The lineup for the 2020 Toronto International Film Festival has arrived and in includes films by several A-list actors and directors, as well as actors turned directors. The 45
th annual festival will run from September 10 to 19 and in addition to household names, the newly released lineup also includes titles by exciting up and coming artists who are poised to make a major impact on the film world.Several changes are taking place for this year’s festival as a result of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. A move to a mixture of physical, drive-in and digital screenings, as well as virtual red carpets, means that Toronto won’t be overrun with movie stars, directors, paparazzi and fans as it usually is every September. As major studios continue to push the release of their films to 2021, the lineup for this year’s festival will also look different. Typically featuring several hundred new titles, this year’s TIFF has a slimmed down offering of 50 feature films.The opening night film for this year’s festival is the new collaboration between director Spike Lee and musician David Byrne. The Oscar-winning director has turned his camera towards the former Talking Heads musician for
David Byrne’s American Utopia. The documentary will feature live performances from Byrne’s Broadway show
American Utopia, which was created with 11 musicians from around the world and features music from Byrne’s 2018 album of the same name. It’s a fitting choice for a festival that this year will include a mix of in-person and virtual events, as Lee’s new doc strives to capture the magic of Byrne’s live show on camera. Following its premiere at TIFF,
David Byrne’s American Utopia will be available on Crave and HBO.Bookending the festival opposite Byrne and Lee’s documentary is Oscar and BAFTA-nominated director Mira Nair’s
A Suitable Boy. Taking advantage of this year’s move to virtual screenings, TIFF is making history in 2020 by closing the festival with the six-part BBC series that is currently airing in the UK. The festival’s decision to close the annual event with a six-hour miniseries instead of a feature film is a first and not something that could likely have been done with in-theatre screenings.
HBO’s
The Third Day starring Jude Law, Naomie Harris, Emily Watson and Katherine Waterson will also premiere at TIFF. The miniseries will have a virtual screening through the festival before its streaming and broadcast premiere on Crave and HBO on September 14.
Even with the reduced lineup, the year’s festival still packs major star power. Halle Berry will be making her
directorial debut with
Bruised, which also stars the Oscar-winner as a MMA fighter and single mother. Viggo Mortensen is also stepping behind the camera for
Falling, as is Oscar-winner Regina King, whose
One Night In Miami will premiere at the festival. Set in 1964, the film is based on the play by Kemp Powers and tells the fictional account of the night Cassius Clay spent with Malcolm X, Sam Cooke and Jim Brown. The film marks King’s first feature as a director, having previously directed the made-for-TV movie
The Finest, as well as episodes of
Insecure, The Good Doctor, Shameless, This Is Us, Scandal and
Being Mary Jane.
Canadian talent will also be heavily featured at this year’s festival, including Tracey Deers’
Beans, Aisling Chin-Yee and Chase Joynt’s
No Ordinary Man, Joel Bakan and Jennifer Abbott’s
The New Corporation: The Unfortunately Necessary Sequel, which as the title suggests is the sequel to the filmmaker’s 2003 film
The Corporation, and Michelle Latimer’s documentary
Inconvenient Indian. Latimer’s
Trickster will also premiere at this year’s event, adding to the list of miniseries that will be featured during the September festival.
As noted in today’s release, the lineup and its “strong representation of women, Black people, Indigenous people, and people of colour among TIFF’s selection reflects the organization’s continuing commitment to normalizing gender parity and racial equality for future generations.”Artistic director Cameron Bailey said that the events of 2020, notably the current mainstream awakening to the Black Lives Matter movement, greatly impact this year’s film offering. “We began this year planning for a 45th Festival much like our previous editions but along the way we had to rethink just about everything,” said Bailey in today’s statement. “This year’s lineup reflects that tumult. The names you already know are doing brand new things this year, and there’s a whole crop of exciting new names to discover. We’re thankful to every filmmaker and company that joined us on this adventure, and we can’t wait to share these brilliant films with our audiences.”[video_embed id='1892356']RELATED: Cameron Bailey reveals how he picks films for the Toronto International Film Festival[/video_embed]
