a presenter at the Oscars earlier this year because of accusations of sexual harassment.
Also on the TIFF roster announced Tuesday:
The world premiere of Widows, the latest film by Oscar-winning director Steve McQueen ( 12 Years a Slave), is a heist film starring Viola Davis about four women who mastermind a robbery after their husbands are killed.
Lebanese director Nadine Labaki’s third feature, Capernaum, comes to the festival after receiving a jury prize at Cannes earlier this year, featuring a tale about a 12-year-old boy who sues his parents.
The Kindergarten Teacher, by American director Sara Colangelo and starring Maggie Gyllenhaal and Gael Garcia Bernal, is a remake of a 2014 Israeli film about a New York teacher who becomes obsessed with a student prodigy.
French filmmaker Melanie Laurent’s English language debut, Galveston, based on the novel by Nic Pizzolatto, features Ben Foster and Elle Fanning as a hitman and a prostitute on the run from mobsters.
Two respected Chinese filmmakers also have gala features, including Shadow, a new historical drama by venerable Chinese filmmaker Zhang Yimou ( Raise the Red Lantern, Red Sorghum) and Hidden Man, the third instalment of Jiang Wen’s gangster trilogy, which includes Let the Bullets Fly and Gone with the Bullets.
Among the 45 films in the gala and special presentations categories, 21 films are world premieres and 13 are directed by women.