Toronto: Hilary Swank, Mahershala Ali, Maggie Gyllenhaal to Keynote Festival

Hilary Swank, Mahershala Ali and Maggie Gyllenhaal are set to take part in candid conversations as part of the Toronto Film Festival’s In Conversation With… series, organizers said Thursday.

And Drake will make a hometown stop to introduce an opening-night screening of Monsters and Men, an indie drama about the aftermath of a police killing of a black man by director Reinaldo Marcus Green.

Swank, in Toronto to tout What They Had, the directorial debut from screenwriter Elizabeth Chomko, will talk about her Oscar-winning career, as will fellow Academy Award winner Mahershala Ali, who is bringing his latest film, Peter Farrelly’s 1960s-set road trip movie Green Book, to TIFF for a world bow.

And Maggie Gyllenhaal will take part in her own onstage discussion about her career, while she touts her latest film, Sara Colangelo’s Sundance drama The Kindergarten Teacher, in Toronto. Other special events at TIFF unveiled on Thursday include Jason Reitman returning to lead another onstage live read, this time for John Hughes’ The Breakfast Club, and director Dean DeBlois and producer Brad Lewis giving fest-goers a first look at DreamWorks Animation’s How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World, alongside members of their voice cast.

And Toronto booked a sneak peek of Universal Pictures’ First Man, with director Damien Chazelle hosting a screening on a giant Imax screen at the Ontario Place Cinesphere, on the city’s waterfront.

The 43rd Toronto International Film Festival is set to run from Sept. 6-16.