With TIFF set to unofficially kick off the awards season in two weeks, North America’s biggest film festival is putting the finishing touches on their massive lineup. This morning, over 50 more titles were added to what is already a very full slate.
The Contemporary World Cinema program has certainly grabbed our attention with a number of high-profile films catching our eye. Receiving North American premieres are two highly anticipated titles (at least by us anyway), Kelly Reichardt’s gritty western tragedy “Meek’s Cutoff” and Tom Tykwer’s “Three.” A couple of intriguing titles making their World Premiere are Icíar Bollaín’s post-modern “Even The Rain” starring Gael Garcia Bernal and Bent Hamer’s (“Kitchen Stories”) latest “Home For Christmas.” The inconsistent but always fascinating Tsui Hark will unveil “Detective Dee And The Mystery Of The Phantom Flame” to North American audiences while a selection of films that played Cannes earlier this year including Feng Xiaogang’s “Aftershock,” Pablo Trapero’s “Carancho,” Oliver Schmitz’s “Life, Above All,” Sergei Loznitsa’s “My Joy” and, pretty much already a lock for a Best Foreign Film Oscar nomination (the critics loved this one at Cannes), Xavier Beauvois’ “Of Gods And Men.”
The Masters program also offers a selection of titles from some established auteurs led by Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s head-scratching wonder “Uncle Boonme Who Can Recall Past Lives,” Ken Loach’s Iraq war drama “Route Irish,” Jean-Luc Godard’s total mindfuck “Film Socialisme.” Other titles of note include Jerzy Skolimowski’s Vincent Gallo-as-terrorist film “Essential Killing,” Catherine Breillat’s latest take on a fairy tale, “Sleeping Beauty,” Lee-Chang Dong’s “Poetry” and Jia Zhang-ke’s total snoozefest “I Wish I Knew.”
Over in the Vanguard section are a number of titles from new talents on the horizon. Kicking things off, North American audiences will finally get to see why Daniel Espinosa has been getting so much hype when his film “Snabba Cash” (titled here as “Easy Money”) makes its debut. Gregg Araki’s “Kaboom,” Gareth Edwards’ anticipated scare-flick “Monsters” and Romain Gavras’ hotly buzzed “Our Day Will Come” are among the other notable films the program will screen.
Finally, in the Visions section a couple of films to check out: Vincent Gallo’s latest directorial effort “Promises Written In Water” and Andrei Ujica’s very lengthy and in depth documentary “The Autobiography of Nicolae Ceausescu” will both make their North American premieres.
Definitely a number of titles in here that will make our TIFF schedule a bit busier than we anticipated, but yeah, the excitement is beginning to build. [TIFF/IonCinema]
