TIFF 2017 Day 2

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OF GODS AND M EN

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France 1915.

Men at war.

Women in battle.

MARKET PREMIERE Today – 4:30 pm – Scotiabank 11

WOR L D PR EMIER E Tomorrow – Saturday 9th 6:15 pm – TBLB 1 Additional market screening Wed 13th – 11 am – Scotiabank 10

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MIAMI Drama / Finland / 2017

SCREENINGS - CONTEMPORARY WORLD CINEMA Sep. 10th at 12: 00pm in Scotiabank 9 (Press & Industry) Sep. 12th at 6 :30pm in Scotiabank 3 (Int. Premiere) Sep. 14th at 5: 45pm in Scotiabank 3 (Public screening ) Sep. 16th at 9:30am in Scotiabank 11 (Public screening )

NEVER STEADY, NEVER STILL Drama / Canada / 2017

SCREENINGS - DISCOVERY Sep. 9th at 12: 45pm in TIFF Bell Lightbox Cinema 2 (World Premiere) Sep. 10th at 7: 00pm in Scotiabank 6 (Press & Industry) Sep. 11th at 9:15pm in Scotiabank 9 (Public screening ) Sep. 14th at 9: 00am in Scotiabank 6 (Press & Industry)

THE BUTTERFLY TREE Drama / Australia / 2017

SCREENINGS - DISCOVERY Sep. 10th at 2: 45pm in Scotiabank 5 (Press & Industry) Sep. 11th at 9:30pm in Scotiabank 14 (Int. premiere) Sep. 13th at 4 : 00pm in TIFF Bell Lightbox Cinema 4 - Paul & Leah Atkinson Family Cinema (Public screening ) Sep. 17th at 8:30pm in Jackman Hall (Public screening )

LevelK in Toronto: The Scandinavian Stand, Hyatt Regency Hotel, King Ballroom Tine Klint

Derek Lui

Debra Liang

tine.klint@levelk.dk

derek@levelk.dk

debra@levelk.dk

DA Y

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Cumberbatch pulls on gloves for Gypsy Boy Sorry Angel

mk2 soars with Christophe Honoré’s Angel

BY MELANIE GOODFELLOW

Paris-based mk2 Films has boarded sales on French director Christophe Honoré’s Sorry Angel, a bittersweet love story between a 40-year-old writer and a young literature student, starring Pierre Deladonchamps and Vincent Lacoste. Honoré, who was last at TIFF in 2011 with Beloved, has drawn on his experiences as a literature student in the French city of Rennes for the film.

Deladonchamps, who took TIFF by storm in 2013 when he attended as the lead in Stranger By The Lake, co-stars as a 40-year-old writer who falls for a 20-year-old student, played by Lacoste. Philippe Martin produced the film, which is in postproduction after shooting in Rennes, Amsterdam and Paris over the summer.

Other new additions to mk2’s TIFF slate include Eric Khoo’s Ramen Shop, Robert Guediguian’s The House By The Sea, which just premiered in Venice, and Sara Forestier’s M, which played in Venice Days.

BY TOM GRATER

Benedict Cumberbatch will star in Gypsy Boy, a BBC Films-backed adaptation of Mikey Walsh’s bestselling memoirs. Protagonist Pictures has boarded worldwide sales and is introducing the project to buyers here this week.

Morgan Matthews is directing from a screenplay by James Graham. The pair previously collaborated on X+Y (released in the US as A Brilliant Young Mind). Producers on the project are Dee Koppang O’Leary and Kevin Loader.

BBC Films is financing the project,

sion: stay and keep fighting or escape and never return.

Casting is underway for the role of Mikey and production is scheduled for summer 2018. Cumberbatch said on taking the role: “I was immediately drawn to Mikey’s courageous story, and Frank is unlike any character I’ve played. He’s a complex man, torn between tradition and his love for a son struggling to come to terms with an identity that’s at odds with Frank and his culture.”

Cumberbatch is repped by Conway van Gelder Grant and UTA.

Shia LaBeouf on walkabout ahead of Janus Metz’s TIFF opening-night film Borg/McEnroe. Review, page 10.

series The Bridge — most recently made TV show Midnight Sun, which was sold to more than 90 territories. Their feature credits include Underworld: Awakening and Shelter starring Julianne Moore. Kristina Aberg produces for Atmo Rights with Nordisk handling Scandinavian distribution. Backers include Nordisk Film & TV Fond and the Swedish Film Institute.

Wendy Mitchell

Disobedience, page 22

REVIEWS Borg/McEnroe Crowdpleaser features an arresting performance from Sverrir Gudnason » Page 10

Brawl In Cell Block 99 Vince Vaughn brings tenderness to this bone-crunching prison drama » Page 16

FEATURES The converters Embankment Films celebrate five years with four TIFF premieres » Page 18

The outsider Sebastian Lelio talks Disobedience » Page 22

Lotus carries Beast Of Burden

BY JEREMY KAY

Lotus Entertainment has come on to sell international rights to the Daniel Radcliffe drug-running drama Beast Of Burden and is showing a promo on Sunday.

Swedish filmmaker Jesper Ganslandt makes his English-language debut from a script by Adam Hoelzel. Paul Schiff of Paul Schiff Productions, Mary Aloe of Aloe Entertainment and Michael Diamond of MGMT Entertainment Productions produce with Jake Shapiro and Dan Reardon.

Hubert Boesl

TrustNordisk falls for Swoon TrustNordisk has boarded international sales for Swoon, directed by Mans Marlind and Bjorn Stein. The film is shooting now and is slated for release in Sweden in December 2018. Swoon is about the heirs to two rival amusement parks in Stockholm who unexpectedly fall in love in the shadow of the Second World War. The directing duo — who created acclaimed 2011 Nordic noir TV

which was first announced at Cannes in 2016.

Adapted from Walsh’s 2009 autobiographical book Gypsy Boy and its 2011 sequel Gypsy Boy: On The Run, the film is set among the Romany Gypsy community in the UK and follows the Walsh family, who were known for their prowess in the boxing ring. Cumberbatch will play Mikey’s father Frank Walsh, who pressures his son (who is gay) to maintain the family’s bare-knuckle boxing tradition. As he grows into his teens, Mikey is forced to make an agonising deci-

TODAY

Baskin’s Evrenol attracts AMP, XYZ Films to cult of Housewife

BY ANDREAS WISEMAN

London-based AMP International is launching international sales on Housewife, the English-language debut of Turkish filmmaker Can Evrenol. XYZ Films has also come on board to represent North America. The completed film is the second feature for Evrenol, whose 2015 breakout horror hit Baskin played in TIFF’S Midnight Madness and scored multiple deals, including

with IFC Midnight for the US. Housewife tells the story of a woman whose traumatic past is brought hurtling into the present when she meets the charismatic leader of a cult. Producers are Müge Büyüktalas of MO Film, Erhan Ozogul of Anka Film and Metin Anter of Chantier Films who also provided finance. Clément Lepoutre, Gary Farkas and Olivier Muller of France’s Vixens co-produced.

Freeman proofs John Moore’s Manuscript Morgan Freeman has signed on to star in John Moore’s The Manuscript, a high-concept thriller that Highland Film Group and CAA are introducing to buyers here. Production on the cat-andmouse thriller is set to begin on October 9 with Freeman playing an imprisoned genius who uses clues in the manuscript of his memoir to guide a book editor to a missing diamond stash. Moore will direct from a screenplay by Louis Rosenberg and Joe Rosenbaum. Mike Witherill and Mark Williams are producing and The Fyzz Facility is financing.

Jeremy Kay

NEWS

Indie Sales has unveiled a raft of sales on Russian director Klim Shipenko’s space-station drama Salyut-7. Buyers for the film include nascent French pay-TV channel Altice Studio, which has pay TV rights for France; AB Vidéo acquired French DVD and VoD rights in a separate deal.

The $15m production has also sold to Germany/Austria (Tele München), Italy (Blue Swan Entertainment), Japan (Culture Entertainment), South Korea (Jinjin Pictures) and China (Beijing Turbo Film).

The film is based on the true, Cold War-era story of two cosmonauts who repaired the Soviet space station Salyut-7 after it malfunctioned.

The feature, which has a private industry screening here on Saturday, is set to be released in Russia by Nashe Kino on more than 1,600 prints on October 12.

Melanie Goodfellow

Altitude climbs aboard Carmilla

F LO IRS OK T

Indie Sales docks with Salyut-7

BY TOM GRATER

Ivenko steps into Nureyev’s slippers

BY TOM GRATER

Pictured in the first official image from the film, Oleg Ivenko stars as acclaimed ballet dancer Rudolf Nureyev in Ralph Fiennes’ biopic The White Crow.

The project is currently shooting at locations that were touchstones in Nureyev’s own life

including Sainte-Chapelle, the Louvre and Palais Garnier in Paris, and the Mariinsky Theatre and Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg.

Gabrielle Tana is producing with Carolyn Marks Blackwood, Francois Ivernel and Andrew Levitas, who is also providing

finance through his company Rogue Black. The Fyzz Facility is co-financing The White Crow with Wayne Marc Godfrey and Robert Jones executive producing alongside Rose Garnett and Joe Oppenheimer of BBC Films. HanWay Films is handling sales here in Toronto.

Altitude Film Sales has boarded international sales on Carmilla, a UK gothic drama that starts shooting on Monday. The company, which will be introducing the project to buyers at TIFF, has also pre-bought UK rights and will release under its Altitude Film Distribution banner.

Inspired by Sheridan Le Fanu’s 1871 novel, the film marks the solo feature debut of writer-director Emily Harris. Producers are Lizzie Brown of Bird Flight Films and Emily Precious of Fred Films.

Set in the late 18th century, the story follows a teenage girl, living in isolation, who strikes up a passionate relationship with the titular Carmilla. The cast includes Jessica Raine, Tobias Menzies, Devrim Lingnau, Hannah Rae and Greg Wise. Mike Runagall of Altitude said: “Harris, Brown and Precious have concocted a bold and original take on a genre that holds an eternal fascination for audiences around the world.”

EXECUTIVE FOCUS JOHN SLOSS, CINETIC MEDIA

What is on the agenda at Cinetic today?

One of the challenges of Cinetic is that we do so many different things. We are trying to clarify that message and build on our existing business. Management is at the heart of that realignment. We

‘It’s the wild west right now. As long as we stay close to the creators, we’ll be fine’ John Sloss, Cinetic Media

John Sloss (right) with IFC Films president Jonathan Sehring

finally opened a Los Angeles management office this year.

Has it been frustrating for you how the agencies have moved into the domestic indie sales space you once dominated?

I can’t blame the agencies. They got the idea that if they’re supplying talent to a movie then they can insist on selling that movie. That’s become something they have become very effective at doing, almost controlling the market. I would be lying if I said it wasn’t a source of frustra-

4 Screen International at Toronto September 8, 2017

tion but I wouldn’t want to dwell on those kinds of things. We’ve pivoted and we still sell at least 50% of the documentaries that get into the marketplace.

What is the outlook for the sales business?

In the short term, the future is very rosy.

There’s a lot of money chasing content.

Unless piracy puts us out of business, it’s all good. Digital transactions haven’t filled the gap of DVDs but Netflix, Amazon Prime and Hulu are very well funded, they are providing a lot of the momentum

that’s in the space now. We’ll see what happens with the consumer brands getting more involved. It’s the wild west right now. As long as we stay close to the creators, we’ll be fine.

What’s your take on Apple’s growth in the content space?

I’m in the middle of a negotiation with Apple over a movie. Brands are going to have to figure out how to convey their message in ways other than traditional advertising slots. We’re entering a very interesting period in that regard.

Has Facebook come calling in the same vein?

Yes. We’re developing a project with them. It’s a big-budget limited series. If it goes ahead, it’s going to be sensational.

Andreas Wiseman

www.screendaily.com

Alamy

In many ways Cinetic CEO John Sloss pioneered the domestic sales business as it is known today. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, Sloss’s legal background, aggressive deal-making style and connection to emerging talent and A-list festivals put him at the heart of the US independent industry. He became known for getting top dollar from buyers for modestly budgeted movies that often went on to become critical and commercial hits, including Napoleon Dynamite, Super Size Me, Little Miss Sunshine, Precious and The Kids Are All Right. However, with the growth of the agencies into the sales space, the executive and his versatile New York-based mini-studio — which operates in sales, legal representation, management, publicity, distribution and production — are at a crossroads. He speaks to Screen International about industry changes and the new landscape.

GLOBAL SCREEN PRESENTS AT TORONTO 2017

“A POWERFUL EX AMINATION OF IMMIGRATION AND HUMAN RIGHTS TODAY” “STYLISH, WELL-ACTED”

FR OM TH E ACCL A IM E D PRODUCERS OF ACADEMY AWARD ® WINNING

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TORONTO STAR

TODAY 9:45 AM SCOTIABANK 10 PRESS & INDUSTRY SCREENING TOMORROW 7:00 PM SCOTIABANK 14 INTERNATIONAL PREMIERE

OPUS FILM FAMILY AFFAIR FILMS AND EC1 ŁóDŹ - THE CITY OF CULTURE PRESENT A FILM BY URSZULA ANTONIAK “BEYOND WORDS” WITH JAKUB GIERSZAŁ ANDRZEJ CHYRA CHRISTIAN LöBER JUSTYNA WASILEWSKA DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY LENNERT HILLEGE NSC PRODUCTION DESIGN MIREN OLLER KATARZYNA JĘDRZEJCZYK COSTUMES PAULINA SIENIARSKA HELEEN HEINTJES MAKE-UP ANNA KIESZCZYŃSKA EDITOR MILENIA FIEDLER PSM SOUND DESIGN JAN SCHERMER LINE PRODUCERS ALEKSANDRA SKRABA CHRIS STENGER PRODUCERS ŁUKASZ DZIĘCIOŁ PIOTR DZIĘCIOŁ NOORTJE WILSCHUT FLOOR ONRUST WRITTEN AND DIRECTED BY URSZULA ANTONIAK THIS FILM WAS MADE WITH THE SUPPORT OF THE POLISH FILM INSTITUTE THE NETHERLANDS FILM FUND THE NETHERLANDS PRODUCTION INCENTIVE AND EURIMAGES WORLD SALES GLOBAL SCREEN

CONTACT IN TORONTO Klaus Rasmussen | C + 49 172 3164256 | klaus.rasmussen@globalscreen.de | www.globalscreen.de

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NEWS

Janus snaps up Kiarostami’s 24 Frames

BY JEREMY KAY

Janus Films has acquired North American and UK rights to Iranian filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami’s final film 24 Frames, following its world premiere at Cannes in May. Ahmad Kiarostami and CG Cinema’s Charles Gillibert produced the experimental project, which the late director shot over three years and comprises 24 four-and-a-half-minute films inspired by photographs from Kiarostami’s personal collection.

Janus Films, which distributes Criterion’s films theatrically, plans major theatrical releases next year in North America and the UK after negotiating the deal with Gillibert. Criterion’s Peter Becker said the company will embark on restoration work on select Kiarostami films later in 2018.

Argentina plots incentive

BY JEREMY KAY

Efforts to create Argentina’s first national film and TV incentive are expected to come to fruition later this year. Behind-the-scenes work to this effect by national film body INCAA and film commissioner Ana Aizenberg reflect a mood of heightened optimism in Toronto, where Lucrecia Martel’s Zama leads a contingent of more than 10 films in official selection.

