The Toronto International Film Festival Launches Its Inaugural TIFF: The Market

This year represents the Toronto International Film Festival’s first step into a new era. The fifty-first edition will feature the launch of TIFF: The Market, the organizers’ attempt to follow Berlinale’s European Film Market and Cannes’ Marché du Film as a major stop for sales agents, producers, and distributors on the circuit.

While dealmaking has always been part of TIFF, this is the first year it has been formalized with a true market. In order to encourage as many people in the industry to check out what organizers have to offer, TIFF has subsidized the travel and accommodation of over 200 attendees who haven’t stepped foot in Toronto or done so in some time. And with over six thousand participants set to descend, Hollywood is watching to see how everything plays out. But this hasn’t gotten in the way of programmers once again slating the some of the year’s best pictures, along with plenty of very promising World Premiere titles from seasoned auteurs and newcomers alike.

Each year, European Film Promotion (EFP) is supports a diverse lineup of European cinema, ranging from artful and ambitious films to pictures that aim to embrace a big audience. Across TIFF’s programming slates including Discovery, Platform, Centerpiece, Special Presentations and beyond, EFP will be bringing to Toronto over a dozen titles whose fortunes may continue right into the awards season.

Cristian Mungiu’s Fjord starring Renate Reinsve and Sebastian Stan already created buzz on the Croisette where it took home the coveted Palme d’Or. Now it arrives in Toronto where stateside distributors Neon will be eager to continue positioning the film for a Best International Oscar slot. The legal drama following a conservative Romanian family who move to a small Norwegian town has already sparked plenty of debate.

Among the established auteurs is rising filmmaker Lukas Dhont who follows up his Oscar-nominated Close with Coward. The WWI-set film tracks a queer romance the sparks between soldiers in the midst of the brutal conflict. Meanwhile, the always mischievous Radu Jude finds him working in a different register with Diary of a Chambermaid, the latest adaptation of Octave Mirbeau’s novel which has also inspired films by legends Jean Renoir and Luis Bunuel. Last, but certainly not least, Bullhead director Michael R. Roskam returns with his first film in nearly a decade with Le Faux Soir. Starring Arieh Worthalter, Mélanie Thierry, and Karim Leklou, the WWII thriller follows members of the resistance in Brussells who print a spoof newspaper of Nazi propaganda titled Le Soir.

The Centerpiece section will see two more EFP films joining Coward. Manuel Wetscher’s feature debut Eklipse follows two 12 year-old boys in rural Austria who navigate the peaks and valleys of their lives as the millennium approaches. Things get animated with Louis Bagnall’s Julian, which brings to the big screen Jessica Love’s book about a boy who dreams of becoming a mermaid.

David Turpin’s debut feature Ancestors is the first of four EFP titles in the Discovery program. Set in 1980s London, the film follows an Irishman living exile (homosexuality was still illegal in Ireland at the time) when the search for a young man sends him an odyssey through the city. Sweden’s Lars Vega debuts his first feature with Arne Goes to Space. The sci-fi comedy sees a pair of elderly brothers contending with an extraterrestrial visitor. Another feature debut comes from Tony Vahl with Krux, a drama set in the final days of WWII where a small village in eastern Germany faces an unlikely fear — their own loyalty to the fatherland. Lastly, Danish veteran Sidse Babett leads Amalie Næsby Fick’s What Lies Between Us, a provocative drama about three mothers whose friendship is ruptured by an accusation of sexual assault.

Over in Special Presentations Hans Petter Moland brings Knut Hamsun’s Nobel Prize-winning Growth of the Soil to the big screen. Norway’s Oscar entry follows a husband and wife as they battle the elements to build a farm in a remote area of northern Norway in the early 20th century. Also unspooling in the program is the Noomi Rapace-starring In Alaska. Directors Jaap van Heusden and Vinnie Karetak’s picture tells the story of a teenager on the run from the FBI.

Rounding out EFP’s slate is Rehearsals for a Revolution, Pegah Ahangarani’s acclaimed film that took home two prizes from Cannes. The documentary sees the now exiled Iranian filmmaker Ahangarani weaving together her life story alongside Iran’s turbulent history. Lastly, in the Platform section, two more pictures unspool: Amanda Kernell will premiere Brace Your Heart, a drama about reindeer herder whose love for her husband’s cousin threatens her future; and Irene Dionisio’s Idda follows two childhood friends and their fraught reunion against the backdrop of Mount Etna.

The Toronto International Film Festival rolls out the red carpet from September 10th to 20th.