The Toronto International Film Festival has added to its 2017 edition world premieres for Aaron Sorkin’s and Brie Larson’s directorial debuts.
TIFF also added another six titles to its gala lineup with world premieres for John Curran’s Ted Kennedy drama Chappaquiddick, starring Jason Clarke, Jim Gaffigan, Kate Mara and Ed Helms, and the Richard Gere-starrer Three Christs, director Jon Avnet’s film about a doctor treating three paranoid schizophrenic patients who all believe they are Jesus Christ.
The festival will also feature world-premiere screenings of Bille August’s 55 Steps, starring Helena Bonham Carter and Hilary Swank; Francois Girard’s Hochelaga, Terre des Ames; and Tali Shalom-Ezer’s My Days of Mercy, a death-row drama starring Ellen Page and Kate Mara; and an international premiere for Paolo Virzli’s The Leisure Seeker.
TIFF added another 32 titles to its special presentations sidebar, including world bows for Brie Larson’s Unicorn Store, which also features Samuel L. Jackson, Joan Cusack and Bradley Whitford in a comedy about a woman (Larson) who moves back in with her parents; and Aaron Sorkin’s Molly’s Game, which has Jessica Chastain playing Molly Bloom, a real-life skier who, after her Olympic dreams are dashed, heads to Los Angeles to eventually organize underground poker games for the Hollywood elite. Kevin Costner, Idris Elba and Chris O’Dowd also star in Molly’s Game.
There also will be world premieres for Louis C.K.’s I Love You, Daddy, a black-and-white movie set in New York City and shot on 35mm film, and which stars C.K., Chloe Grace Moretz, Charlie Day, John Malkovich, Rose Byrne, Edie Falco and Helen Hunt; and Peter Landesman’s Watergate drama Mark Felt – The Man Who Brought Down the White House, starring Liam Neeson and Diane Lane.
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The special presentations program typically features world premieres nabbed away from Telluride or Venice that didn’t make it to Roy Thomson Hall and can unspool at the Princess of Wales, Elgin, Ryerson or Winter Garden theaters.
Also bowing in the sidebar: Dominic Cooke’s On Chesil Beach, from the producers of Carol and led by Brooklyn star Saoirse Ronan; Lynn Shelton’s Outside In; Matthew Newton’s Who We Are Now; Mark Raso’s Kodachrome, a road-trip drama starring Elizabeth Olsen, Ed Harris and Jason Sudeikis; the Gemma Arterton-starrer The Escape, from director Dominic Savage; and Saul Dibb’s Journey’s End, a war drama starring Sam Claflin and Paul Bettany.
The special presentations section has North American bows for John Landis’ Michael Jackson’s Thriller 3D, preceded by Jerry Kramer’s Making of Michael Jackson’s Thriller; Michel Hazanavicius’ Redoubtable, from the director of The Artist; John Woo’s Manhunt; Sean Baker’s The Florida Project; Fatih Akin’s In the Fade; and Yorgos Lanthimos’ The Killing of a Sacred Deer.
Elsewhere, the masters section includes world premieres for Rainbow – A Private Affair, by Italian directors Paolo Taviani and Vittorio Taviani; Alanis Obomsawin’s Our People Will Be Healed; and North American debuts for Happy End, from Michael Haneke, and The House by the Sea, from French director Robert Guediguian.
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And the primetime program that showcases episodic TV will have first looks for HBO’s The Deuce, a porn industry drama from David Simon and George Pelecanos and starring James Franco and Maggie Gyllenhaal; the second season of The Girlfriend Experience, executive produced by Steven Soderbergh; two episodes of Netflix’s first German drama, Dark; and an international bow for Under Pressure, a drama about a medical team in a poverty-stricken community in Rio de Janeiro from showrunners Andrucha Waddington and Jorge Furtado.
TIFF also unveiled its wavelengths section of experimental films, which includes the latest work by Wang Bing, Ben Russell, Bruno Dumont, Laura Huertas Millan, Michael Robinson and Xu Bing.
The 2017 Toronto International Film Festival kicks off Sept. 7 with the Shia LaBeouf-starrer Borg/McEnroe and will close Sept. 17 with C’est La Vie! from directors Olivier Nakache and Eric Toledano.
