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| Sean Durkin's Southcliffe |
Like the Oscar nominations, though, it’s silly to get caught
up on what we won’t be talking about, since the movies that were announced
today include some films worth getting excited about. I’m most looking forward
to Southcliffe, the new film from Marcy Martha May Marlene director Sean
Durkin, which is playing in Special Presentations. Also intriguing is the
Japanese remake of Clint Eastwood’s Best Picture Oscar winner Unforgiven, which looks extremely
promising from the trailer. Other notable entries include James Franco’s newest
directorial effort Child of God; John
Turturro’s Fading Gigolo, starring
Turturro alongside Woody Allen and Sharon Stone; and Singing Women, starring the director of 2011’s People’s Choice
Award winner Where Do We Go Now? Also
worth noting are Alex Gibney’s Lance Armstrong doc and Kevin Macdonald’s How I Live Now starring Saoirse Ronan. The festival also announced an extensive and impressive list of films for the Contemporary World Cinema programme, which can be seen on the festival website.
The list of announced films is as follows:
GALAS
Blood Ties
Guillaume Canet, France/USA, North American Premiere
New York, 1974. 50-year-old Chris has just been released on
good behavior after spending several years in prison. Waiting for him
reluctantly outside the prison gates is his younger brother, Frank, a cop with
a bright future. Chris and Frank have always been different, yet blood ties are
the ones that bind. Starring Clive Owen, Billy Crudup, Marion Cotillard, Mila
Kunis, Zoe Saldana, Matthias Schoenaerts and James Caan.
Bright Days Ahead(Les Beaux jours)
Marion Vernoux, France, North American Premiere
César–winning French cinema icon Fanny Ardant stars in this
sophisticated and sexy drama about a married woman in her 60s tumbling into an
affair with a much younger man.
Words and Pictures
Fred Schepisi, USA, World Premiere
A writer (Clive Owen) whose talent has dried up and an
artist (Juliette Binoche) struggling to paint, clash at the school where they
teach, sparking both an unlikely romance and a school-wide war: which is more
powerful, the word or the picture?
SPECIAL PRESENTATIONS
A Promise (Une
Promesse)
Patrice Leconte, Belgium/France, North American Premiere
Germany, 1912. A youth of humble origins takes up a clerical
post in a steel factory. Impressed by his work, the elderly owner takes him on
as his private secretary and sets him up in his home. While there, the young man meets the owner’s
beautiful and reserved wife—and falls helplessly in love with her, unbeknownst
to the couple. But just as his employer announces that he is sending him to
oversee his mines in Mexico, the wife makes him a startling promise. Starring Rebecca Hall, Alan Rickman and Richard Madden.
The Armstrong Lie
Alex Gibney, USA, North American Premiere,
In 2009, Alex Gibney was hired to make a film about Lance Armstrong’s
comeback to cycling. The project was
shelved when the doping scandal erupted, and re-opened after Armstrong’s
confession. The Armstrong Lie picks up in 2013 and presents a riveting,
insider's view of the unraveling of one of the most extraordinary stories in
the history of sports. As Lance Armstrong says himself, “I didn’t live a lot of
lies, but I lived one big one.”
Blind Detective
Johnnie To, Hong Kong, North American Premiere
Forced to leave service after he was afflicted with
blindness, a former detective ekes out his living by solving cold cases for
police rewards. When an attractive, young hit-team inspector enlists his help
in a personal case, he decides to take a stab at it with his own personal
agenda. Starring Andy Lau and Sammi Cheng.
Child of God
James Franco, USA, North American Premiere
Set in mountainous Sevier County, Tennessee in the 1960s,
Child of God tells the story of Lester Ballard, a dispossessed, violent man
whom the narrator describes as “a child
of God much like yourself perhaps.” Ballard's life is a disastrous attempt to
exist outside the social order. Deprived of both his parents and a home, and
with few other ties, Ballard descends to the level of a cave dweller, falling
deeper into crime and degradation.Starring James Franco, Scott Haze, Tim Blake
Nelson and Jim Parrack.