INCAA vice-president Fernando Juan Lima, a legal judge and longtime film critic who assumed his post last month, is attending TIFF where he chose to accentuate the positives despite an ongoing government investigation into corruption allegations that forced out INCAA president Alejandro Caccetta in April.

Anticipation is high for a slimmed-down 32nd Mar Del

Plata Festival (November 17-26), which will present roughly 300 features compared to 450 in 2016; Mar Del Plata’s new artistic director Peter Scarlet is in Toronto scouring for titles.

“We want to strengthen our cultural and economic bonds with international co-production partners, and Mar Del Plata and Ventana Sur are important in this,” Lima said.

Picturehouse arrives Out Of Blue

BY ANDREAS WISEMAN

UK distributor Picturehouse Entertainment has swooped on UK rights to Carol Morley’s crime drama Out Of Blue, which is due to start production this autumn in New Orleans. Patricia Clarkson, Mamie Gummer and Teyonah Parris star.

Based on Martin Amis’s detective novel Night Train, the film will star Clarkson as homicide detective Mike Hoolihan, who investigates the shooting of a leading astrophysicist and black-hole expert and finds herself affected in ways she struggles to comprehend.

Developed with the support of the

UKRAINE I S YO U R D E S T I N AT I O N

BFI and BBC Films, the film will be produced by Luc Roeg and Cairo Cannon and is being sold worldwide by UK-based Independent.

The deal was negotiated by Nada Cirjanic on behalf of Independent and Paul Ridd and Clare Binns on behalf of Picturehouse Entertainment.

TORONTO BRIEFS Voltage ups Cocean Voltage Pictures CEO Nicolas Chartier and COO Jonathan Deckter have promoted Alexandra Cocean to executive vice-president of international sales and distribution.

Cocean, in Toronto to talk up sales titles Singularity, Welcome Home, I Feel Pretty and Distorted, most recently served as senior vicepresident of international sales.

Filmatique makes Canada bow with Norway focus New York-based streaming platform Filmatique has launched in Canada with a month-long focus on films about women in Norway. The service, founded by Lorenzo Fiuzzi, Melinda Prisco and Ursula Grisham, is kicking off with Norwegian screenwriter Eskil Vogt’s feature debut Blind.

Filmatique launched in 2016 to champion world cinema that might ordinarily struggle to secure distribution.

S u n d ay, S e p t e m b e r 1 0 , 1 2 a . m .

T h o m s o n Ro o m , T h e H ya t t Re ge n c y H o t e l D I S COV E R U K R A I N E – p re s e n t a t i o n o f U k r a i n e a s a f i l m l o c a t i o n w i t h a n e w l e g i s l a t i ve e n v i ro n m e n t , a r s e n a l o f m o d e r n s e r v i ce s a n d p ro d u c t i o n f a c i l i t i e s M o n d ay, S e p t e m b e r 1 1 , 9 p . m .

T I F F B e l l L i g h t b ox , C i n e m a 5 P R I VAT E S C R E E N I N G o f U k r a i n e' s o f f i c i a l c a n d i d a t e fo r B e s t Fo re i g n L a n g u a ge F i l m A c a d e m y Awa rd N o m i n a t i o n – B L AC K L E V E L (d i r. Va l e n t y n Va sya n ov yc h , 2 0 1 7, 9 1 m i n) TIFF-UKRAINE.ORG

St a n d #2 0 , I n d u s t r y O f f i ce L o c a t i o n , T h e H ya t t Re ge n c y H o t e l , 3 7 0 K i n g St re e t We s t , To ro n t o

6 Screen International at Toronto September 8, 2017

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ANN S KE LL Y

R YAN L IN C O LN

A F ILM B Y A O IFE M C A RD LE

FRI 08 SEPT |

21:30PM TIFF BELL LIGHTBOX CINEMA 1 | PUBLIC

SAT 09 SEPT | SUN 10 SEPT |

18:30PM SCOTIABANK 9 | P&I

21:45PM SCOTIABANK 4 | PUBLIC

THURS 14 SEPT |

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World Sales: FILM CONSTELLATION | TORONTO | 9TH FLOOR | HYATT | UK FILM | T: +447984 523 163 | E: sales@filmconstellation.com

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REVIEWS

» Borg/McEnroe p10 » Grace Jones: Bloodlight And Bami p12

Reviews edited by Fionnuala Halligan finn.halligan@screendaily.com

» Suburbicon p12

» Lean On Pete p14 » Zama p14 » Brawl In Cell Block 99 p16 » Racer And The Jailbird p16

Borg/McEnroe Reviewed by Fionnuala Halligan If you can’t remember the result of the 1980 Wimbledon men’s final between Bjorn Borg and John McEnroe, it’s best to keep it that way before viewing Borg/McEnroe, a film served best at fuzzy memories, with a climactic recreation spliced as nicely as the game itself. Janus Metz powers a biopic straight down the sideline — some on-the-nose dialogue kicks up the powder (“Can either man take any more punishment!?”), but SF Studios’ period drama is a love-all crowdpleaser for the most part, more Borg than McEnroe thanks to an arresting performance from lookalike Sverrir Gudnason.

This Nordic production is more nuanced and sure-footed when it comes to the depiction of its Swedish hero as he approaches a record fifth Wimbledon title at the age of 24, although this does come at the expense of McEnroe’s character despite Shia LaBeouf’s solid turn. Sold-out internationally by SF Studios, this Toronto dual-language opening title is likely to play best in Nordic co-production markets and the UK in particular when it opens September 22. Neon will distribute in the US, where the tennis market is big and under-served — until this year, when Fox will release Battle Of The Sexes within months.

Ronnie Sandahl’s screenplay is built around the idea that the Swedish ‘Ice Borg’ and the

10 Screen International at Toronto September 8, 2017

GALA PRESENTATION, OPENING FILM Swe-Den-Fin. 2017.

110mins Director Janus Metz Production company/ international sales SF Studios Producers Jon Nohrstedt, Fredrik Wikström Nicastro Executive producer Tim King Screenplay Ronnie Sandahl Cinematography Niels Thastum Editors Per Sandholt, Per K Kirkegaard Music Jonas Struck, Vladislav Delay, Jon Ekstrand, Carl-Johan Sevedag Main cast Sverrir Gudnason, Shia LaBeouf, Stellan Skarsgard, Tuva Novotny, Ian Blackman, Robert Emms

uncontrolled New York ‘Super Brat’ had more in common than previously realised: that the tousled, volatile McEnroe and the cool, introspective Borg were fundamentally alike. Yet we learn that Borg had to learn his self-control after a difficult time as a teenager when he also would throw his racket around in a rage, his mentor instructing him to “be like a pressure cooker and block everything else out”. Now it looks as if he also may blow.

Three actors take on the role of Borg — one is the tennis legend’s own son Leo — and Stellan Skarsgard sports a fantastic period combover as the player’s coach Lennart Bergelin. Over in Queens, New York, McEnroe has a domineering father and, later on, a larger-than-life friend in tennis champion Vitas Gerulaitis (Robert Emms, delivering helpfully expository dialogue about rival Borg’s neuroses).

With nylon tracksuits, quaint headbands, wooden rackets and recreations of Studio 54, we follow the action from 1979, with young Borg trapped by his fame in the tax-free haven of Monaco and shaken by the pressure of the upcoming Wimbledon tournament. It was a time when tennis players were treated like rock stars, and Borg was beset by fans. McEnroe, meanwhile, is the thrusting young upstart whose foul-mouthed diatribes are at odds with this gentleman’s game. Both are beset by inner

demons on the way to that match, one of the greatest games of all time.

Metz flashes back and forward as the matches tick down to the vital game. We revisit Borg’s childhood in the town of Sodertslje, near Stockholm. Gifted from an early age, he was almost as talented at hockey as tennis, and could have ended up in that sport when his temper saw him thrown out of the local tennis leagues. His family was also poor, and a victim of the sport’s inherent snobbery. Spotted by Bergelin, who nurtured and acted as a surrogate father, Borg learned to control himself with an almost OCDlike set of routines, including lowering the room temperature and his pulse.

McEnroe, meanwhile, is given shorter shrift.

LaBeouf is perfect casting for the adult player, but his childhood is not awarded anywhere near the time or effort allotted to the Swedish champion. Both real-life tennis legends apparently read the script, though it would be interesting to hear what McEnroe thinks about a locker-room sequence in which he is shown using dirty psychological tricks against a friend and opponent.

Borg/McEnroe shot in Sweden, the Czech Republic — where Centre Court was recreated in Prague — and London. While the score is efficient, editing by Per Sandholt and Per K Kirkegaard during the climactic match impresses the most.

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Film i Väst congratulates its co-productions in

Opening Gala BORG/MCENROE Janus Metz

Gala Presentations

Gala Presentations

Special Presentations

Special Presentations

Special Presentations

Platform

Contemporary World Cinema

Discovery

Short Cuts

CHAPPAQUIDDICK John Curran

THELMA Joachim Trier

A CIAMBRA Jonas Carpignano

THE WIFE Björn Runge

YOU DISAPPEAR Peter SchØnau Fog

RAVENS Jens Assur

THE SQUARE Ruben Östlund

WHAT WILL PEOPLE SAY Iram Haq

MY BURDEN Niki Lindroth von Bahr

Your Scandinavian Partner in Co-Productions Since 1992 Film i Väst has co-produced more than 1 000 feature films, TV-dramas, shorts & documentaries. Film i Väst is one of Europe’s leading regional film funds, located on the Swedish west coast in Västra Götaland. Film i Väst is active as co-producer and investor in international and Swedish film and TV-drama. Film i Väst is a part of Region Västra Götaland. www.filmivast.se/com

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REVIEWS

Suburbicon Reviewed by Fionnuala Halligan

Grace Jones: Bloodlight And Bami Reviewed by Fionnuala Halligan At almost 70, Grace Jones inhabits that space in the musical Venn diagram where disco, performance art and cinema intersect. Sophie Fiennes’ intuitive, full-throated documentary is a meditation on a singular performer, if the shock of Jones in full-flight can be described as such.

Jones’ tough Jamaican roots lash around her remarkable career and bind her to a troubled home and past. Fiennes’ camera follows her, entranced, but never pulls ahead into the lead. This is Grace Jones, after all: it’s her show.

Fiennes’ interweaving of Jones’ hypnotic stage show — shot in Dublin — with off-the-cuff footage results in a seductive performance piece that should play strongly on the festival circuit after its Venice launch. Her obstinate refusal to follow bio-doc convention and present old footage, despite Jones’ status as a 1970s and ’80s icon, makes Bloodlight And Bami all the more intriguing, but perhaps a harder sell in the commercial marketplace where it may work best as an event item.

With hats designed by Philip Treacy, Jones takes her film hostage from the get-go. She is always on the move, whether strutting like a peacock on her famously elongated pins or swirling a hula hoop clad simply in a formfitting basque; wheedling, cajoling and threatening in the recording studio; clutching an ever-present glass of champagne; or visiting her churchgoing mum in Jamaica.

Bloodlight And Bami — Jamaican patois for the red light of the recording studio and bread, the manna of life — is shaped around Jones’ road trip across Jamaica with her son Paulo and niece Chantel, which is interweaved with footage of both Jones’ stage show and her private life.

She is shown to be both tough and vulnerable. She won’t perform unless you pay her in advance, and some of the corporate gigs she plays — to earn the money to record, she points out — are depressingly cheesy. She is more badly behaved than her son, as nightclub footage clearly demonstrates, yet she is vulnerable and open when it comes to French photographer Jean-Paul Goude, Paolo’s father and the man who helped create her iconic image.

Jones mesmerises in the concert footage. She comes across as spirited, still wild and intimidating and a marvel, really, all the more so now that time has refined and enhanced her unflagging lust for life. Fiennes delivers a documentary which captures that spirit in a way that is cinematic and rousing.

12 Screen International at Toronto September 8, 2017

TIFF DOCS UK-Ire. 2017. 115mins Director/editor Sophie Fiennes Production companies Sligoville, Amoeba Films, Blinderville International sales WestEnd Films Producers Sophie Fiennes, Beverly Jones, Shani Hinton, Katie Holly Executive producers Christine Langan, Joe Oppenheimer, Lizzie Francke, Keith Potter, Francesca von Habsburg, Danielle Ryan, Alan Maher, James Wilson, Emilie Blézat Cinematography Remko Schnorr Musical director Ivor Guest Featuring Grace Jones, Jean-Paul Goude, Sly Dunbar, Robbie Shakespeare, Ivor Guest

This year in particular, the American dream of the 1950s is being recast as built on foundations of racism and greed, whether that is the rotten core of fast food in The Founder, the ignored black mathematicians of the space race in Hidden Figures or the suburban family dream of writers Joel and Ethan Coen’s darkly comic Suburbicon, brought to the screen by director/co-writer George Clooney and partner Grant Heslov.

Suburbicon is a solid piece, even if it never quite reaches the bleak heights its set-up promises. Not entirely in command of the film’s overall tone, and awkwardly grafting a race-riot plot onto a dark family drama with Matt Damon and a miscast Julianne Moore, Clooney returns to the timeframe of his greatest success as a director, Good Night, And Good Luck. Production values are pin-point perfect and Suburbicon will be helped by its cast and Clooney’s household name.

An inspired, semi-animated prologue introduces the viewer to the town of Suburbicon, a slice of American heaven built in 1947 and now — 1959 — home to 60,000 souls, all of them white. When a black family moves in, angry residents want them out, and now. Next door, sisters Margaret and wheelchair-bound Rose (both played by Moore) watch the family arrive, and Margaret sends her nephew Nicky (Noah Jupe) to play baseball with their son.

Two narratives now play out, and it is no surprise to read in the film’s production notes that they were written separately. The original Coen brothers script centres on the Lodge family, headed up by embattled patriarch Gardner (Damon), while Clooney and Heslov add an adapted-from-real-life strand based around what actually happened when a black family moved into Levittown, Pennsylvania in 1957.

Damon makes a strong mark as Gardner Lodge, husband of Rose: physically, the actor looks like a rock of support for the family. But this rock has fissures, and the clues begin to mount when Rose is killed as part of a burglary. Moore seems miscast in the dual role.

Over in the second plot, Karimah Westbrook does as much as could possibly be asked with the little she is given as embattled neighbour Mrs Meyer. The sight of the Confederate flag waving on her doorstep is suddenly alive again given recent events in the US, and Suburbicon is all the more troubling because of it.

SPECIAL PRESENTATIONS US. 2017. 105mins Director George Clooney Production companies Dark Castle, Smokehouse Pictures International sales Bloom Media Producers George Clooney, Grant Heslov, Teddy Schwarzman Executive producers Joel Silver, Hal Sadoff, Ethan Erwin, Barbara A Hall, Daniel Steinman Screenplay Joel Coen, Ethan Coen, George Clooney, Grant Heslov Cinematography Robert Elswit Production design James D Bissell Editor Stephen Mirrione Music Alexandre Desplat Main cast Matt Damon, Julianne Moore, Noah Jupe, Glenn Fleshler, Alex Hassell, Gary Basaraba, Oscar Isaac

www.screendaily.com

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WORLD SALES Attending TIFF : Laurent DANIELOU Mob +33 6 64 20 91 60 laurent.danielou@loco-films.com Head Office : 42 rue Sedaine 75011 PARIS

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REVIEWS

Zama Reviewed by Fionnuala Halligan

Lean On Pete Reviewed by Wendy Ide A 15-year-old boy and a broken-down race horse find themselves travelling companions in the fourth feature from Andrew Haigh, adapted from the novel by Willy Vlautin. This sparse, evocative portrait of lives of quiet desperation juxtaposed against the endless possibility of America’s wide open mid-western vistas is a striking change after the deft intimacy of Weekend and 45 Years.

