The Toronto Film Festival has added documentaries on teenage climate activists Greta Thunberg and Autumn Peltier to its 2020 digital movie lineup.
TIFF booked a North American premiere for I Am Greta, Nathan Grossman’s documentary about Swedish campaigner Thunberg set to bow in Venice ahead of a release on Hulu stateside.
Toronto will also screen James Burns’ The Water Walker, a portrait of 15-year-old Autumn Peltier, who advocates for clean drinking water in Indigenous communities worldwide.
Also Thursday, TIFF unveiled digital screenings and director and cast reunions for Greta Gerwig’s Lady Bird, with guests to be announced, and Darren Afronofsky’s Requiem for a Dream, with the director in a virtual discussion with Ellen Burstyn, director of photography Matthew Libatique and other creatives.
Another retro screening planned is for Girlfriends, Toronto’s first audience award winner in 1978, with the director Claudia Weill and star Melanie Mayron to appear virtually.
And TIFF booked a drive-in screening for Full Metal Jacket, with cast members Vincent D’Onofrio and Arliss Howard and Stanley Kubrick’s daughter Katharina Kubrick to take part in a pre-recorded panel.
Elsewhere, the festival added a Planet Africa sidebar virtual panel to include directors Charles Officer (Akilla’s Escape), Dieudo Hamadi (Downstream to Kinshasa), Tommy Oliver (40 Years A Prisoner) and Dawn Porter (The Way I See It).
A pandemic-era Toronto Film Festival will run mostly online from Sept. 10 to 19.