The Face of Love
Arie Posin, USA, World Premiere
Five years after losing the love of her life, Nikki falls in
love again —at first sight. The object of her affection is Tom, an art teacher
with a kind heart and a great zest for life, and also a near perfect double for
Nikki's deceased husband. Seduced by the chance to live as if her husband was never lost, Nikki spirals into
a fantasy of the present as past, while Tom must unravel the mystery behind her
immediate and unconditional love. Starring Annette Bening, Ed Harris, Robin
Williams and Amy Brenneman.
Fading Gigolo
John Turturro, USA, World Premiere
Fioravante, at his friend Murray’s suggestion, enters into
the world’s oldest profession, and ends up finding something he didn’t know he
was looking for. Starring John Turturro, Woody Allen, Vanessa Paradis, Liev
Schreiber, Sharon Stone and Sofia Vergara.
The Finishers
Nils Tavernier, Belgium/France, World Premiere
Julien, 17, is wheelchair-bound due to cerebral palsy.
Despite their love for him, his family is gradually falling apart under the
strain of dealing with his disability. In a bid to bond with his fat her,
Julien challenges him to participate with him in the Ironman race in Nice (French Riviera), a triathlon in which his
father has previously competed. Starring Jacques Gamblin, Alexandra Lamy and
Fabien Héraud.
How I Live Now
Kevin Macdonald, United Kingdom, World Premiere
Daisy, a teenaged New Yorker, is sent to England one summer
to stay with cousins she has never met. Initially resentful, she soon finds herself
living in a dreamy, pastoral idyll as she falls madly in love. But this perfect
summer is blown apart by the sudden outbreak of a war. The family is separated
and Daisy is forced to embark on a terrifying journey to be reunited with the
boy she loves. Starring Saoirse Ronan, Tom Hollandand George MacKay.
The Last of Robin Hood
Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland, USA, World Premiere
Errol Flynn, the swashbuckling Hollywood star and notorious
ladies’ man, flouted convention all his life, but never more brazenly than in
his last years when, swimming in vodka and unwilling to face his mortality, he
undertook a liaison with underage starlet Beverly Aadland. The two had a
high-flying affair that spanned the globe and was enabled by the girl’s
fame-obsessed mother, Florence. It all came crashing to an end in October 1959 when
events forced the relationship into the open, creating an avalanche of
publicity castigating Beverly and her mother. The Last of Robin Hood is a story about the desire for fame and the
price it exacts. Starring Dakota Fanning, Susan Sarandon and Kevin Kline.
The Liberator (Libertador)
Alberto Arvelo, Venezuela/Spain, World Premiere
The film is an epic adventure based on the incredible life
of Simón Bolívar, the 19th-century revolutionary who fueled Latin America’s struggle
for independence. Bolívar’s quests and military campaigns covered twice the
territory of Alexander the Great. Golden Globe nominee Édgar Ramírez brings to
life one of the most influential freedom fighters in history. Also starring
María Valverde, Danny Huston, Erich Wildpret, Juana Acosta and Imanol Arias.
Love is the Perfect Crime (Amour Crime Parfait)
Arnaud
Larrieu and Jean-Marie Larrieu, France/Switzerland, World Premiere
Marc, in his 40s, is a professor of literature at the
University of Lausanne. Still a bachelor —and still living with his sister
Marianne in a huge, isolated chalet that they inherited when they were
very young—he carries on one love affair after another with his
students. Winter has almost ended when one of his most brilliant students,
Barbara, suddenly disappears. Two days
later, Marc meets Barbara’s mother, Anna, who wants to find out more about her
vanished daughter. Starring Mathieu Amalric, Karin Viard, Maïwenn, Sara
Forestierand Denis Podalydès.