The indie stalwart cast, acclaimed source material and Haigh’s heat from his previous two films should ensure healthy interest on the festival and arthouse circuits.

And given Charlotte Rampling’s Oscar nomination for 45 Years, the film might even register on the awards radar. Word of mouth is likely to be positive, although it could be tempered by a few too many scenic longueurs.

Charlie (Charlie Plummer) is a disarmingly sweet central character. Not yet hardened by the betrayals of his early life — his mother walked out on him as a child; his father struggles to put food in the fridge — Charlie’s dreams have been downgraded to something as inconsequential as the chance to stay at one school long enough to play on the football team. On one of his daily runs through the industrial sprawl of Portland’s suburbs, Charlie stumbles on a racetrack. There he meets unscrupulous horse owner Dell (Steve Buscemi, all hard vowels and harder drinking), who offers Charlie some casual work. In Dell, the boy finds a dysfunctional father figure, but it is in his horse, a chestnut gelding called Lean On Pete, that Charlie finds a purpose.

The bond between desperate human and animal is just one of the similarities the film has with Kelly Reichardt’s Wendy And Lucy, another being the clear-eyed insight into the hand-to-mouth existence that can topple under onetoo-many pieces of bad luck. For Charlie, this moment comes when his father falls foul of his girlfriend’s ex. To make matters worse, the horse faces an uncertain fate. On impulse, Charlie takes Dell’s truck and trailer and drives east with Pete, hoping to reconnect with his aunt.

Magnus Joenck’s cinematography makes striking use of various permutations of the boy-and-horse-silhouettedagainst-the-skyline shot. But it is in the more intimate camerawork that we find the heart of the film: in Charlie’s heartbreaking, hopeful profile; in a shot of him scrutinising his own face in a mirror to see if the horrible things he has had to do to survive have started to leave their mark.

14 Screen International at Toronto September 8, 2017

SPECIAL PRESENTATIONS US-UK. 2017. 119mins Director/screenplay Andrew Haigh Production company The Bureau International sales The Bureau Sales, Celluloid Dreams Producer Tristan Goligher Cinematographer Magnus Joenck Editor Jonathan Alberts Production design Ryan Warren Smith Music James Edward Barker Main cast Charlie Plummer, Steve Buscemi, Chloë Sevigny, Travis Fimmel, Steve Zahn

After a nine-year absence, Argentina’s Lucrecia Martel returns to the screen with an uncompromising adaptation of Antonio Di Benedetto’s 1956 novel that is defiant in its inscrutability. Trapped in a colonial outpost in what is now Paraguay, the locally born magistrate Diego de Zama (Daniel Gimenez Cacho) is waiting endlessly for a transfer that will take him out of his tropical malady.

While Martel’s narratives — especially her last, The Headless Woman — have always been elusive, Zama is uncompromising in the way it sets out its stall. The film’s tortured progress to the screen is often mimicked in its tone. As nearly two hours pass and the dogged Diego de Zama realises his goal may never come to pass, Martel’s visual thread also frays. Often the audience cannot see the person who is speaking; frequently the dialogue is not translated; some footage is speeded-up, other interludes pass slowly. It is confusing and heavy and bears down hard, until a third-act swerve throws in colours and movement and spins the viewer out of the theatre in wonder.

Clad in a tricorn hat, a dilapidated brocade waistcoat and stained linen shirts, Zama is the Crown’s magistrate in this godforsaken outpost of the Spanish colonial empire, and he will do anything to be transferred to Lerma. There is mention of a wife and children, but he is attracted to various women. He stays in a guest house where three daughters flit around in their nightclothes, and he makes bad decisions.

Martel casually depicts brutal mistreatment of the era in ways that resound: from slaves who cannot walk for flayed feet, to the adults who carry a malaria-plagued trader and his son on their backs. Sharply droning music underscores some interludes, later to be replaced by more jaunty, anachronistic melodies. This Kafkaesque roiling only comes to an end when Zama grasps his own fate and moves towards a local criminal called Vicuna Porto, who may be real or could be just a manifestation of the fevered symbolism of the piece.

Zama differs radically from Martel’s previous work by taking on a more overtly mythic feel. Concluding sequences are almost unreal, but visually transfixing.

Like her films, this director continues to be an elusive talent to pin down. It seems impossible to guess what she will turn to next: judging from Zama, it is not at all certain it will be cinema that we are familiar with.

MASTERS Arg-Bra. 2017. 115mins Director/screenplay Lucrecia Martel Production companies Rei Cine, Bananeira Films International sales The Match Factory Producers Benjamin Domenech, Santiago Gallelli, Matias Roveda, Vania Catani Executive producers Pablo Cruz, Gael Garcia Bernal, Diego Luna, Angelisa Stein Cinematography Rui Pocas Editors Miguel Schverdfinger, Karen Harley Production design Renata Pinheiro Main cast Daniel Gimenez Cacho, Lola Dueñas, Matheus Nachtergaele, Juan Minujin, Rafael Spregelburd, Mariana Nunes

www.screendaily.com

Discover Irish Film at TIFF Special Presentation

Special Presentation

— The Cured Director David Freyne

— The Breadwinner Director Nora Twomey

Contemporary World Cinema

— The Lodgers Director Brian O’Malley Special Presentation

— The Killing of a Sacred Deer Director Yorgos Lanthimos

Contemporary World Cinema

— Good Favour Director Rebecca Daly TIFF Docs

— Grace Jones: Bloodlight and Bami Director Sophie Fiennes

www.irishfilmboard.ie

Discovery

— Kissing Candice Director Aoife McArdle Gala Presentation

— Mary Shelley Director Haifaa Al-Mansour

REVIEWS

Racer And The Jailbird Reviewed by Fionnuala Halligan

Brawl in Cell Block 99 Reviewed by Lee Marshall Opening shot, opening joke: a can of lite beer is crushed under the wheels of Vince Vaughn’s pick-up truck. The implication, which will come home to roost in the stomach-churning final half hour of this arthouse-exploitation prison drama, is that lite-weights should leave the room.

Brawl In Cell Block 99 is firmly in the same fanboy, frightfest niche as Bone Tomahawk, S Craig Zahler’s 2015 horror western debut — which is probably why RLJE Films has chosen to release it on VoD in the US on 13 October, a week after its limited theatrical opening. One thing, however, does stand out about Brawl: the counterintuitive soundtrack of 1970s-style soul tracks, written by the director and his composer Jeff Herriott, and performed in large part by soul legends The O’Jays.

This is Vaughn’s film as much as Zahler’s. Out-badassing the tough sergeant he played in Hacksaw Ridge, the actor plays bulky hardcase Bradley. We know he is on a short fuse, but we also know he has some rules because when he discovers his wife Lauren (Jennifer Carpenter) has been cheating on him on the same day he is laid off from his job at an auto-repair shop, he beats up her car rather than lay into her.

Eighteen months later Lauren’s expecting, and the couple are living in a nice house — thanks to Bradley’s new job as a courier for a local drug lord. The road from here to prison passes through a shoot-out where patriotic Bradley saves police lives by taking out a couple of double-crossing Mexican associates, but he still gets sent down for seven years.

What follows is an intriguing but not entirely successful mix of austere prison procedural and schlocky B-movie. That moves into top gear when Lauren is kidnapped by the Mexican drug baron Bradley doublecrossed, and he is forced to get himself committed to Red Leaf, a notorious, fictitious New York high-security facility — headed by a sadistic Don Johnson — in order to rub out an inmate the boss wants dead.

It is here Brawl begins to move into lurid genre territory. Cue bone-crunching fight sequences, oddly lumbering in their choreography but perhaps all the more authentic because of it. Vaughn brings a tenderness to the role of a man forced into animal violence for the sake of love, and the rangy anarchy of Zahler’s deeply kooky film gets under the skin at times.

16 Screen International at Toronto September 8, 2017

MIDNIGHT MADNESS US. 2017. 136mins Director/screenplay S Craig Zahler Production companies Assemble Media, Cinestate, IMG Films, XYZ Films International sales XYZ Films Producers Jack Heller, Dallas Sonnier Cinematography Benji Bakshi Production design Fredrick Waff Editor Greg D’Auria Music Jeff Herriott, S Craig Zahler Main cast Vince Vaughn, Jennifer Carpenter, Marc Blucas, Udo Kier, Don Johnson

Racer And The Jailbird pairs the sizzling-hot chemistry of Matthias Schoenaerts and Adele Exarchopoulos with the film-making brio of Michael R Roskam (Bullhead).

Add a script credited in part to Thomas Bidegain (Les Cowboys, A Prophet) and it seems as if nothing could possibly go wrong, and even if it did, who would mind?

While that is a fair summation of the best part of this film, an indulgent running time and a plot that wildly over-stretches sees Racer ultimately bounce off the rails.

Belgian director Roskam says this is the second part of a trilogy that started with 2011’s muscular Bullhead.

His taut style is certainly recognisable, and they share the same charismatic lead actor in Schoenaerts. This time he is paired with the equally magnetic Exarchopoulos; their chemistry is wonderfully romantic as well as unabashedly sexy, and they are believable as a bank robber and his racing-car driver girlfriend. The stretches the script makes with their mismatched love story will not, however, be quite so easy to accept.

Pre-credits we see a young Gino (Schoenaerts) fleeing squalid conditions; cut to a racetrack where the adult Gino meets talented driver Benedicte, or Bibi (Exarchopoulos). They connect, and rapidly fall in love. He is a little shifty about what he does, and it is no surprise when he turns out to be the leader of a gang that robs banks.

Racer And The Jailbird is not about a racer and a jailbird in the strictest sense, because Bibi only gets in a car when it suits the narrative for some fast driving, and she is quick to leave the track behind when matters of the heart come calling. It is more a case of ‘The Girlfriend And The Jailbird’, and even Schoenaerts and Exarchopoulos cannot quite extend that old chestnut over 130 stylish minutes.

Roskam, though, has a unique and biting power: you know you are in his film, as nothing else quite looks or feels like this. When Racer is following Bullhead in its probing of gangster culture, whether they be Belgianborn or Albanian, it has menacing authenticity. Mixing this grit with a sexy, old-school film romance might have worked, if the story took fewer leaps.

Consistently stylish throughout, though, Racer powers up on speed and pushes adrenaline. It ends with a bravura sequence through Brussels streets at night that plays out like it was a joy for Roskam’s longtime cinematographer Nicolas Karakatsanis to shoot: it certainly is to watch.

SPECIAL PRESENTATIONS Fr-Bel. 2017. 130mins Director Michael R Roskam Production companies Stone Angels, Savage Films International sales Wild Bunch Producers Bart Van Langendonck, Pierre-Ange Le Pogam Screenplay Thomas Bidegain, Noe Debre, Michael R Roskam Cinematography Nicolas Karakatsanis Editor Alain Dessauvage Production design Geert Paredis Music Raf Keunen Main cast Matthias Schoenaerts, Adele Exarchopoulos, JeanBenoit Ugeux, Nabil Missoumi, Thomas Coumans, Nathalie Van Tongelen

www.screendaily.com

GUTLAND

Discovery

directed by

Govinda Van Maele produced by

Les Films Fauves

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THE BREADWINNER

Films made in Luxembourg at #TIFF2017 Contact @ TIFF:

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SPOTLIGHT EMBANKMENT FILMS

‘We’re producing a global financing map — which path to take to get this into production and distribution’ Hugo Grumbar, Embankment Films

Andrew Garfield and Claire Foy in Andy Serkis’s Breathe

The converters

UK-based sales-finance outfit Embankment Films is celebrating its fifth anniversary with four films at TIFF, including Breathe and Submergence.

Matt Mueller speaks to co-founders Tim Haslam and Hugo Grumbar

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rom a tiny cubby-hole office in Noho, sharing a single desk between them, Embankment Films founding partners Tim Haslam and Hugo Grumbar have grown their UK-based company into a high-flying player in the international sales and financing realm.

Celebrating their fifth anniversary this year, Embankment has also stepped it up in 2017, with 10 films already or due to be delivered and their 26th and 27th productions, Red Joan and Ride Like A Girl, recently greenlit. Four of those 10 titles are world-premiering here at TIFF: Andy Serkis’s Breathe (which will also open the BFI London Film Festival in October), Wim Wenders’ Submergence, Björn Runge’s The Wife and Simon Baker’s Breath.

“This is a big moment for us, we’re very proud to be at TIFF with these four films,” says Grumbar, who first met Haslam when both were at Intermedia Films — the latter as head of sales and the former as a young marketing executive. Haslam went on to run HanWay Films as CEO for seven years while Grumbar became joint managing director at Icon UK, before they joined forces in 2012 to form Embankment.

“I bought two or three films from Tim when he was at HanWay for distribution so I knew how good he was at selling,” says Grumbar.

As well as putting up their own money,

‘We celebrate strong female voices in particular’ Tim Haslam, Embankment Films

the company was backed at the beginning by Peter Sussman and Brad Sherman, at the time owners of Aver Media, who supplied a reported $20m line of credit to fund MGs. “They took the risk and I’ll always thank them for that,” says Haslam. Diana was the new company’s first sales titles, and has been followed by Le Week-end, Boychoir, The Dressmaker and Robot Overlords.

They view the term ‘sales agent’ as archaic in today’s industry. “What we — and other companies — really do is convert IP for producers to money and to the market,” says Haslam. “We’re not producers but we are converters.” Generally, Embankment boards projects at an early stage (although Breath was a straightforward sales deal), working with producers to mould projects for different marketplaces and using pre-sales, (Right) Alicia Vikander and James McAvoy in Wim Wenders’ Submergence

18 Screen International at Toronto September 8, 2017

gap and equity financing, regional funds and tax-credit facilities to get a project to greenlight stage.

“We’re basically producing a global financing map — which path to take to get this into production and ultimately distribution,” says Grumbar. Breathe, for instance, was a project they boarded three years before finally bringing the script to market at Cannes 2016, only six weeks before Serkis and Cavendish hoped to shoot due to a brief window of availability for one of their leads, Andrew Garfield and Claire Foy. At Cannes, Embankment sold half the world and fielded five competing offers to finance the film, ultimately going with Silver Reel. Before the end of the shoot, they had also sewn up a North America deal with Bleecker Street and Participant Media.

While the company considers itself genre-agnostic, “we certainly celebrate strong female voices in particular,” notes Haslam. “We can compete for a female audience whereas it’s harder for us to compete with the broad teenage and male audience served by tentpole pictures and those

kind of budgets — so we look to compete on emotion and find themes that emotively engage an audience. Our most powerful weapon is referral.”

The Embankment duo now own their company outright, having bought out their original investors in 2015. There are two board members and their employees are shareholders. Keeping overheads low allows the company to stay nimble, with Embankment’s team of “six and a half ” — including new head of sales Calum Gray and head of acquisitions Max Pirkis — operating out of an open-plan office in west London.

