Earlier this week, the first batch of Galas and Special Presentations were announced for the 2017 edition of the Toronto International Film Festival. This year’s festival will be dedicated to the memory of festival co-founder Bill Marshall, who passed away earlier this year.
The selling point of the Toronto International Film Festival this year is that it will be a leaner festival, which included the discontinuation of a few of the festival’s programmes. A complaint often given by critics of the festival is that the line-up, particularly in the Galas and Special Presentations programmes, are made of up films that you can see (for a much cheaper ticket price) in the weeks and months following the festival. While that may again turn out the case this year, I am happy by the fact that I am hearing about most of the films announced in this first batch for the very first time.
Of course, there are some selections in the first batch of announcements that I was already aware of, such as Darren Aronofsky’s mother!, which will be getting its North American premiere and Guillermo del Toro‘s The Shape of Water, which will be getting it’s Canadian premiere at the festival. The latter I am quite excited about, since The Shape of Water will be the first film Guillermo del Toro has had in the festival since Pan’s Labyrinth more than a decade ago. That said, I’m not sure if I’ll see The Shape of Water at the festival, since the film is scheduled to open in December.
Notably absent from the first batch of announcements is TIFF’s Opening Night Gala Film, though the closing night film has been announced as Olivier Nakache and Eric Toledano’s C’est la vie! Also new this year is a designated opening and closing film for the the Special Presentations programme, with the opening film being Greta Gerwig’s Lady Bird and the closing film being Amr Salama’s Sheikh Jackson.
Here is the full list of TIFF17 Galas and Special Presentations announced this week:
GALAS 2017
Breathe | Andy Serkis, United Kingdom
World Premiere
The Catcher Was A Spy | Ben Lewin, USA
World Premiere
C’est la vie! | Olivier Nakache, Eric Toledano, France
World Premiere
Darkest Hour | Joe Wright, United Kingdom
Canadian Premiere
Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool | Paul McGuigan, United Kingdom
Canadian Premiere
Kings | Deniz Gamze Ergüven, France/Belgium
World Premiere
Long Time Running | Jennifer Baichwal, Nicholas de Pencier, Canada
World Premiere
Mary Shelley | Haifaa Al Mansour, Ireland/United Kingdom/Luxembourg/USA
World Premiere
The Mountain Between Us | Hany Abu-Assad, USA
World Premiere
Mudbound | Dee Rees, USA
International Premiere
Stronger | David Gordon Green, USA
World Premiere
Untitled Bryan Cranston/Kevin Hart Film | Neil Burger, USA
World Premiere
The Wife | Björn Runge, United Kingdom/Sweden
World Premiere
Woman Walks Ahead | Susanna White, USA
World Premiere
SPECIAL PRESENTATIONS 2017
Battle of the Sexes | Valerie Faris, Jonathan Dayton, USA
International Premiere
BPM (Beats Per Minute) | Robin Campillo, France
North American Premiere
The Brawler | Anurag Kashyap, India
World Premiere
The Breadwinner | Nora Twomey, Canada/Ireland/Luxembourg
World Premiere
Call Me By Your Name | Luca Guadagnino, Italy/France
Canadian Premiere
Catch the Wind | Gaël Morel, France
International Premiere
The Children Act | Richard Eyre, United Kingdom
World Premiere
The Current War | Alfonso Gomez-Rejon, USA
World Premiere
Disobedience | Sebastián Lelio, United Kingdom
World Premiere
Downsizing | Alexander Payne, USA
Canadian Premiere
A Fantastic Woman | Sebastián Lelio, Chile
Canadian Premiere
First They Killed My Father | Angelina Jolie, Cambodia
Canadian Premiere
The Guardians | Xavier Beauvois, France
World Premiere
Hostiles | Scott Cooper, USA
International Premiere
The Hungry | Bornila Chatterjee, India
World Premiere
I, Tonya | Craig Gillespie, USA
World Premiere
Special Presentations Opening Film
Lady Bird | Greta Gerwig, USA
International Premiere
mother! | Darren Aronofsky, USA
North American Premiere
Novitiate | Maggie Betts, USA
International Premiere
Omerta | Hansal Mehta, India
World Premiere
Plonger | Mélanie Laurent, France
World Premiere
The Price of Success | Teddy Lussi-Modeste, France
International Premiere
Professor Marston & the Wonder Woman | Angela Robinson, USA
World Premiere
The Rider | Chloé Zhao, USA
Canadian Premiere
A Season in France | Mahamat-Saleh Haroun, France
World Premiere
The Shape of Water | Guillermo del Toro, USA
Canadian Premiere
Special Presentations Closing Film
Sheikh Jackson | Amr Salama, Egypt
World Premiere
The Square | Ruben Östlund, Sweden
North American Premiere
Submergence | Wim Wenders, France/Germany/Spain
World Premiere
Suburbicon | George Clooney, USA
North American Premiere
Thelma | Joachim Trier, Norway/Sweden/France/Denmark
International Premiere
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri | Martin McDonagh, USA
North American Premiere
Victoria and Abdul | Stephen Frears, United Kingdom
North American Premiere