Lucky Them
Megan Griffiths, USA, World Premiere
Lucky Them tells the story of Ellie Klug (Toni Collette), a
rock journalist who is tasked with the painful assignment of exploring her own
past. Joined by eccentric would-be documentarian Charlie (Thomas Haden Church),
Ellie sets out on an emotional treasure hunt in order to finally rid herself of
her "ghosts" and get on with her life. Also starring Ryan Eggold,
Oliver Platt, Nina Arianda and Ahna O'Reilly.
Rock the Casbah
Laïla
Marrakchi, France/Morocco, International Premiere
Laïla Marrakchi returns to the Festival with another lively
family drama chronicling the foibles and hypocrisies of Morocco’s middle class,
aided by a stellar ensemble that includes screen legend Omar Sharif, Hiam
Abbas, Lubna Azabal and Nadine Labaki, director and star of 2011 People’s
Choice Award Winner Where Do We Go Now?.
Singing Women (Sarki Söyleyen Kadinlar)
Reha Erdem, France/Germany/Turkey, World Premiere
An island off the coast of Turkey is about to be evacuated
due to a possible earthquake — but its inhabitants have been stricken with a
mysterious illness, consigning them to an uncertain fate. Reha Erdem's genre-defying
new film transports us to a wonderfully wry, oblique universe.
Southcliffe
Sean Durkin, United Kingdom, International Premiere
A sudden inexplicable spate of shootings rips through the
market town of Southcliffe. The lives of those left behind are torn apart. In this
haunting drama a journalist reporting on the tragedy finds himself back in the
small town he grew up in, looking for answers from the shattered community
whilst trying to reconcile the dark events from his own past. Starring Rory
Kinnear, Sean Harris, Shirley Henderson, Anatol Yusef and Eddie Marsan.
Sunshine on Leith
Dexter Fletcher, United Kingdom, World Premiere
The sophomore feature from British actor-turned-director
Dexter Fletcher (Wild Bill) stars Peter Mullan (Tyrannosaur) and Jane Horrocks
(Little Voice) in a vibrant cinematic adaptation of the acclaimed stage
musical, inspired by the chart-topping album from Scottish band The Proclaimers.
Also starring George MacKay, Kevin Guthrie, Antonia Thomas, Freya Mavor and
Paul Brannigan.
Therese
Charlie Stratton, USA, World Premiere
Set in the lower depths of 1860s Paris, Therese is a tale of
obsessive love, adultery and revenge, based on Émile Zola’s scandalous novel. Trapped
in a loveless marriage to her sickly cousin, Therese embarks on an illicit
affair with her husband's childhood friend that
leads to tragic consequences. Starring Elizabeth Olsen, Tom Felton,
Jessica Lange and Oscar Isaac
Unforgiven (Yurusarezarumono)
Lee Sang-il, Japan, North American Premiere
Lee Sang-il’s visionary remake of Clint Eastwood’s iconic
Academy Award–winning film transposes the classic Western to Meiji-period Japan.
The Tokugawa shogunate has just collapsed and the Ainu aborigines strive to
settle the land alongside the newly established government. Jubei Kamata is a relic
of the Tokugawa shogunate, and during that time his name a lone terrorized the
whole of Kyoto as he killed countless loyalists in the name of the Shogun.
After the fall, he vanished from sight. More than 10 years later, Jubei
has fathered children with an Ainu woman
and lives in a secluded hamlet, barely making a living. His wife —who succeeded
in transforming him from a man who kills—had died, leaving him to a quiet life raising
his children and tending her grave. However, poverty leads Jubei to abandon his
resolve and once again turn to a life of violence. Starring Akira Emoto, Koichi
Sato and Ken Watanabe.
The Wind Rises (KazeTachinu)
Hayao Miyazaki,
Japan, North American Premiere
This decade-spanning epic from maestro Hayao Miyazaki is his
most unique films to date, inspired by the true stories of Jiro Horikoshi,
visionary designer of one the most beautiful airplanes in history — the famed
Zero fighter — and the poet Tatsuo Hori, whose verses are brought to life by
the vivid animation of Studio Ghibli.The Toronto International Film Festival runs Sept. 5-15.
Please visit www.tiff.net for more info.