“Everybody’s multi-disciplined,” says Grumbar, “and there are no partitions so everybody hears everything, which means their learning curves have been vertical and they’ve become very wellrounded executives very quickly.”

In the pipeline Future projects include Mélanie Laurent’s crime thriller Galveston starring Ben Foster and Elle Fanning, which is in post; Ian Bonhote’s Alexander McQueen documentary with Salon Pictures, also their partners on Churchill, which Embankment fully financed at Berlin’s EFM in February; Nick Hamm’s Driven, about the 1977 FBI sting that delivered the head of maverick auto-designer John DeLorean, which starts shooting this month in Puerto Rico with Jason Sudeikis and Lee Pace; and Red Joan, inspired by the story of a real-life British female traitor, starring Judi Dench and Sophie Cookson.

“We want to remain highly accessible and responsive,” says Haslam when asked to predict Embankment’s next five years. “And we want to expand our ability to convert — film, possibly television, documentaries, music. It’s taken us five years to put a sensible company together s and maintain our track record.” ■ Breathe: public screenings from Sept 11; press & industry from Sept 12 Submergence: public screenings from Sept 10; press & industry from Sept 11 The Wife: public screenings from Sept 14; press & industry from Sept 12 Breath: public screenings from Sept 10; press & industry from Sept 11

www.screendaily.com

SCREENINGS AT TIFF

OFFICIAL PREMIERE SEPT. 13 TH I 11:59 PM I Ryerson Theater PRESS & INDUSTRY SEPT. 9TH I 5:00 PM I Scotiabank 8 PUBLIC SCREENINGS SEPT. 14TH I 7:00 PM I Scotiabank 14 SEPT. 17

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I 12:30 PM I Scotiabank 11

Gilles Sousa g.sousa@bacfilms.fr

HYATT REGENCY, 1 FLOOR UNIFRANCE AREA ST

Marie Garrett m.garrett@bacfilms.fr Juliette Béchu j.bechu@bacfilms.fr

01/09/2017 11:02

SPOTLIGHT THE ORCHARD

Orchard’s rich pickings Five years after the creation of The Orchard’s film arm, the Sony-owned company is maturing into a savvy theatrical/digital player with four films here in Toronto. Jeremy Kay reports

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he carcasses of studio tentpoles lie strewn across the landscape, yet savvy distributors are finding success with curated content capable of reaching a multi-platform audience. Enter The Orchard, the 20-year-old bicoastal music distributor that branched out into film five years ago under the auspices of owner Sony Music Entertainment, and heads to TIFF with four titles in selection. The Orchard’s founders, who include Sire Records cofounder Richard Gottehrer, saw the need to offer filmmakers the same all-inclusive service they gave the music industry and brought in former Xbox Video executive and New Line Cinema executive Paul Davidson as executive vice-president of film and TV. “You speak to filmmakers and there’s a constant theme — they want to deal with one distributor who can manage everything,” Davidson says from the bright confines of the company’s Hollywood hub. “It’s very piecemeal in the industry, where you may sign with one distributor and they have to hand off other parts of your release to seven other companies.

A lot of indie distributors will put their digital through a studio. We try to keep as much of that in-house as possible.”

Only DVD is not done in-house and goes through Lionsgate.

When Davidson arrived at The Orchard in 2014, he set up a theatrical distribution apparatus to accommodate a range of filmmakers in a gradual move away from what he calls an “aggregation mentality”. The first notable acquisition was Taika Waititi’s What We Do In The Shadows at Toronto in 2014. However, the real splash came in January 2015, when the company acquired five Sundance films including The Overnight and Oscarnominated documentary Cartel Land.

“That was the moment for us to show the industry we were serious,” Davidson says.

Since then, The Orchard has snapped up the likes of Waititi’s Hunt For The Wilderpeople, which managed to be profitable on $5.2m domestic box office; current release The Hero starring Sam Elliott, which is at $4m and counting; and Kings, Denis Gamze Ergüven’s Mustang follow-up about the LA riots. Kings, which stars Halle Berry and Daniel Craig and plays here as a Gala Presentation, is

Kings

one of four films the company has in Toronto. The others are Lynn Shelton’s Outside In, Joachim Trier’s Thelma and Robin Campillo’s stirring Cannes Grand Jury prize winner, BPM (Beats Per Minute), all playing as Special Presentations.

The plan is to do 10-12 theatrical releases a year, of which two to four are typically documentaries, and several are foreign-language such as Pablo Larrain’s Chilean Oscar submission Neruda, or hail from feature debutants like Kevin Phillips and his upcoming Super Dark Times. The remainder are talent-based releases such as Oren Moverman’s ensemble drama The Dinner, with Steve Coogan and Richard Gere, or Kings. In these cases, The Orchard may book more than 500 screens nationwide.

Dynamic digital The company also releases films for brand partners like Red Bull or Scholastic Media, and has developed a robust direct-to-digital business. TIFF 2016 selections Blue Jay and Carrie Pilby performed beyond expectations, distributed across all digital, cable and satellite platforms in North America. While he declines to discuss revenue, Davidson says Carrie Pilby stayed in the top The Hero 100 of all digital

20 Screen International at Toronto September 8, 2017

‘There is an endless digital shelf for content’ Paul Davidson, The Orchard

releases in its first couple of months. The documentary Unacknowledged generated seven-figure, digital-only revenue in its first two months.

“When your success and failure depends on a handful of movies with big investment, that’s when companies go away,” Davidson says. “We like that balance and are trying to direct profitability across each category.”

Marketing spend is frugal but effective, where others have tripped up. For direct-to-digital titles, Davidson and the team ‘eventise’ the release, activating a social and grassroots base.

“There’s an endless digital shelf for content,” Davidson says.

“You have to invest in the assets creatively. Don’t buy a movie you don’t love.” For Sundance documentary pick-up Trophy, The Orchard is reaching out to biggame hunters and conservationists and working with event platform Tugg —

screenings will proceed in 130 US cities if sales targets are reached.

Pre-buys have become a significant play among smaller distributors and account for roughly a third of The Orchard’s films. Davidson moved swiftly this year in Cannes on Kings, snapping up North American rights after the team saw the promo. They did a similar thing with Moverman’s The Dinner the year before, and have pre-bought upcoming US election documentary 11/8/16, and Under The Eiffel Tower, a comedy shooting now in France. The company’s sales team is in Toronto talking to international buyers about the latter two titles.

Davidson estimates that on a narrative release, theatrical can account for 25% of overall revenues, while digital can generate 50%. At a forward-looking, data-focused company like The Orchard, he recognises the enduring value of the oldest form of film distribution. “There is still a shortage of data,” he notes, “so theatrical becomes the beginning of that lifecycle to which people look, to help s define value in later windows.” ■ Kings: public screenings from Sept 13; press & industry from Sept 15 Outside In: public screenings from Sept 8; press & industry from Sept 10 Thelma: press & industry screenings from Sept 9; public from Sept 10 BPM (Beats Per Minute): press & industry screenings from Sept 7; public from Sept 10

www.screendaily.com

SPOTLIGHT SEBASTIAN LELIO

Going the distance Sebastian Lelio brings an outsider’s eye to his English-language debut Disobedience, starring Rachel Weisz and Rachel McAdams. Jeremy Kay talks to the Chilean director with two features at TIFF

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hilean director Sebastian Lelio was glad to be a stranger in a strange land when he shot Disobedience in London at the start of the year. “I was the ultimate foreigner there because I’m not British and I’m not Jewish and this story is about a community that is very secretive and not even Londoners know well,” Lelio says.

The film is Lelio’s first to shoot outside Chile and first in English. “That alien perspective made its way into the film and allowed me to concentrate on what I usually enjoy more — what’s going on, on a human level, among the characters.”

The drama is one of two TIFF Special Presentations from Lelio, alongside Berlin sensation A Fantastic Woman, and echoes last year’s selection, when compatriot Pablo Larrain, who produced A Fantastic Woman and Lelio’s 2013 international breakout Gloria, brought Neruda and Jackie to Toronto.

Disobedience stars Rachel Weisz as a single photographer living in New York who returns to her Orthodox roots in London following the death of her rabbi father. There she rekindles a relationship with her old friend played by Rachel McAdams. Alessandro Nivola portrays the husband of McAdams’ character, next in line in the rabbinical hierarchy.

“Working in English was challenging,” the director says. “But at the end of the day, making a film is making a film wherever you are… Language was never an element and if it was, we switched into telepathic mode.”

Weisz attraction North London native Weisz had optioned the rights to Naomi Alderman’s 2006 novel and was a big attraction for Lelio, who adapted the screenplay with Ida screenwriter Rebecca Lenkiewicz. Frida Torresblanco produced for Braven Films, Weisz for HGS Productions and Ed Guiney for Element Pictures.

FilmNation co-financed Disobedience with Film4 and virtually sold out in Cannes where Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions (SPWA) took a number of territories including Latin America and Spain. Curzon Artificial Eye picked up the drama for the UK and FilmNation and WME Global represent US rights.

Strong women who cross societal

‘I was the ultimate foreigner in London.

That alien perspective made its way into Disobedience’ Sebastian Lelio, director

walls, labels and this very [narrowminded] attitude towards life,” he says.

A similar thing happened on Gloria.

The director had anticipated disapproval of 2013 Berlin Silver Bear winner Paulina Garcia’s portrayal of a middle-aged woman who visits dance clubs in search of love. Instead audiences adored the film and it propelled Lelio — who had already directed three films at home — into the international spotlight. “It changed everything,” he says. “It opened many doors and it was the first time I had real international distribution. To be able to shoot in international locations and on a different scale — all that happened because of Gloria. It was very important for me.”

Disobedience

A Fantastic Woman

boundaries have been a hallmark of Lelio’s recent work, although he insists there is no personal agenda. “I’m just following what moves me and excites me and I happen to have made these films.”

Case in point is A Fantastic Woman, which wrapped in 2016. It won the screenplay Silver Bear for Lelio and Gonzalo Maza and the best feature Teddy in Berlin, and also played Telluride. In the film, Daniela Vega plays a transgender woman who fights for her right to mourn her male lover. Participant Media’s Jeff Skoll and Jonathan Keen served as executive producers.

Sony Classics is planning an awards campaign and wa n t s Ve g a t o become the first transgender actress to get an Oscar nod.

(Right) Sebastian Lelio

22 Screen International at Toronto September 8, 2017

Lelio defines A Fantastic Woman, which Pablo and Juan de Dios Larrain’s Fabula produced with Komplizen Film, as a “trans-genre film about a transgender character” that tapped into the zeitgeist and found acceptance in Chile. “I didn’t want to make a ‘cause’ film,” he says. “I wanted it to be more complex than just the cause.”

He expected resistance from festivalgoers in Berlin, where he has lived for the past five years, and filmgoers in Catholic Chile. There was some, but mostly he saw broad acceptance. “I think it was because part of the world is just ready to connect with this attitude that aims more towards the idea of learning how to live together, rather than to go towards the direction of segregation, foreigners,

Gloria reimagined When Lelio mentions international locations, he means not just New York and London on Disobedience, but Los Angeles.

Prior to Toronto, he was in California scouting locations for his English-language reimagining of Gloria to star Julianne Moore, which he expects to start shooting later this year.

Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship still casts a shadow over Chile, and while Lelio does not address politics in his films as overtly as Larrain, it infuses his work.

The defiance of the lead character in Gloria, he claims, makes it “almost like a political manifesto”. The same with A Fantastic Woman. So how does his work relate to the history of his country?

“Everything is related and we’re observing the consequences of that trauma that defined modern Chile. The military coup divided the country and, for good or bad, defined modern Chilean history. We keep s going back to that event.” ■ Disobedience: public screenings from Sept 10; press & industry from Sept 11; A Fantastic Woman: press & industry screenings from Sept 8; public from Sept 12

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FILM IN SCOTLAND

FOR THE PERFECT LOCATION Find out about our fast, free, confidential location-finding service, award-winning production companies, experienced crew and great facilities.

Friday 8 – Tuesday 12 September UK Film Centre, Hyatt Regency Hotel

www.creativescotlandlocations.com E locations@creativescotland.com T +44 (0) 141 302 1724 Loch Trool, Galloway Forest Park, Dumfries & Galloway Photo: P. Tomkins/VisitScotland/Scottish Viewpoint

David Bloomer © Friland

ON SET CONGO

(From left) Tobias Santelmann and Aksel Hennie as Tjostolv Moland and Joshua French, with Patrick Madise as driver Abedi Kasongo

‘We’re not playing them to be freaks as they were painted in some parts of the press.

They are humans who make mistakes’ Marius Holst, director

Art of darkness I

t is sunny outside, but dark in a bush pub near Cape Town, South Africa — the scene is set with flashing Christmas lights, crates of Ugandan beer, a dozen stray dogs wandering around and hippies outside playing guitar — and at the barstools people are arguing about the complexities of central African politics. The pub is real, the beer is fake and the political conversation is scripted — the film team behind Congo is using this location to double for a backpacker bar in Kampala, Uganda, where in early 2009 Norwegians Joshua French and Tjostolv Moland were plotting their next move, into Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). That would prove to be a big mistake.

French and Moland are now household names in Norway. The two ex-soldiers were sentenced to death by a military tribunal in eastern DRC after the death of their hired driver in May 2009.

They always denied killing the 47-yearold Abedi Kasongo, saying they were ambushed by gunmen.

When director Marius Holst (The King Of Devil’s Island) was approached about directing a narrative film about French and Moland, he confesses: “I was hesitant at first. Are these characters you want to spend years of your life with?” Ultimately, he decided the film could be compelling because of “the challenge to find the humanity behind these headlines”.

“We’re not playing them to be freaks as they were painted in some parts of the press,” Holst adds. “They are humans who make mistakes.”

David Bloomer © Friland

Marius Holst’s latest film is based on the controversial true story of two Norwegians convicted of murder in Congo. Wendy Mitchell visits the set

Marius Holst (centre) on the set of Congo

The case has been headline news in Norway (and beyond — French is also a British national) since 2009. That is when producer Christian Fredrik (aka Kifrik) Martin of Oslo-based Friland Film (Headhunters, Pioneer) decided the story would make a fascinating narrative feature.

Martin had originally optioned a nonfiction book (Morten Stroksnes’ A Murder In Congo) about the pair’s ordeal; French and Moland heard about the film project and wanted to present their side of the story to Martin and screenwriter Nikolaj Frobenius. The filmmakers went to DRC starting in late 2011 to meet the pair in prison, making two more trips to interview them over the next couple of years.

Moland died in prison in August 2013; investigators agreed his death was a suicide (his mental health had been in evi-

24 Screen International at Toronto September 8, 2017

dent decline through years of the trials and imprisonment as he suffered from cerebral malaria) but nevertheless French was later charged with his murder.

When Moland died, the filmmakers thought the whole project might have to be scrapped. But, says Holst, “Then we started thinking, maybe now it’s even more powerful and important to tell.”

The two outsiders had met in the Norwegian Armed Forces, but both were kicked out. While living in Uganda in early 2009, they decided to go into DRC because they said they were researching various business opportunities; some locals suggested instead they were mercenaries for hire. Their case was complicated because they were wearing their military IDs when they were captured after the driver’s death; espionage was

one of the charges against them. “It is a story of two men,” says Holst, a London Film School alumnus. “It’s the story of a strange friendship, and trying to fit in somewhere else. Trying to find an identity and self-image.”

