TIFF First Look: Willem Dafoe Is ‘Pasolini,’ Brit Marling In ‘The Keeping Room’ & Ethan Hawke In ‘The Good Kill’

Willem Dafoe as Pier Paolo Pasolini? In a film directed by Abel Ferrara? Do we need to say more? Nope. Here’s the synopsis for this one making its North American premiere in Toronto: Rome: on the night of November 2, 1975, the great Italian poet and filmmaker Pier Paolo Pasolini is murdered. Pasolini is the symbol of an art that’s fighting against the power. His writings are scandalous, and his films are persecuted by the censors; many people love him and many hate him. The day of his death, Pasolini spends his last hours with his beloved mother and later with his dearest friends, until he finally goes out into the night in his Alfa Romeo in search of adventure in the eternal city. At dawn Pasolini is found dead on a beach in Ostia on the outskirts of the city. In a film dreamlike and visionary, blending reality and imagination, it reconstructs the last day in the life of this great poet. 

Brit Marling keeps coming. After hitting Sundance with "I Origins," she’ll be in Toronto with "The Keeping Room" where it will make its World Premiere. Here’s the synopsis: Left without men in the dying days of the American Civil War, three Southern women – two sisters and one African-American slave – must fight to defend their home and themselves from two rogue soldiers who have broken off from the fast-approaching Union Army. Hailee Steinfeld, Sam Worthington, Muna Otaru and Kyle Soller co-star.

Last, Ethan Hawke and January Jones make the unlikely pair in "The Good Kill," which reunites Hawke with "Gattaca" and "Lord Of War" director Andrew Niccol. The synopsis: A Las Vegas-based fighter pilot turned drone pilot fights the Taliban by remote control for 12 hours a day, then goes home to the  suburbs and feuds with his wife and kids for the other 12. But the pilot is starting to question the mission. Is he creating more terrorists than he’s killing? Is he fighting a war without end? This story follows one soldier’s tale with epic implications.