Films by Anna Kendrick, Michael Keaton, Ethan Hawke to premiere at TIFF amid strike
The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) has unveiled a star-studded line-up, amid the continuing uncertainty over whether the top actors will walk the red carpet due to the ongoing Hollywood strike.
Films featuring Kate Winslet, Sienna Miller and Scarlett Johansson are among those due to have their world premieres at the festival, which will run from September 7 to September 17.
Alexander Payne, Richard Linklater, Kore-eda Hirokazu and Justine Triet are among the auteurs who will be screening their latest works at the festival, as per ‘Variety’.
Payne will be on hand with ‘The Holdovers’, a comedy set in a boarding school that reunites him with ‘Sideways’ star Paul Giamatti, while Linklater is showing ‘Hit Man’, an action-comedy with Glen Powell and Adria Arjona. Kore-eda and Triet will screen ‘Monster’ and ‘Anatomy of a Fall’, both of which premiered at Cannes, where the latter won the Palme d’Or.
The Screen Actors Guild (SAG-AFTRA) is on strike in a battle with studios over pay and other work conditions, meaning that its members generally cannot promote films produced by studios and streamers involved in the dispute.
Movie studios are worried about opening these films at TIFF if the actors who star in them are on the picket lines and can’t promote their work.
Some of the actors are working to get waivers from SAG-AFTRA to do press for films that are independently financed or are looking for distribution. Other indie studios are just pushing ahead with their release plans, hoping that a resolution is reached before they debut their movies at the September film fest.
The lineup has several movies from directors best known for their work in front of the camera, including Michael Keaton (‘Knox Goes Away’), Chris Pine (‘Poolman’), Anna Kendrick (‘Woman of the Hour’), and Viggo Mortensen (‘The Dead Don’t Hurt’). Ethan Hawke will bring his latest directorial effort ‘Wildcat’, which stars his daughter, Maya Hawke, as novelist Flannery O’Connor.
Among the 37 world premieres announced recently is Ellen Kuras’s biographical film about Elizabeth ‘Lee’ Miller, a fashion model-turned-war correspondent for Vogue, who will be portrayed by Kate Winslet.
Dame Kristin Scott Thomas’s feature directorial debut, titled ‘North Star’, with Sienna Miller, Scarlett Johansson and Scott Thomas is also among the films to be showcased.
Michael Keaton’s thriller ‘Knox Goes Away’, about a contract killer who is diagnosed with a fast-moving form of dementia but has an opportunity to redeem himself by saving the life of his estranged adult son, stars Al Pacino, James Marsden, Marcia Gay Harden and Keaton.
‘Woman of the Hour’, actress Anna Kendrick’s debut film, is due to have its world premiere at the festival.
TIFF is set to feature seven international premieres, 12 North American premieres and four Canadian premieres.