Actor Aksel Hennie (Headhunters, The Martian), who plays French, agrees: “This can’t just be a movie about, ‘Did they do it or did they not?’ Who are these guys who got into this situation?”

Adds co-star Tobias Santelmann (KonTiki, Hercules): “It’s about the friendship and who these two people were for each other and as individuals.”

The logistics Despite working on it for nearly eight years, it was only safe for Friland to announce the film in May 2017, when French was released for humanitarian reasons and sent home to Norway for medical treatment. To reveal the plans sooner “could have jeopardised his release”, Martin explains.

Shooting the film in DRC would not have been feasible (although the team did extensive research there). South Africa lured the shoot thanks in part to its renowned services and infrastructure and the country’s 20% tax incentive.

Congo had a budget of about $7m for its 43 total shooting days. “By Norwegian standards, the film is big,” says Martin.

“It’s incredible what we can get out of that $7m down here.” The South African partner was DO Productions, headed by Marlow de Mardt, who has previously worked on films such as Kristian Levring’s The Salvation.

Night shoots in a jungle are never easy, but these were even more crucial because the scene of the driver being shot had to be very carefully orchestrated. Another challenging scene was the trial, which had 250 extras — and a near-riot as some of those extras started talking politics in the stands as they waited for food.

As Holst says, “It’s the most complex shoot I’ve done, the material and also s the stakes.” ■ TrustNordisk is at TIFF talking to buyers about Congo info@trustnordisk.com; the film will be delivered in 2018.

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TIFF 2017

CANADA,

BIG Canada Lounge #3 TIFF Industry Centre Hyatt Regency Toronto 370 King Street West

ON TALENT.

SEE BIG. CANADA-TIFF17.CA

SCREENINGS

JURY GRID, PAGE 38

Edited by Jamie McLeish » Screening times and venues are correct at the time of going to press but subject to alteration

16:00

PUBLIC

BORG/MCENROE

SCREENINGS

(Sweden/Denmark/ Finland) 100mins.

Dir: Janus Metz. Cast: Shia LaBeouf, Stellan Skarsgard, Sverrir Gudnason.

Borg/McEnroe tells the story of the epic rivalry between Swedish tennis legend Björn Borg (Sverrir Gudnason) and his greatest adversary, the brash American John McEnroe (Shia LaBeouf ), which came to a head during the 1980 Wimbledon Championships.

09:00 THE SUMMIT

(Argentina/Spain/ France) 114mins. Film Factory Entertainment (int’l). Dir: Santiago Mitre. Cast: Ricardo Darin, Alfredo Castro, Christian Slater, Daniel Gimenez Cacho.

In this incisive political drama from director Santiago Mitre (The Student), the newly sworn-in Argentinian president faces a formidable challenge when geopolitical wheelingdealing and backstage family issues collide at a South American oil-trade summit.

Contemporary World Cinema TIFF Bell Lightbox 2

09:30 CALL ME BY YOUR NAME

(Italy/France) 132mins.

Dir: Luca Guadagnino.

Cast: Amira Casar, Armie Hammer, Esther Garrel, Michael Stuhlbarg, Timothée Chalamet.

The latest from Italian auteur Luca Guadagnino (I Am Love, A Bigger Splash) explores the tender, tentative relationship that blooms over the course of one summer between a 17-year-old boy on the cusp of adulthood (Timothée Chalamet) and his father’s research assistant (Armie Hammer).

Special Presentations TIFF Bell Lightbox 1

10:30 A CIAMBRA

(Italy/France/US/ Germany) 117mins.

Luxbox (int’l). Dir: Jonas Carpignano.

Cast: Damiano Amato, Francesco Pio Amato, Iolanda Amato.

Jonas Carpignano’s coming-of-age story about a 14-year-old boy in a Romani community in southern Italy who is eager to prove he can

Gala Presentations Scotiabank 1

VILLAGE ROCKSTARS PUBLIC SCREENING 14:30 SUPER SIZE ME 2: HOLY CHICKEN!

(US) 93mins. Tristen Tuckfield, Cinetic Media (US). Dir: Morgan Spurlock. Cast: Jonathan Buttram, Morgan Spurlock.

be a man and is thrust into adulthood when his brother goes missing.

Contemporary World Cinema TIFF Bell Lightbox 3

12:00 EX LIBRIS — THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY

(US) 197mins. Zipporah Films, Inc. (US). Doc & Film International (int’l).

Dir: Frederick Wiseman.

Legendary documentarian Frederick Wiseman (In Jackson Heights, National Gallery) takes his cameras within the walls of the New York Public Library.

TIFF Docs Jackman Hall

12:30 LOVELESS

(Russia/France/Belgium/ Germany) 127mins.

Wild Bunch (int’l).

Dir: Andrey Zvyagintsev.

Cast: Alexey Fateev, Alexey Rozin, Andris Keishs.

26 Screen International at Toronto September 8, 2017

Morgan Spurlock reignites his battle with the food industry — this time from behind the register — as he opens his own fast-food restaurant.

TIFF Docs Ryerson Theatre

The latest from Andrey Zvyagintsev (Leviathan) profiles a family torn apart by a vicious divorce, in which the parents are more interested in starting their lives over with new partners than tending to their 12-year-old son.

Masters TIFF Bell Lightbox 2

12:45 ON CHESIL BEACH

(UK) 110mins. Creative Artists Agency (US).

Rocket Science (int’l).

Dir: Dominic Cooke.

Cast: Saoirse Ronan, Adrian Scarborough, Anne-Marie Duff, Billy Howle.

Saoirse Ronan (Brooklyn) and Billy Howle (Dunkirk) star in this adaptation of Ian McEwan’s acclaimed novel, about a newlywed couple whose honeymoon retreat becomes a comedy of sexual errors.

Special Presentations TIFF Bell Lightbox 1

14:00 LES AFFAMÉS

(Canada) 96mins.

Alma Cinema (int’l).

Dir: Robin Aubert.

Cast: Brigitte Poupart, Charlotte St-Martin, Edouard TremblayGrenier.

A remote village in Quebec is terrorised by a flesheating plague, in the latest from Robin Aubert.

Contemporary World Cinema TIFF Bell Lightbox 3

14:30 KODACHROME

(Canada/US) 105mins.

Creative Artists Agency, William Morris Endeavor Entertainment (US).

The Solution (int’l). Dir: Mark Raso. Cast: Ed Harris, Elizabeth Olsen, Jason Sudeikis.

Jason Sudeikis, Elizabeth Olsen and Ed Harris star in this touching road movie that doubles as an elegy for analogue in the digital age.

Special Presentations Princess of Wales

PAPILLON

(Serbia/Montenegro/ Malta) 133mins. Creative Artists Agency (US).

Capstone Pictures (int’l).

Dir: Michael Noer. Cast: Charlie Hunnam, Eve Hewson, Rami Malek.

Charlie Hunnam (The Lost City Of Z) and Rami Malek (Mr Robot) take on the roles previously played

by Steve McQueen and Dustin Hoffman, in this new screen adaptation of Henri Charriere’s memoir of his imprisonment and repeated escapes from the notorious penal colony of Devil’s Island.

Special Presentations Elgin Theatre

SUPER SIZE ME 2: HOLY CHICKEN! See box, above

15:00 ON MY WAY OUT: THE SECRET LIFE OF NANI AND POPI

(Canada) 40mins. Dir: Brandon Gross, Skyler Gross. Cast: Roman ‘Popi’ Blank, Ruth ‘Nani’ Blank.

Roman (‘Popi’) and Ruth (‘Nani’) Blank have been married for 65 years, but at age 95, Roman reveals a secret that tests their seemingly invincible union, in Brandon and Skyler Gross’s touching portrait of their grandparents.

Special Event TIFF Bell Lightbox 4 — Paul & Leah Atkinson Family Cinema

(India) 87mins. Dir: Rima Das. Cast: Basanti Das, Bhanita Das. A 10-year-old girl living in a remote village in northeast India fights against stereotypes and poverty to pursue her dream of owning a guitar and forming a rock band.

Discovery TIFF Bell Lightbox 2

16:15 GRACE JONES: BLOODLIGHT AND BAMI

(UK/Ireland) 115mins.

WestEnd Films (US & int’l). Dir: Sophie Fiennes. Cast: Grace Jones, Jean-Paul Goude, Robbie Shakespeare.

Filmed over the course of a decade, the new documentary from director Sophie Fiennes (The Pervert’s Guide To Ideology) offers a stylish and unconventional look at the Jamaican-born model, singer and New Wave icon.

TIFF Docs Scotiabank 2

THE FINAL YEAR

(US) 89mins. Passion Pictures, Motto Pictures (int’l). Dir: Greg Barker.

Cast: Barack Obama, Ben Rhodes, John Kerry.

Greg Barker gives an unprecedented look at the shaping of US foreign » policy by following key www.screendaily.com

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6/9/17 10:04

SCREENINGS

members of outgoing US president Barack Obama’s administration.

Delta in an attempt to reconnect with her son, but finds that returning and reconciliation are never easy, in this atmospheric family drama from Silvina Schnicer and Ulises Porra Guardiola.

TIFF Docs TIFF Bell Lightbox 1

16:30 BEYOND THE ONE (preceded by STRANGELY ORDINARY THIS DEVOTION)

(France/Italy/Germany) 80mins. Dir: Anna Marziano, Dani Restack, Sheilah Restack.

Set to a breath-like rhythm, Anna Marziano’s Beyond The One is an essayistic exploration of love’s various guises, considering different attempts at courtship, living together and sustaining connections with people once they have died.

By turns affecting and unsettling, Dani Restack and Sheilah Restack’s Strangely Ordinary This Devotion connects associative threads (including rocks, blood, motherhood and queer representation) into a dazzling, web-like whole: a defacto treatise on radical intimacy.

Wavelengths Jackman Hall

16:45 BOOM FOR REAL: THE LATE TEENAGE YEARS OF JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIAT

(US) 78mins. ICM Partners (US & int’l). Dir: Sara Driver. Cast: Alexis Adler, Carlo McCormick, Coleen Fitzgibbon.

Sara Driver explores the pre-fame years of the celebrated US artist JeanMichel Basquiat, and how New York City, its people and tectonically shifting arts culture of the late 1970s and ’80s shaped his vision.

TIFF Docs TIFF Bell Lightbox 3

17:00 THE DEATH OF STALIN

(France/UK/Belgium) 107mins. Gaumont (US & int’l). Dir: Armando Iannucci. Cast: Steve Buscemi, Adrian McLoughlin, Andrea Riseborough, Dermot Crowley, Jason Isaacs, Jeffrey Tambor, Michael Palin.

Armando Iannucci (Veep)

Discovery TIFF Bell Lightbox 2

18:45 THE OTHER SIDE OF HOPE

(Finland/Germany) 101mins. The Match Factory (int’l). Dir: Aki Kaurismaki. Cast: Ilkka Koivula, Janne Hyytiainen, Kaija Pakarinen.

A failing restaurant owner hires a young Syrian refugee he finds sleeping in the inner yard of the restaurant, in this Silver Bear-winning dramedy.

PUBLIC SCREENING

directs Jeffrey Tambor, Steve Buscemi and Andrea Riseborough in this acerbic send-up of the Soviet dictator and the bootlick ministers who vie for power after his sudden demise.

Platform Winter Garden Theatre

18:00 GAGA: FIVE FOOT TWO

(US) 100mins. Dir: Chris Moukarbel. Cast: Bobby Campbell, Florence Welch, Joe Germanotta.

Chris Moukarbel’s revealing documentary offers a rare snapshot of the raucously public music icon Lady Gaga and the offstage woman that is Stefani Joanne Germanotta. Following the screening, Lady Gaga will deliver an intimate performance.

Special Event Princess of Wales

18:15

MOLLY’S GAME

(Iran/Canada/Qatar) 103mins. Mongrel International (US & int’l).

Dir: Sadaf Foroughi. Cast: Bahar Nouhian, Houman Hoursan, Leili Rashidi.

A 16-year-old girl’s relationship with her family is challenged after her mother takes her to a gynaecologist in order to ensure she is still a virgin.

(US) 140mins. Sierra/ Affinity (int’l). Dir: Aaron Sorkin. Cast: Jessica Chastain, Idris Elba, Kevin Costner, Michael Cera.

Aaron Sorkin’s directorial debut stars

Discovery Scotiabank 3

MIRACLE

(Lithuania/Bulgaria/ Poland) 92mins.

Wide (int’l). Dir: Egle Vertelyte. Cast: Andrius Bialobzeskis, Daniel Olbrychski, Egle Mikulionyte.

STRONGER

(US) 119mins.

Lionsgate (int’l). Dir: David Gordon Green.

Cast: Jake Gyllenhaal, Miranda Richardson, Tatiana Maslany.

David Gordon Green directs Jake Gyllenhaal and Tatiana Maslany in this adaptation of the memoir by Jeff Bauman, recounting his struggles to adjust after losing his legs in the Boston Marathon bombing.

Special Presentations Ryerson Theatre

28 Screen International at Toronto September 8, 2017

Discovery TIFF Bell Lightbox 4 — Paul & Leah Atkinson Family Cinema

Special Presentations Elgin Theatre

18:30 STRONGER See box, below

TIGRE

(Argentina) 91mins. Dir: Silvina Schnicer, Ulises Porra Guardiola. Cast: Agustin Rittano, Lorena Vega, Magali Fernandez.

A woman visits her home on an island in the Tigre

Masters TIFF Bell Lightbox 1

19:00 A FISH OUT OF WATER

(Taiwan) 90mins.

Charades (int’l). Dir: Kuo-An Lai. Cast: Jen Shuo Cheng, Peggy Tseng, Runyin Bai. In music video and commercial director Lai Kuo-an’s feature debut, a young boy becomes obsessed with finding his past parents who fished in a small village by the sea.

Discovery Jackman Hall

APOSTASY

(UK) 95mins.

Cornerstone Films Limited (int’l). Dir: Daniel Kokotajlo. Cast:

18:30

See box, above

(US) 109mins. ICM Partners (US & int’l).

Dir: Lynn Shelton.

Cast: Ben Schwartz, Edie Falco, Jay Duplass.

In this new drama from Lynn Shelton (Your Sister’s Sister), an ex-con (Jay Duplass) struggling to readjust to life in his small town forms an intense bond with his former high-school teacher (Edie Falco).

In Lithuanian director Egle Vertelyte’s feature debut, the owner of a struggling post-Soviet pig farm finds a surprising benefactor in a visiting American investor, whose ‘good’ intentions upend the gentle rhythms of smalltown life.

Jessica Chastain and Idris Elba in the true story of Molly Bloom, proprietor of Hollywood’s most exclusive highstakes poker game for a decade before being shut down by the FBI.

PUBLIC SCREENING

MOLLY’S GAME

OUTSIDE IN

18:00

AVA

Gala Presentations Roy Thomson Hall

»

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6/9/17 10:02

SCREENINGS

Leon Talley, Anna Wintour, Bethann Hardison.

From the segregated American South to the fashion capitals of the world, operatic fashion editor André Leon Talley’s life and career are on full display, in a poignant portrait that includes appearances by Anna Wintour, Marc Jacobs, Tom Ford, Bethann Hardison, Valentino and Manolo Blahnik.

