We’re exactly one month away from the kick-off of Toronto International Film Festival and today we have a batch of previews from a selection of titles. While much of the discussion regarding the initials announcements of premieres surrounded higher profile titles, below one will find some promising, under-the-radar dramas.
They include Israel Horovitz‘s drama My Old Lady, featuring the accomplished cast of Maggie Smith, Kevin Kline and Kristin Scott Thomas, as well as 1001 Grams, the latest project from Bent Hamer (Factotum, Kitchen Stories), and MirrorMask director Dave McKean‘s visually impressive Luna, along with Ruben Östlund‘s Force Majeure, which initially played at Cannes. Check out the collection below and return for our coverage.
My Old Lady (Israel Horovitz)
A down-and-out New Yorker inherits an apartment in Paris from his estranged father and is stunned to find a refined old lady living there with her protective daughter.
1001 Grams (Bent Hamer)
A recently divorced, work-obsessed lab technician finds herself encountering a whole new world of experience when she attends an important scientific conference in Paris, in this charmingly offbeat comedy from Norwegian master Bent Hamer (Kitchen Stories, O’ Horten).
Mary Kom (Omung Kumar)
Priyanka Chopra stars in this hard-hitting and thrilling biopic based on the life of World Boxing Champion and Olympic bronze medalist Mary Kom.
Luna (Dave McKean)
Renowned artist and filmmaker Dave McKean (MirrorMask) brings his distinctive blend of live action and gorgeously wrought animation to this dreamlike reverie about four people – Grant, Christine, Dean and Freya – whose long weekend in an isolated house by the sea brings up old resentments and the life of a dead child is revisited in a series of strange dreams.
They Have Escaped (JP Valkeapää)
A boy and a girl meet at a custody center for youth with difficulties. The boy has come to serve his obligatory civil service. The girl is one of the youths in custody, and she is constantly in trouble, with a fire inside her and a lust for life that can’t be quashed or controlled. The boy becomes infatuated with the girl. He is a quiet one; a stutterer. But there is a fire inside him as well. Rules, laws, punishment; the shackles of the hostile environment with no understanding around them can be broken. They steal a car and flee together. Thus begins a journey with endless escapes.
Shrew’s Nest (Juanfer Andrés and Esteban Roel)
Spain, 1950s. Monste’s agoraphobia keeps her locked in a sinister apartment in Madrid and her only link to reality is the little sister she sacrificed her youth to raise. But one day, a reckless young neighbour, Carlos, falls down the stairwell and drags himself to their door. Someone has entered the shrew’s nest… and perhaps he’ll never leave.
Force Majeure (Ruben Östlund)
A Swedish family’s ski trip in the French Alps is cut short by news of an oncoming avalanche, during which an impulsive decision by the father Tomas drives a wedge between him and his wife, Ebba — he has run for his life, while she has stayed to protect her children. When the anticipated disaster fails to occur, reality and embarrassed relief returns to the mountainside resort, but the family’s world has been shaken to its core. Force Majeure is an observational comedy about the role of the male in modern family life.
Toronto International Film Festival opens on September 4th.