Origin Will Have Its North American Premiere at TIFF 2023

Academy Award-nominated Ava DuVernay is returning to the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) with her latest film, Origin.

Starring Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor, Jon Bernthal, Connie Nielsen, Vera Farmiga, Nick Offerman, Finn Wittrock, Victoria Pedretti, Niecy Nash, Donna Mills, Jasmine Cephas Jones, Blair Underwood and Audra McDonald, the film is an adaptation of Isabel Wilkerson's New York Times bestselling book, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents.

The synopsis shared by TIFF says:

Already established as the first African-American woman to win a Pulitzer Prize for her journalism, Isabel Wilkerson (Aunjanue Ellis) is confronted by the question of race once again when a colleague asks her to write about Trayvon Martin's death. Her husband, Brett (Jon Bernthal), encourages her to tackle the case, but she's more interested in the core of where racial injustice comes from. After a tragedy forces her to reorient her life, Isabel begins a research project which spans the globe, as she travels to Germany and India where she investigates the disenfranchisement of Jewish people during the Third Reich and the marginalization of Dalit "untouchables." While initially struggling to explain her theory to family and colleagues, Isabel breaks down a codified framework of dehumanization for her book, making the argument that race and caste aren't simply synonyms.

Origin will have its North American premiere at Roy Thomson Hall on Monday, September 11.