In highlighting our most-anticipated films of the fall, a few festival premieres flew under the radar — not a surprise when it comes to the hundreds of films that will be stopping by Toronto International Film Festival in particular. Today brings trailers for some of those we’re looking forward to, but perhaps aren’t on the top of everyone’s radar.
Kicking off with a brief, but intense look at Essential Killing director Jerzy Skolimowski‘s thriller 11 Minutes (via Indiewire), we also have trailers for new films from Sergei Loznitsa (Maïdan), Erik Matti (On the Job), Can Evrenol (who will debut his film Baskin in Midnight Madness) and lastly Rúnar Rúnarsson, who impressed with Volcano. Check them all out below and return for our festival coverage.
With 11 Minutes, Skolimowski gathers inspiration from an increasingly fragmented and decentralized post-9/11 society. His camera prowls through the Warsaw hotel rooms, offices, and homes of a handful of characters, following each of them individually over the course of the same brief passage of time. He uses several small, seemingly unconnected stories to form a larger net that captures the mood of a major metropolis: an American film producer plays cat-and-mouse with a young actress while her husband tries frantically to reach her in the hotel room where the “audition” is taking place; a hot-dog vendor sells sausages in the street; a motorcycle courier pulls off near-miracles trying to dodge another jealous husband; a young man plans to break into a pawnshop. As each story develops, the veneer of each character’s behaviour is stripped away until Skolimowski ties all the plot threads together in a breathtaking climax.
In August 1991, a failed coup d’état in Moscow by a group of communist reactionaries expedited the demise of the ailing Soviet Union. As the hammer and sickle that flew over the Kremlin was replaced by the tricolour of the Russian Federation, the event was hailed around the world as marking the fall of communism and the birth of Russian democracy. A quarter of a century later — and at a particularly trying time for Russian democracy — Ukrainian filmmaker Sergei Loznitsa follows Maïdan, his monumental documentary about last year’s historic protests in Kiev, with The Event, a powerful montage film that revisits a crucial turning point in Russian history.
After years of financial struggle, Kaye (Meryll Soriano) and Edgar (John Lloyd Cruz) are finally on a roll. Kaye has made millions promoting her father’s investment scheme to her friends and fellow Pentecostal parishioners at the Church of Yeshua. But their world unravels instantaneously one day when Edgar swings by his father-in-law’s house to find the place ransacked and the old man gone. It doesn’t take long for Kaye’s friends to turn on the couple, who go to the fiery bishop for help. But he’s not exactly generous, preoccupied as he is with raising money for a new temple (and with the promise of extravagant kickbacks). The parishioners continue to demand their money back, and Kaye and Edgar start receiving death threats. When the tension erupts in violence, Edgar decides to seek the aid of his criminally inclined family.
Responding to an emergency call for backup, the squad arrives at an old building to find an abandoned patrol car and no sign of their comrades. Entering the building and making their way to the basement, the officers catch glimpses of grotesque and unnerving images in the shadows. Soon it becomes apparent that they have stumbled into the middle of a ritual celebrating the black arts — a celebration where they may be the unwitting guests of honour. What began as a detour into the Twilight Zone becomes a shortcut to Hell.
Sixteen-year-old Ari (Atli Óskar Fjalarsson) enjoys a vibrant and enjoyable life in Reykjavik. But when his mother leaves for Angola with her new husband, he must return to his hometown, a sparsely populated fishing village where his father Gunnar (Ingvar E. Sigurdsson) still lives like a teenager, pissing away his weekends with drug-and-booze-fuelled bacchanals. Gunnar hasn’t shown any interest in Ari for years and has no idea how to relate to him, and little desire to either. The only bright spots for Ari in his grim new surroundings are his ailing grandmother and his childhood buddy Lana (Rakel Björk Björnsdóttir), who is in a relationship with a dimwitted local thug. As Ari tries to settle in, things get more difficult — and when he realizes just how deep this town’s immoral streak runs, he is forced to choose between telling the truth and protecting those he loves.
TIFF kicks off on September 10th.