The first annual edition of the Toronto True Crime Film Festival runs this weekend at The Royal Cinema in Toronto. Running on June 8 and 9th, the Toronto True Crime Film Festival will consist of a number of film screenings and symposiums dedicated to the love of true crime.
The festival will kick off with the stranger-than-fiction documentary Abducted in Plain Sight, about the obsessive neighbor of a a naïve, church-going Idaho family. This will be followed by a screening of My Name is Myeisha, a hip-hop musical inspired by the 1998 police shooting of California teen Tyisha Miller.
On the afternoon of the second day of the festival, a number of symposiums will be taking place at the Monarch Tavern. The subjects covered during this event include “Why do Women Love True Crime,” “L.A. Despair: Chasing Death with John Gilmore,” and “The Rise of the Armchair Detective.” The symposiums will be followed by a 15th anniversary screening at the Royal of the Oscar-winning 2003 biopic Monster, starring Charlize Theron as serial killer Aileen Wuornos.
Screening during the second evening of the festival is the documentary-narrative hybrid The Stranger, about a woman who meets a charming, yet mysterious man on Facebook. The festival will close off with the film Hostages, a tension-filled drama based on the true story of seven Georgian youth who attempted to escape the Soviet Union by hijacking an airplane in 1983.
Toronto True Crime Film Festival
June 8th – 9th, 2018 at The Royal Cinema and Monarch Tavern in Toronto.