Toronto International Film Festival Completes Lineup, Highlights Musical Offerings
Sonic star power will light up the Toronto International Film Festival’s Mavericks program, it was announced this morning, with the world preems of Ron Howard’s doc “Made In America,” capturing last year’s inaugural Philadelphia music festival of the same name curated by Jay Z, and Amir Bar-Lev-produced “12.12.12,” documenting the all-star concert event co-organized by Harvey Weinstein that raised over $30 million for victims of Hurricane Sandy.
Bringing the total film tally to 366 — including 288 features, 146 of them world preems — the fest unveiled its final batch Tuesday, including slates for the Mavericks, Masters, Discovery and Future Projections, as well as the tenth and final title in Midnight Madness — Spanish helmer Alex de la Iglesia’s world-preeming “Witching & Bitching.”
The official festival schedule was also released on Tuesday.
In its continuing push to attract the widest cross-section of film-lovers, the fest launches a really-big-screen strand that will present previously announced Special Presentation pics “Gravity” and “Man of Tai Chi” in IMAX, and new adds “Metallica Through the Never” (Nimrod Antal’s post-apocalyptic mash-up starring Dane DeHaan as a roadie dispatched to hell and back) and Victor Fleming’s classic “The Wizard of Oz,” both world-preeming in IMAX 3D.
On the flip-side, cineastes whose tastes lean toward foreign fare will find much to savor in Masters, which includes the world preems of Catherine Breillat’s “Abuse of Weakness” and Pirjo Honkasalo’s “Concrete Night,” and new films by Claire Denis, Jia Zhangke, Kambozia Partovi and Jafar Panahi, Edgar Reitz, Ettore Scola, Kim Ki-duk, Lav Diaz, and Hong Sangsoo.
Mavericks, which presents screenings followed by in-depth chats, will welcome Howard (“Made in America”) and Weinstein (“12.12.12″) to the stage. The program also includes: Spike Jonze, with a preview of his new project “Her,” co-starring Joaquin Phoenix and Scarlett Johansson; world preems of Chuck Workman’s cinema essay “What Is Cinema?,” Beeban Kidron’s docu “InRealLife” and Drew Taylor and Larry Weinstein’s “Our Man in Tehran”; Charlie Paul’s doc “For No Good Reason,” exploring the life and work of Brit artist Ralph Steadman; a career-exploring chat with “Life of Pi” thesp Irrfan Kahn, appearing in fest pics “The Lunchbox” and “Qissa”; and a celebration of the 40th anniversary of the Toronto Women & Film Festival.
A zone for emerging talent, Discovery completes its slate with 25 titles, including world-preeming U.S. titles Tommy Oliver’s “1982,” Aron Gaudet and Gita Pullapilly’s “Beneath The Harvest Sky,” Mark Phinney’s “Fat” and Gia Coppola’s “Palo Alto.”
The program also includes world preems of Neto Villalobos’s “All About The Feathers,” Sarah Spillane’s “Around the Block,” Alessio Cremonini’s “Border,” Aaron Wilson’s “Canopy,” Rani Massalha “Giraffada,” Manolo Nieto’s “The Militant,” Mais Darwazah’s “My Love Awaits Me by the Sea,” Mariana Chenillo’s “Paradise,” Fabio Mollo’s “South is Nothing” and John Butler’s “The Stag.”
Future Projections, exploring the intersection of cinema and the visual arts in a program of installations, will feature Camille Henrot’s Venice Biennale Silver Lion-winner “Grosse Fatigue,” an exhibition of drawings by illustrator Ralph Steadman (the subject of fest doc “For No Good Reason”), and L.A. directing duo Radical Friend’s “Sweat.” The rest of the program is devoted to “David Cronenberg: Transformation” (part of TIFF’s 2013 endeavor The Cronenberg Project), which presents installations from six renowned artists responding to themes in the director’s work.
On Tuesday the festival also announced the Glenn Gould Studio — a concert hall and recording studio housed in the Canadian Broadcast Centre — as a new venue for various public and industry programming this year.
The Toronto International Film Festival runs Sept. 5 to 15, 2013.
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