TIFF Docs TIFF Bell Lightbox 2

21:30 CARDINALS

PUBLIC SCREENING

Molly Wright, Robert Emms, Sacha Parkinson.

Family and faith come into conflict for two Jehovah’s Witness sisters in Manchester, when one is condemned for fornication and the other pressured to shun her sibling.

Discovery Scotiabank 13

THE CHINA HUSTLE

(US) 84mins. United Talent Agency (US).

Dir: Jed Rothstein.

An unsettling and eyeopening Wall Street horror story about Chinese companies, the US stock market and the opportunistic greed behind the biggest heist you’ve never heard of.

TIFF Docs Scotiabank 1

19:15 1%

(Australia) 92mins.

United Talent Agency (US). Celluloid Dreams (int’l). Dir: Stephen McCallum. Cast: Aaron Pedersen, Abbey Lee, Josh McConville, Matt Nable, Ryan Corr, Simone Kessell.

Two men square off over control of a motorcycle gang in this violent drama about fraternity, loyalty and betrayal from firsttime director Stephen McCallum.

Discovery Scotiabank 14

THE LODGERS See box, above

19:15 THE LODGERS

(Ireland) 93mins. Epic Pictures Group (int’l).

Dir: Brian O’Malley.

Cast: Bill Milner, Charlotte Vega, David Bradley.

Set in rural Ireland in 1920, this Gothic chiller 19:30 THE NUMBER

(South Africa) 90mins.

Distant Horizon (US). Videovision Entertainment (int’l).

Dir: Khalo Matabane.

Cast: Charlton George, Deon Lotz, Kevin Smith, Lemo Tsipa, Mothusi Magano.

In this harrowing, basedon-fact story about South Africa’s most dangerous and notorious prison gang, a highechelon gang member begins to question his allegiance to his ‘family’ after a young recruit is brutally killed.

Contemporary World Cinema Scotiabank 2

20:30 MADEMOISELLE PARADIS

(Austria/Germany) 94mins. Films Distribution (int’l).

Dir: Barbara Albert.

Cast: Devid Striesow, Katja Kolm, Lukas Miko.

The true story of the relationship between a blind 18th-century Viennese pianist and the controversial physician

30 Screen International at Toronto September 8, 2017

evokes the spooky stories of Shirley Jackson and Oscar Wilde in its tale of teenage twins living in a haunted manor under the shadow of a family curse.

Contemporary World Cinema Scotiabank 4

who worked to restore her sight: Dr Franz Mesmer.

Platform Winter Garden Theatre

21:00 A SORT OF FAMILY

(Argentina/Brazil/ France/Poland) 95mins. Film Factory Entertainment (int’l).

Dir: Diego Lerman.

Cast: Barbara Lennie, Claudio Tolcachir, Daniel Araoz.

Director Diego Lerman’s latest feature follows a determined woman as she navigates the legally complex and morally dubious labyrinth of child adoption in the rural, disadvantaged communities of Argentina’s north.

of Catholic school and life in Sacremento, in Greta Gerwig’s solo directorial debut.

Special Presentations Ryerson Theatre

PROTOTYPE (preceded by short film FLORENCE)

(Canada, Finland) 72mins. BM Films, AV-arkki (int’l). Dir: Blake Williams, Erkki Kurenniemi.

In Prototype, experimental filmmaker Blake Williams transforms images of the aftermath of the catastrophic 1900 Galveston Hurricane into a sci-fi landscape.

Florence is a dazzling, abstract travelogue shot between Italy, Switzerland, and director Erkki Kurenniemi’s home in Finland. One of several experimental films shot in the late 1960s and early ’70s by the recently deceased computer music pioneer Kurenniemi.

Wavelengths TIFF Bell Lightbox 4 — Paul & Leah Atkinson Family Cinema

21:15

(Canada) 84mins.

Dir: Aidan Shipley, Grayson Moore.

Cast: Grace Glowicki, Katie Boland, Noah Reid, Peter MacNeill, Peter Spence, Sheila McCarthy.

When Valerie (Sheila McCarthy) returns home from prison years after killing her neighbour in an apparent drunkdriving accident, she wants nothing more than to move on — until the deceased’s son shows up at her door and it becomes clear that the past is not easily forgotten.

THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ANDRÉ

Discovery Scotiabank 13

(US) 94mins. Submarine (US & int’l). Dir: Kate Novack. Cast: André

I, TONYA See box, below

Contemporary World Cinema Scotiabank 3

PUBLIC SCREENING LADY BIRD

(US) 94mins. A24 (int’l).

Dir: Greta Gerwig. Cast: Saoirse Ronan, Beanie Feldstein, Laurie Metcalf, Lucas Hedges.

A rebellious young woman navigates the pressures and constraints

21:30 I, TONYA

(US) 121mins. Creative Artists Agency, United Talent Agency (US).

Sierra/Affinity (int’l).

Dir: Craig Gillespie.

Cast: Margot Robbie, Allison Janney, Bobby Cannavale, Julianne Nicholson.

Margot Robbie stars as controversial Olympic figure skater

Tonya Harding in this alternately tragic, hilarious and absurd look at one of the biggest scandals in US sports.

Special Presentations Princess of Wales

»

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THE BREADWINNER

DON’T TALK TO IRENE

INDIAN HORSE

LONG TIME RUNNING

PYEWACKET

TULIPANI

ONTARIO SPARKS CREATIVITY OMDC is proud to support the Toronto International Film Festival® and these diverse films. Catch them on a #TIFF17 screen. Be part of it.

® Toronto International Film Festival Inc., used under license.

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SCREENINGS

KISSING CANDICE

(Ireland) 102mins. Film Constellation (int’l). Dir: Aoife McArdle. Cast: Ann Skelly, Caitriona Ennis, Conall Keating.

Candice longs to escape the boredom of her seaside town, but when a boy she dreams about turns up in real life, she becomes involved with a dangerous local gang, in Irish music video director Aoife McArdle’s feature debut.

Discovery TIFF Bell Lightbox 1

NUMBER ONE

(France) 110mins.

Pyramide International (int’l). Dir: Tonie Marshall. Cast: Benjamin Biolay, Emmanuelle Devos, Richard Berry.

In this whip-smart drama about corporate sexism, top French star Emmanuelle Devos plays a high-ranking female executive who is forced to consider her options and marshal her forces when she realises that the glass ceiling is fast approaching.

Special Presentations Scotiabank 1

SIGHTED EYES/FEELING HEART

(US) 118mins. Dir: Tracy Heather Strain.

Cast: Alexandria King, Anika Noni Rose, Glynn Turman.

Filmmaker Tracy Heather Strain delivers a moving account of the life of black playwright, communist, feminist, lesbian and outspoken trailblazer Lorraine Hansberry (A Raisin in the Sun).

TIFF Docs Jackman Hall

THE LEGEND OF THE UGLY KING

(Germany/Austria) 122mins. Dir: Hüseyin Tabak. Cast: Costa Gavras, Donat Keusch, Elif Güney Pütün.

Director Hüseyin Tabak explores the legacy of Yilmaz Güney — political dissident, convicted murderer and visionary Kurdish filmmaker — who directed the 1982 Palme d’Or winner Yol from inside prison and died in exile just two years later.

TIFF Docs Scotiabank 10

PUBLIC SCREENING 21:30 THE UPSIDE

(US) 120mins. The Weinstein Company (int’l). Dir: Neil Burger.

Cast: Bryan Cranston, Kevin Hart, Aja Naomi King, Golshifteh Farahani.

Bryan Cranston and

THE UPSIDE See box, above

YOUTH

(China) 146mins. IM Global (int’l). Dir: Feng Xiaogang. Cast: Caiyu Yang, Chuxi Zhong, Keru Wang.

Set in a military art troupe in 1970s China, Feng Xiaogang’s latest film is a coming-of-age story about young people making peace with the past and making the most of the present.

Cohen’s God Told Me To. Kevin Hart star in this remake of the French hit Intouchables, a dramatic buddy comedy about the unlikely friendship between a rich quadriplegic and his working-class caregiver.

Gala Presentations Roy Thomson Hall

which evokes the brazen psychological insights and aesthetic brio of such grungy genre classics as Monte Hellman’s Cockfighter and Larry

Contemporary World Cinema Scotiabank 4

hospital in a povertystricken Rio de Janeiro favela.

UNDER PRESSURE

Primetime TIFF Bell Lightbox 3

(Brazil) 95mins. Estudios Globo (int’l). Dir: Andrucha Waddington, Mini Kerti. Cast: Bruno Garcia, Julio Andrade, Marjorie Estiano.

Adapted by Jorge Furtado and Andrucha Waddington from the latter’s 2016 film of the same name, Under Pressure is a characterdriven medical drama set in an underfunded public

VALLEY OF SHADOWS See box, below

22:00 HIGH FANTASY

(South Africa) 71mins.

Bridge Independent (US).

Dir: Jenna Bass. Cast: Francesca Varrie Michel, Liza Scholtz, Loren Loubser, Nala Khumalo, Qondiswa James.

Four friends on a camping

VERONICA

(Spain) 105mins. Film Factory Entertainment (int’l). Dir: Paco Plaza.

Cast: Ana Torrent, Bruna Gonzalez, Claudia Placer.

Inspired by real events that took place in Madrid in 1991, the nerve-rattling new feature from Spanish director Paco Plaza chronicles a teenage girl’s descent into terror following her attempt to communicate with her dead father.

23:59 THE RITUAL

21:45 EUTHANIZER

32 Screen International at Toronto September 8, 2017

Discovery Scotiabank 11

Contemporary World Cinema Scotiabank 2

Special Presentations Elgin Theatre

(Finland) 85mins. Wide (int’l). Dir: Teemu Nikki. Cast: Hannamaija Nikander, Heikki Nousiainen, Jari Virman.

The carefully balanced (albeit deranged) life of a freelance, black-market pet euthanizer begins to fall apart at the seams in this loopy exploitation-movie throwback from Finland,

trip at an isolated farm wake up to discover they have all swapped bodies, in the second feature from South African director Jenna Bass.

PUBLIC SCREENING 21:45 VALLEY OF SHADOWS

(Norway) 91mins.

Celluloid Dreams (US & int’l). Dir: Jonas Matzow Gulbrandsen.

Cast: Adam Ekeli, John Olav Nilsen, Katherine Fagerland.

A young boy ventures into the forest in search of mysterious creatures

that eat sheep, in this delightfully creepy Scandinavian Gothic fable.

Discovery Scotiabank 14

(UK) 95mins. William Morris Endeavor Entertainment (US).

Sierra/Affinity (int’l).

Dir: David Bruckner. Cast: Arsher Ali, Rafe Spall, Robert James-Collier.

Venturing into the wilderness of the Swedish highlands to perform a remembrance for a dearly departed friend, four men are subjected to a night of terror when they take refuge in a derelict house.

Midnight Madness Ryerson Theatre

www.screendaily.com

»

Norwegian Films Discovery

VALLEY OF SHADOWS DIRECTOR Jonas Matzow Gulbrandsen SALES Celluloid Dreams 09/08/17 09/09/17 09/10/17 09/13/17 09/15/17

9:45PM 3:45PM 11:15AM 9:00AM 8:30PM

SCOTIABANK 14 SCOTIABANK 6 (P & I) JACKMAN HALL SCOTIABANK 7 (P & I) SCOTIABANK 8

Norwegian Films in Toronto Minority productions Contemporary World Cinema DISAPPEARANCE DIRECTOR Boudewijn Koole

SAMUI SONG DIRECTOR Pen-ek Ratanaruang

WAJIB DIRECTOR Annemarie Jacir

SCREENINGS

(int’l). Dir: George Clooney. Cast: Julianne Moore, Matt Damon, Noah Jupe, Oscar Isaac.

Director George Clooney teams with co-writers Joel and Ethan Coen and an all-star ensemble (Matt Damon, Julianne Moore, and Oscar Isaac) for this complex tale of very flawed people making very bad choices in a seemingly idyllic 1950s community.

PRESS & INDUSTRY 08:30 C’EST LA VIE!

(France) 115mins.

Gaumont, Creative Artists Agency (US).

Gaumont (int’l). Dir: Eric Toledano, Olivier Nakache. Cast: Eye Haïdara, Gilles Lellouche, Jean-Paul Rouve, JeanPierre Bacri, Suzanne Clément, Vincent Macaigne.

Directing duo Olivier Nakache and Eric Toledano (Intouchables, Samba) serve up a delightful comedy about a long-suffering caterer hoping to get through one last, mishap-heavy dinner party.

Gala Presentations Scotiabank 1

MY DAYS OF MERCY

(US) 103mins. United Talent Agency, WME (US). Great Point Media (int’l). Dir: Tali ShalomEzer. Cast: Ellen Page, Kate Mara.

The daughter (Ellen Page) of a man on death row falls in love with a woman (Kate Mara) on the opposing side of her family’s political cause.

Gala Presentations Scotiabank 3

08:45 GRACE JONES: BLOODLIGHT AND BAMI

(UK/Ireland) 115mins.

WestEnd Films (US & int’l). Dir: Sophie Fiennes. Cast: Grace Jones, Jean-Paul Goude, Robbie Shakespeare, Sly Dunbar.

Filmed over the course of a decade, the new documentary from director Sophie Fiennes (The Pervert’s Guide To Ideology) offers a stylish and unconventional look at the Jamaica-born model, singer and New Wave icon.

TIFF Docs Scotiabank 14

THE LEISURE SEEKER

(Italy) 112mins. Bac Films (US & int’l).

Dir: Paolo Virzi. Cast: Christian Mckay, Dana

Special Presentations Scotiabank 1 and 3

11:15 FIVE FINGERS FOR MARSEILLES

PRESS & INDUSTRY Ivey, Donald Sutherland, Helen Mirren, Janel Moloney.

Oscar winner Helen Mirren and Donald Sutherland star as an elderly couple looking for adventure on one boisterous and bittersweet final road trip.

Gala Presentations Scotiabank 2

09:00 CATCH THE WIND

(France) 103mins. Doc & Film International (int’l).

Dir: Gaël Morel. Cast: Ilian Bergala, Kamal El Amri, Lubna Azabal, Mouna Fettou, Sandrine Bonnaire.

A middle-aged factory worker’s life is upended when she follows her job when it is shifted to Morocco.

Special Presentations Scotiabank 11

09:15

I KILL GIANTS

See box, right

(UK) 104mins. XYZ Films (US & int’l). Dir: Anders Walter. Cast: Imogen Poots, Madison Wolfe, Zoe Saldana.

Based on the graphic novel by Joe Kelly and

KILLING JESUS

(Colombia/Argentina) 100mins. Latido Films (int’l). Dir: Laura Mora.

Cast: Camilo Escobar, Carmenza Cossio, Giovanny Rodriguez, Jose David Medina, Juan Camilo Cardenas, Juan Pablo Trujillo, Natasha Jaramillo.

A few months after witnessing the murder of her father, a woman crosses paths with a young man she believes to be his killer, in Laura Mora’s feature debut based on true events.

Discovery Scotiabank 6

ON CHESIL BEACH

(US) 103mins.

Protagonist Pictures (int’l). Dir: Chloé Zhao.

Cast: Brady Jandreau, Cat Clifford, Lane Scott, Lilly Jandreau, Tim Jandreau.

Chloé Zhao’s Art Cinema Award-winning impressionistic drama casts real-life wrangler Brady Jandreau as a South Dakota cowboy struggling to chart a new course.

