The Toronto Film Festival on Wednesday unveiled its 2018 Platform section for its upcoming 43rd edition in September, led by world premieres for films starring Nicole Kidman, Elisabeth Moss, Patricia Clarkson and Frank Grillo.
Now in its fourth year, the Platform section will open with a world premiere for Donnybrook, a gritty indie thriller that stars Grillo, Jamie Bell and Margaret Qualley, and is directed by Tim Sutton. “Tim Sutton’s unflinching portrayal of the American heartland masterfully captures many of the anxieties that exist in our society today,” TIFF director and CEO Piers Handling said of the sidebar opener choice.
There are also world bows for the Nicole Kidman-starrer Destroyer, by director Karyn Kusama, a modern-day Los Angeles crime thriller; Alex Ross Perry’s Her Smell, which stars Elisabeth Moss as a punk rocker; and writerdirector Carol Morley’s Out of Blue, a new-noir mystery starring Patricia Clarkson as a homicide detective.
The Platform section sees up to 12 auteur films come into Toronto without Hollywood studio backing to compete for a $25,000 prize. The TIFF sidebar will also offer first looks for Markus Schleinzer’s Angelo; Simon Jaquemet’s The Innocent; Jessica Forever, by directors Caroline Poggi and Jonathan Vinel, winners of the 2014 Golden Bear in Berlin for best short film; and Emmanuel Mouret’s Mademoiselle de Joncquieres.
Handling told The Hollywood Reporter that the Platform competitive section offers indie and auteur films increasingly difficult to finance, and not necessarily with big-name stars in the cast, a global platform to break out into the commercial marketplace.
“These are films with distinctive and forceful voices behind them, work that takes risks, are challenging and by filmmakers that generally we don’t know about. We want to put them on a world stage,” he explained.
Hannah Arendt director Margarethe von Trotta, Hungarian filmmaker Bela Tarr and South Korean director and novelist Lee Chang-dong will judge this year’s competition.
The Toronto Film Festival will run Sept. 6-16.
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