Although we still have almost a week to go, the one film that was met with near-unanimous praise during the Toronto International Film Festival is Steve McQueen‘s period drama 12 Years a Slave, tracking the story of Solomon Northrup’s harrowing journey beginning in 1841. Set for a release in just about five weeks, we’ve now got a new, evocative international poster coming from Spain, which can be seen below.
We’ve also got another international poster for a film that will likely not hit U.S. screens until 2014. After a successful bow in its native country, there have been rumors circulating that Harvey Weinstein plans to chop up Bong Joon-ho‘s apocalyptic drama Snowpiercer for its U.S. release, but following its Deauville American Film Festival premiere, the director cleared up some of the chatter.
At a press conference there he said, “Actually, it’s not true. It’s a rumor,” in regards to the edits. He adds, “Me and The Weinstein Company are still negotiating about everything. The movie at the festival, the French version is my own director’s cut. In Korea, Japan, France and many other European countries have all bought my director’s cut. And for North America we are still negotiating with The Weinstein Company, we are discussing.”
So, it sounds like there is still some hope we’ll be able to see the acclaimed film in its original state and star Tilda Swinton hopes this is the case, as she chimed in, saying, “There’s no question that all English speaking audiences deserve to see director Bong’s cut, and we hope very much that we will all see it. Maybe an effect of the film, it just occurred to me, is that when one has spent two hours in the claustrophobia of this train we can leave the cinema and feel the relief that we can make life wider, so maybe it’s a sort of aversion therapy to sit in the train for two hours. That’s two hours, not one hour and forty minutes.”
As we await an actual release date for the film, check out the posters below, along with the TIFF press conference for 12 Years a Slave. [IMPAwards/Criterion Cast/THR]
12 Years a Slave opens on October 18th, while Snowpiercer will likely land in 2014.