(UK) 110mins. Creative Artists Agency (US).

Rocket Science (int’l). Dir: Dominic Cooke. Cast: Adrian Scarborough, Anne-Marie Duff, Billy Howle, Emily Watson, Samuel West, Saoirse Ronan.

Saoirse Ronan (Brooklyn) and Billy Howle (Dunkirk) star in this adaptation of Ian McEwan’s acclaimed novel, about a newlywed couple whose honeymoon retreat becomes a comedy of sexual errors.

Special Presentations Scotiabank 4

Special Presentations Scotiabank 12

THE RIDER

34 Screen International at Toronto September 8, 2017

09:15

I KILL GIANTS

09:30 WARU

(New Zealand) 86mins.

Dirs: Ainsley Gardiner, Awanui Simich-Pene, Briar Grace-Smith, Casey Kaa, Chelsea Cohen, Katie Wolfe, Paula Jones, Renae Maihi. Cast: Acacia Hapi, Amber Curreen, Awhina-Rose Ashby, Kararaina Rangihau, Maria Walker, Mary-Anne Mere Waaka, Miriama McDowell, Ngapaki Moetara, Roimata Fox, Tanea Heke.

Comprising eight vignettes that document the funeral of a young Maori boy, Waru is a formally complex reflection on tragedy, responsibility and the intimate grain of a community united in the face of grief.

Discovery Scotiabank 7

09:45 BEYOND WORDS

(Netherlands/Poland) 85mins. Global Screen (int’l). Dir: Urszula Antoniak. Cast: Andrzej

Ken Niimura, I Kill Giants tells the story of a teenager who struggles through school and family life by escaping into a fantasy world of magic and monsters.

Discovery Scotiabank 9

Chyra, Christian Löber, Jakub Gierszal.

A Poland-born, Berlinbased lawyer working on refugee cases is unexpectedly reunited with his long-lost father, in this luminous feature from Urszula Antoniak.

(South Africa) 120mins.

XYZ Films (US). Game 7 Films (int’l). Dir: Michael Matthews.

Cast: Anthony Oseyemi, Aubrey Poolo, Brendon Daniels, Dean Fourie, Hamilton Dhlamini, Jerry Mofokeng, Kenneth Fok, Kenneth Nkosi, Lizwi Vilakazi, Mduduzi Mabaso, Vuyo Dabula, Warren Masemola, Zethu Dlomo.

Twenty years after fleeing from police aggression in the colonial town of Marseilles in South Africa, a member of the Five Fingers returns seeking peace, but with the town under new threat, he must reluctantly fight to free it, in this thriller from Michael Matthews.

Discovery Scotiabank 5

Contemporary World Cinema Scotiabank 10

MARK FELT — THE MAN WHO BROUGHT DOWN THE WHITE HOUSE

DISAPPEARANCE

(US) 103mins. Sierra/ Affinity (int’l). Dir: Peter Landesman.

Cast: Brian d’Arcy James, Bruce Greenwood, Diane Lane, Eddie Marsan, Ike Barinholtz, Josh Lucas, Julian Morris, Kate Walsh, Liam Neeson, Maika Munroe, Marton Csokas, Michael C Hall, Noah Wyle, Tom Sizemore, Tony Goldwyn, Wendi McLendon-Covey.

Liam Neeson stars as the FBI special agent who helped bring down Richard Nixon’s White House when he became Washington Post journalist Bob Woodward’s infamous source ‘Deep Throat’

(Netherlands/Norway) 92mins. Pluto Film Distribution Network (int’l). Dir: Boudewijn Koole. Cast: Elsie de Brauw, Jakob Oftebro, Marcus Hanssen, Rifka Lodeizen.

Boudewijn Koole evokes Ingmar Bergman’s Autumn Sonata in his story about a globetrotting Norwegian photojournalist who returns home to attempt a reconciliation with her mother, a former concert pianist.

Contemporary World Cinema Scotiabank 8

11:00 SUBURBICON

(US) 105mins. Bloom

www.screendaily.com

during the Watergate investigation.

Special Presentations Scotiabank 2

11:30 ERIC CLAPTON: LIFE IN 12 BARS

(UK) 135mins. Altitude Film Sales (int’l). Dir: Lili Fini Zanuck.

An intimate, revealing musical odyssey on the life and career of guitar virtuoso Eric Clapton, told by those who have known him best, including BB King, Jimi Hendrix and George Harrison.

TIFF Docs Scotiabank 7

THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ANDRÉ

(US) 94mins. Submarine (US & int’l). Dir: Kate Novack. Cast: André Leon Talley, Anna Wintour, Bethann Hardison, Diane von Furstenberg, Manolo Blahnik, Marc Jacobs, Tamron Hall, Tom Ford, Whoopi Goldberg.

From the segregated American South to the fashion capitals of the world, operatic fashion editor André Leon Talley’s life and career are on full display, in a poignant portrait that includes appearances by Anna Wintour, Marc Jacobs, Tom Ford, Bethann Hardison, Valentino and Manolo Blahnik.

TIFF Docs Scotiabank 14

THE THIRD MURDER

(Japan) 124mins. Wild Bunch (int’l). Dir: Hirokazu Kore-eda. Cast: Koji Yakusho, Masaharu Fukuyama, Suzu Hirose.

Festival favourite Hirokazu Kore-eda (Still Walking, Nobody Knows) takes a fascinating left turn with this intricate murder mystery, about a defence attorney who believes his client — the self-confessed killer of a wealthy industrialist — is the fall guy for a sinister conspiracy.

Masters Scotiabank 4

ZAMA

(Argentina/Brazil/Spain/ France/Netherlands/ Mexico/Portugal/US)

www.screendaily.com

115mins. The Match Factory (int’l). Dir: Lucrecia Martel. Cast: Daniel Gimenez Cacho, Daniel Veronese, Juan Minujin, Lola Duenas, Mariana Nunes, Matheus Nachtergaele, Nahuel Cano, Rafael Spregelburd.

Tired of waiting for the king to transfer him to a more liberating location, a South American officer of the Spanish Crown embarks on a perilous journey towards freedom, in the latest from Argentinian filmmaker Lucrecia Martel (The Holy Girl).

Masters Scotiabank 11

11:45 PAPILLON

(Serbia/Montenegro/ Malta) 133mins. Creative Artists Agency (US).

Capstone Pictures (int’l).

Dir: Michael Noer. Cast: Charlie Hunnam, Eve Hewson, Rami Malek, Roland Moller, Tommy Flanagan, Yorick van Wageningen.

Charlie Hunnam (The Lost City Of Z) and Rami Malek (Mr Robot) take on the roles previously played

by Steve McQueen and Dustin Hoffman, in this new screen adaptation of Henri Charriere’s memoir of his imprisonment and repeated escapes from the notorious penal colony of Devil’s Island.

Special Presentations Scotiabank 12

RAVENS

(Sweden) 107mins.

Dir: Jens Assur. Cast: Jacob Nordström, Maria Heiskanen, Reine Brynolfsson.

A hardworking farmer begins to crack under the weight of his harsh daily existence and the indifference of his son to their traditional way of life.

Discovery Scotiabank 6

THE FUTURE AHEAD

(Argentina) 84mins. Rola Entertainment (US).

Dir: Constanza Novick.

Cast: Dolores Fonzi, Pilar Gamboa.

From first love to first divorce, Romina (Dolores Fonzi) and Flor (Pilar Gamboa) experience different stages of their lives together, in Constanza Novick’s exploration of friendship between women.

Discovery Scotiabank 9

12:00 COCAINE PRISON

(Australia/Bolivia/ France/US) 78mins. Life Media Projects (US). Dir: Violeta Ayala. Cast: Deisy Torrez, Hernan Torrez, Mario Bernal.

Filmed in Bolivia — including inside the notorious San Sebastian prison — over five years, Violeta Ayala’s latest film provides a ground-level view of the international drug trade through the eyes of its foot soldiers: a

drug mule, his sister and a cocaine worker.

TIFF Docs Scotiabank 8

SERGIO & SERGEI

(Spain/Cuba) 93mins.

WestEnd Films (US & int’l). Dir: Ernesto Daranas Serrano. Cast: Hector Noas, Ron Perlman, Tomas Cao. As the Soviet Union crumbles in 1991, an amateur radio operator in Cuba makes unexpected contact with stranded cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev as he observes the dissolution of his nation from orbit, in Cuban director Ernesto Daranas Serrano’s comedic yet poignant reflection on how big events can impact ordinary lives.

Contemporary World Cinema Scotiabank 10

THE PRICE OF SUCCESS

(France) 92mins. Indie Sales (int’l). Dir: Teddy Lussi-Modeste. Cast: Maïwenn, Roschdy Zem, Tahar Rahim.

A popular stand-up comic from a working class French family balances

fame, ambition and expectations while feeling his loyalties pulled between his manager-brother and artistic-director girlfriend.

Special Presentations Scotiabank 13

13:15 BODIED

(US) 121mins. ICM Partners (US & int’l).

Dir: Joseph Kahn.

Cast: Anthony Michael Hall, Calum Worthy, Charlamagne Tha God, Debra Wilson, Dizaster, Dumbfoundead, Jackie Long, Loaded Lux, Rory Uphold, Shoniqua Shandai, Walter Perez.

A satirical exploration of the world’s most artistically brutal sport — battle rapping — from music-video director Joseph Kahn, based on a script by Toronto rapper Alex Larsen (Kid Twist) and produced by Eminem.

Midnight Madness Scotiabank 3

13:30 VICTORIA & ABDUL

(UK) 111mins. Universal Pictures International (int’l). Dir: Stephen

13:45

(Argentina) 91mins.

Dirs: Silvina Schnicer, Ulises Porra Guardiola.

Cast: Agustin Rittano, Lorena Vega, Magali Fernandez, Marilu Marini, Melina Toscano.

Special Presentations Scotiabank 1

13:45 LIVING PROOF

(Canada) 97mins. Dir: Matt Embry. Cast: Anne Kingston, David Lyons, Dr Ashton Embry, Dr Christopher Duma, Dr George Ebers, Dr Michael Dake, Dr Terry Wahls, Jeff Beal, Joan Beal, Joan Embry, Judy Graham, Matt Embry.

Diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, documentarian Matt Embry takes viewers on a transnational journey — from Italy to Canada, and from the lab to the home — to examine the politics of the condition.

TIFF Docs Scotiabank 5

THE FLORIDA PROJECT

PRESS & INDUSTRY

TIGRE

Frears. Cast: Adeel Akhtar, Ali Fazal, Eddie Izzard, Fenella Woolgar, Judi Dench, Olivia Williams, Tim Piggot-Smith.

Stephen Frears reunites with his Philomena star Judi Dench in this dramedy chronicling the friendship between Queen Victoria and an Indian clerk named Abdul Karim.

A woman visits her home on an island in the Tigre Delta to reconnect with her son, but finds returning and reconciliation are never easy.

Discovery Scotiabank 8

(US) 115mins.

Protagonist Pictures (int’l). Dir: Sean Baker.

Cast: Bria Vinaite, Brooklynn Prince, Valeria Cotto, Willem Dafoe.

The latest from Sean Baker (Tangerine) juxtaposes the carefree summer of a spirited kid with the harsh realities dogging the grown-ups in her orbit.

Special Presentations Scotiabank 2

TIGRE See box, left

14:00 I AM NOT A WITCH

(UK/France) 92mins.

Kinology (int’l). Dir: Rungano Nyoni. Cast: Gloria Huwiler, Henry BJ Phiri, Margaret Mulubwa, Margaret Sipaneia, Nancy Mulilo.

Part magic-realist fable and part gendered social critique, Rungano Nyoni’s debut focuses on a girl who is banished from her village in Zambia and sent to a camp for exiled witches.

Discovery Scotiabank 4

September 8, 2017 Screen International at Toronto 35

»

SCREENINGS

SWEET COUNTRY

(Australia) 113mins.

Memento Films International (int’l). Dir: Warwick Thornton. Cast: Anni Finsterer, Bryan Brown, Ewen Leslie, Gibson John, Hamilton Morris, Matt Day, Natassia Gorey-Furber, Sam Neill, Thomas M Wright, Tremayne Doolan, Trevon Doolan.

Accused of murder, an Aboriginal stockman and his wife try to stay ahead of a fervent posse in the harsh outback of the Northern Territory.

Platform Scotiabank 11

THE BIG BAD FOX & OTHER TALES

(France) 80mins.

Studiocanal (int’l). Dir: Benjamin Renner, Patrick Imbert. Cast: Boris Rehlinger, Céline Ronté, Elise Noiraud, Guillaume Bouchede, Guillaume Darnault, Jules Bienvenu.

Filmmaker, animator and cartoonist Benjamin Renner (Ernest & Celestine) adapts his own comic strips for this trio of laugh-out-loud animal adventures.

Contemporary World Cinema Scotiabank 9

14:15 A SEASON IN FRANCE

(France) 100mins. MK2 (int’l). Dir: MahamatSaleh Haroun. Cast: Aalayna Lys, Bibi Tanga, Eriq Ebouaney, Ibrahim Burama Darboe, Sandrine Bonnaire.

An African high-school teacher (Eriq Ebouaney) flees his war-torn country for France, where he falls in love with a Frenchwoman (Sandrine Bonnaire).

Dir: Marialy Rivas. Cast: Marcelo Alonso, Maria Gracia Omegna, Nathalia Acevedo, Sara Caballero.

A girl’s transition from childhood to adulthood becomes violent when she defies the cult leader forcing her to carry his ‘holy child’.

Discovery Scotiabank 6

THE ESCAPE

PRINCESITA

(UK) 102mins.

ICM Partners (US).

Independent Film Sales (int’l). Dir: Dominic Savage. Cast: Dominic Cooper, Frances Barber, Gemma Arterton, Jalil Lespert, Marthe Keller.

Gemma Arterton stars as a housewife and mother suffocating under the weight of her domestic burdens who makes the extraordinary decision to abandon her family in order to find herself.

(Chile/Argentina/Spain) 78mins. Mundial (int’l).

Special Presentations Scotiabank 10

Special Presentations Scotiabank 13

2017_UKF_TIFF_Screenad_HP_218x150_Art_FRI.indd 2

36 Screen International at Toronto September 8, 2017

14:30 THE BREADWINNER

(Canada/Ireland/ Luxembourg) 93mins.

WestEnd Films (int’l).

Dir: Nora Twomey. Cast: Ali Badshah, Kawa Ada, Laara Sadiq, Noorin Gulamgaus, Saara Chaudry, Shaista Latif, Soma Chhaya.

Based on Deborah Ellis’s award-winning novel, The Breadwinner tells the extraordinary story of an 11-year-old Afghan girl who finds strength in the love of her family and the power of storytelling.

Special Presentations Scotiabank 12

YOU DISAPPEAR

(Denmark/Sweden) 118mins. TrustNordisk (int’l). Dir: Peter Schonau Fog. Cast: Henning Valin, Ina-Miriam Rosenbaum, Lane Lind, Lars Knutzon, Laura Bro, Meike Bahnsen,

Michael Nyqvist, Mikkel Boe Folsgaard, Trine Dyrholm.

An incisive, sometimes chilling drama about a school principal whose marriage begins to unravel after he receives a terminal diagnosis.

Special Presentations Scotiabank 7

15:45 A FANTASTIC WOMAN

(Chile) 103mins. Funny Balloons (int’l). Dir: Sebastian Lelio. Cast: Aline Kuppenheim, Amparo Noguera, Antonia Zegers, Daniela Vega, Francisco Reyes, Luis Gnecco, Nestor Cantillana, Nicolas Saavedra, Sergio Hernandez.

Drama about a young transgender woman struggling with both her own grief and societal prejudice after the death of her middle-aged lover.

Special Presentations Scotiabank 3

16:00 GUTLAND

(Luxembourg/Germany/ Belgium) 107mins. Stray Dogs (int’l). Dir: Govinda Van Maele. Cast: Frederick Lau, Marco Lorenzini, Vicky Krieps.

A surrealist rural noir about a German thief who flees to a small Luxembourg village only to discover the locals have secrets of their own.

Discovery Scotiabank 8

16:15 ANA, MON AMOUR

(Romania/Germany/ France) 127mins. Beta Cinema (int’l). Dir: Calin Peter Netzer. Cast: Adrian Titieni, Diana Cavallioti, Mircea Postelnicu, Vasile Muraru.

A captivating study of a passionate romance that is threatened by both the spectre of mental illness, and the sufferer’s

04/09/2017 17:52

www.screendaily.com

subsequent journey from dependence to self-reliance.

21:00 TULIPANI, LOVE, HONOUR AND A BICYCLE

Contemporary World Cinema Scotiabank 9

(Spain/US) 113mins.

Film Constellation (int’l). Dir: Antonio Mendez Esparza. Cast: Andrew Bleechington, Regina Williams, Robert Williams, Ry’nesia Chambers.

The everyday life of an African American family in northern Florida and their struggle to stay afloat in a society that marginalises them.

(Netherlands/Italy/ Canada) 90mins. Atlas International Film (int’l).

Dir: Mike van Diem.

Cast: Anneke Sluiters, Donatella Finocchiaro, Georgio Pasotti, Giancarlo Giannini, Gijs Naber, Ksenia Solo, Lidia Vitale, Michele Venitucci.

A young Montrealer arrives in a small Italian village to scatter her mother’s ashes, and finds herself embroiled in a bizarre series of family histories and feuds.

Contemporary World Cinema Scotiabank 13

Contemporary World Cinema Scotiabank 9

16:30 LIFE AND NOTHING MORE

MRS. FANG MESSI AND MAUD

(Netherlands/Germany) 92mins. Visit Films (int’l). Dir: Marleen Jonkman. Cast: Cristobal Farias, Guido Pollemans, Rifka Lodeizen.

Maud and her husband have a huge fight about their inability to conceive, leading Maud to take off on a solo road trip to get her life back on track.

Discovery Scotiabank 6

THE GUARDIANS

(France/Switzerland) 134mins. Pathé International (int’l). Dir: Xavier Beauvois. Cast: Cyril Descours, Gilbert Bonneau, Iris Bry, Laura Smet, Mathilde ViseuxEly, Nathalie Baye, Nicolas Giraud.

An intimate drama exploring the lives of women who are left behind to work a family farm during the Great War. Special Presentations Scotiabank 11

16:45 JOURNEY’S END

(UK) 107mins. Creative Artists Agency (US).

Metro International Entertainment (int’l).

Dir: Saul Dibb. Cast: Asa Butterfield, Paul Bettany, Sam Claflin, Toby Jones, Tom Sturridge.

A tense drama about a group of UK soldiers awaiting a massive German offensive during the First World War. Special Presentations Scotiabank 12

www.screendaily.com

(France/China/Germany) 86mins. Asian Shadows International Sales (int’l).

Dir: Wang Bing.

A deeply affecting visual document of a dying elderly woman in a village in southern China.

Wavelengths Scotiabank 5

THE BREADWINNER

(Canada/Ireland/ Luxembourg) 93mins.

WestEnd Films (int’l).

Dir: Nora Twomey. Cast: Ali Badshah, Kawa Ada, Laara Sadiq, Noorin Gulamgaus, Saara Chaudry, Shaista Latif, Soma Chhaya.

The Breadwinner tells the extraordinary story of an 11-year-old Afghan girl who finds strength in the love of her family and the power of storytelling.

Special Presentations Scotiabank 10

17:00 EUPHORIA

(Sweden/Germany) 104mins. Great Point Media (US & int’l). Dir: Lisa Langseth. Cast: Adrian Lester, Alicia Vikander, Charles Dance, Charlotte Rampling, Eva Green, Mark Stanley.

The story of two estranged sisters attempting a difficult reconciliation.

Daly. Cast: Alexandre Willaume, Clara Rugaard, Helena Coppejans, Lars Brygmann, Victoria Mayer, Vincent Romeo.

A teenage stranger welcomed into a household in a devout Christian village gradually reveals his mysterious motives.

Contemporary World Cinema Scotiabank 7

18:30

19:00 OBLIVION VERSES

(France/Germany/ Netherlands/ Chile) 92mins.

Urban Distribution International (int’l).

Dir: Alireza Khatami.

Cast: Amparo Noguera, Gonzalo Robles, Itziar Aizpuru, Juan Margallo.

21:15

When a protest breaks out and the militia raid a morgue to hide civilian casualties, a caretaker discovers the body of an unknown woman and embarks on a magical odyssey to give her a proper burial.

Discovery Scotiabank 5

THE MOTIVE

(Spain) 112mins. Filmax International (int’l). Dir: Manuel Martin Cuenca.

Cast: Adelfa Calvo, Adriana Paz, Antonio de la Torre, Javier Gutierrez, Maria Leon, Rafael Tellez, Tenoch Huerta.

Searching for literary inspiration, an aspiring novelist in Seville insinuates himself into the lives of his neighbours and attempts to instigate drama.

Special Presentations Scotiabank 8

18:45 MEDITATION PARK

Platform Scotiabank 14

(Canada) 94mins.

Mongrel Media (US & int’l). Dir: Mina Shum.

Cast: Don McKellar, Pei Pei Cheng, Sandra Oh, Tzi Ma. A devoted wife is forced to reassess her reverence for her husband after she finds another woman’s thong in his laundry.

GOOD FAVOUR

Contemporary World Cinema Scotiabank 6

(Ireland/Belgium/ Denmark/Netherlands) 101mins. Visit Films (US & int’l). Dir: Rebecca

PRESS & INDUSTRY

19:00 OBLIVION VERSES See box, above

THE ROYAL HIBISCUS HOTEL

(Nigeria) 90mins.

Film One Distribution (int’l). Dir: Ishaya Bako.

Cast: Akah Nnani, Charles Inojie, Deyemi Okanlawon, Ini DimaOkojie, Jide Kosoko.

In this spritely Nollywood romcom, an aspiring restaurateur returns to her home in Lagos to try and refine the fare at her family’s hotel, only to find her parents are selling out to a rich buyer.

Contemporary World Cinema Scotiabank 9

19:30 RAINBOW — A PRIVATE AFFAIR

(Italy/France) 84mins.

Pyramide International (int’l). Dir: Paolo Taviani, Vittorio Taviani. Cast: Lorenzo Richelmy, Luca Marinelli, Valentina Belle.

A doomed love-triangle is caught up in the tumultous upheaval of the Second World War and the partisan resistance in Italy.

AZMAISH: A JOURNEY THROUGH THE SUBCONTINENT

(Pakistan) 85mins. Dir: Sabiha Sumar. Cast: Kalki Koechlin, Sabiha Sumar.

Pakistani director Sabiha Sumar and Indian actress Kalki Koechlin take an inspiring journey through India and Pakistan, uncovering the common humanity beyond the divisive political rhetoric.

TIFF Docs Scotiabank 8

PORCUPINE LAKE

Masters Scotiabank 11

(Canada) 85mins.

Outplay Films (int’l).

Dir: Ingrid Veninger.

Cast: Charlotte Salisbury, Christopher Bolton, Delphine Roussel, Hallie Switzer, Harrison Tanner, Lucinda Armstrong Hall.

Two girls on the brink of adulthood enjoy a summertime of fleeting childhood adventures.

THE NUMBER

Contemporary World Cinema Scotiabank 6

(Kyrgyzstan/Russia) 101mins. Dir: Elizaveta Stishova. Cast: Asset Imangaliev, Daniel Daiyrbekov, Perizat Ermanbetova, Turgunai Erkinbekova.

A small-time conman, his two wives, and his son travel through the countryside of Kyrgyzstan, in this unconventional family-road-trip drama.

(South Africa) 90mins.

Distant Horizon (US). Videovision Entertainment (int’l).

Dir: Khalo Matabane.

Cast: Charlton George, Deon Lotz, Kevin Smith, Lemo Tsipa, Mothusi Magano, Presley Chweneyagae, Warren Masemola.

A high-echelon gang member begins to question his allegiance to his ‘family’ after a young recruit is brutally killed.

(India) 96mins.

FilmKaravan (int’l). Dir: Hansal Mehta. Cast: Kewal Arora, Rajesh Tailang, Rajkummar Rao, Rupinder Nagra, Timothy Ryan Hickernell.

The story of infamous UK-born terrorist Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, who murdered Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl in 2002.

Discovery Scotiabank 10

Contemporary World Cinema Scotiabank 7

Special Presentations Scotiabank 7

19:15 SULEIMAN MOUNTAIN

21:45 OMERTA

September 8, 2017 Screen International at Toronto 37

SWEET COUNTRY (Australia) Warwick Thornton

★★★

Good

AVERAGE

Excellent

SCREEN INTERNATIONAL

The Globe And Mail, Canada

KATE TAYLOR

IndieWire, US

ERIC KOHN

AV Club, US

AA DOWD

Toronto Star, Canada

★★★★

PETER HOWELL

Los Angeles Times, US

THE SCREEN JURY — PLATFORM

JUSTIN CHANG

JURY GRID

Accused of murder, an Aboriginal stockman and his wife try to stay ahead of a fervent posse in the harsh outback ★★ ★★ ★★ ★★ ★★ ★★ of the Northern Territory, in this period drama from Australian filmmaker Warwick Thornton (Samson & Delilah). ★★ ★★ ★★ ★★ ★★ ★★ The cast includes Sam Neill, Bryan Brown, Hamilton Morris and Gibson John.

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THE DEATH OF STALIN (Fr-UK-Bel) Armando Iannucci

Armando Iannucci (In The Loop, TV’s Veep and The Thick Of It) directs Jeffrey Tambor, Steve Buscemi and ★★ ★★ ★★ ★★ ★★ ★★ Andrea Riseborough in this acerbic send-up of the Soviet dictator and the bootlick ministers who vie for power ★★ ★★ ★★ ★★ ★★ ★★ after Stalin’s sudden demise.

EUPHORIA (Swe-UK-Ger) Lisa Langseth

Sweden’s Lisa Langseth reteams with her frequent collaborator Alicia Vikander for the filmmaker’s English★★ ★★ ★★ ★★ ★★ ★★ language debut. Vikander stars with Eva Green as estranged sisters who meet after many years apart and embark ★★ ★★ ★★ ★★ ★★ ★★ on a journey together. The cast also includes Charlotte Rampling, Charles Dance and Adrian Lester.

MADEMOISELLE PARADIS (Austria-Ger) Barbara Albert

Set in 18th-century Vienna, Mademoiselle Paradis is based on the true story of blind pianist Maria Theresia ★★ ★★ ★★ ★★ ★★ ★★ von Paradis, a contemporary of Mozart, and the physician who worked to restore her sight. The cast is led by ★★ ★★ ★★ ★★ ★★ ★★ Maria-Victoria Dragus. Austrian filmmaker Barbara Albert’s credits include Fallen and The Dead And The Living.

RAZZIA (Fr-Mor-Bel) Nabil Ayouch

Morocco’s Nabil Ayouch (Whatever Lola Wants) tackles the theme of social injustice in Razzia, which weaves ★★ ★★ ★★ ★★ ★★ ★★ together five narrative threads, all connected to one tumultuous event on the streets of Casablanca. The film stars ★★ ★★ ★★ ★★ ★★ ★★ Maryam Touzani, Belgium’s Ariel Worthalter, Abdelilah Rachid, Dounia Binebine and Amine Ennaji.

CUSTODY (Fr) Xavier Legrand

A broken marriage leads to a bitter custody battle with an embattled son at the centre, in this intense family ★★ ★★ ★★ ★★ ★★ ★★ drama from France’s Xavier Legrand (Oscar-nominated in 2014 for short Just Before Losing Everything). ★★ ★★ ★★ ★★ ★★ ★★ Custody stars Denis Ménochet, Léa Drucker and newcomer Thomas Gioria.

WHAT WILL PEOPLE SAY (Nor-Ger-Swe) Iram Haq

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Nisha’s double life — obedient to her traditional Pakistani upbringing at home, typical Norwegian teenager to her ★★ ★★ ★★ ★★ ★★ ★★ friends — comes crashing down when her concerned parents kidnap her and send her to Pakistan, in Iram Haq’s ★★ ★★ ★★ ★★ ★★ ★★ story of family, community and culture. Maria Mozhdah stars as Nisha, alongside Adil Hussain as her father.

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BEAST (UK) Michael Pearce

UK filmmaker Michael Pearce makes his feature debut with a drama set in a small island community. Jessie ★★ ★★ ★★ ★★ ★★ ★★ Buckley (TV’s Taboo and War & Peace) stars as a troubled woman who falls in love with a free-spirited stranger ★★ ★★ ★★ ★★ ★★ ★★ (Johnny Flynn) who she learns is a suspect in a string of brutal murders.

BRAD’S STATUS (US) Mike White

Ben Stiller stars as a highly competitive father who is forced to re-evaluate his life choices when he takes his ★★ ★★ ★★ ★★ ★★ ★★ teenage son (Austin Abrams) on a tour of prestigious east-coast universities. This comedy drama is the second ★★ ★★ ★★ ★★ ★★ ★★ feature directed by Mike White whose screenwriting credits include Richard Linklater’s School Of Rock.

IF YOU SAW HIS HEART (Fr) Joan Chemla

A young man (Gael Garcia Bernal), expelled from his gypsy community after the death of his best friend, ★★ ★★ ★★ ★★ ★★ ★★ is tempted by a life of crime before falling for a mysterious stranger (Marine Vacth). This adaptation of the ★★ ★★ ★★ ★★ ★★ ★★ Guillermo Rosales novel The Halfway House marks French filmmaker Joan Chemla’s feature directorial debut.

DARK RIVER (UK) Clio Barnard

The UK’s Clio Barnard makes her Toronto debut with a drama about a woman (Ruth Wilson) returning to her ★★ ★★ ★★ ★★ ★★ ★★ hometown for the first time in 15 years following the death of her farmer father. There, she is confronted by her ★★ ★★ ★★ ★★ ★★ ★★ brother (Mark Stanley) who contests her claim to the tenancy of the family farm.

THE SEEN AND UNSEEN (Indo-Neth-Australia-Qat) Kamila Andini

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Indonesian director Kamila Andini’s second feature follows a 10-year-old girl’s dream-like journey to come to terms ★★ ★★ ★★ ★★ ★★ ★★ with the imminent death of her twin brother. After leaving her bedside vigil, the girl begins to re-engage with her ★★ ★★ ★★ ★★ ★★ ★★ twin in her mind. Andini gives expression to these visions, articulated through dance and costume.

38 Screen International at Toronto September 8, 2017

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