The Special Presentations section of TIFF is always a highlight, featuring a wide range of films from established directors, and this year looks to be no exception.
The section will open with veteran Canadian director Patricia Rozema's Mouthpiece, adapted from the award-winning two-woman play by Amy Nostbakken and Norah Sadava, about an aspiring writer attempting to reconcile her feminism with the conformist choices of her mother following her mother's sudden death. It will close with Shoplifters, the Palme d'Or winner, which follows a small band of marginalized misfits struggling to make ends meet in a merciless urban environment.
Highlights include Barry Jenkins' If Beale Street Could Talk, adapted from the novel by James Baldwin, about a woman trying to get her husband our of prison; the latest from László Nemes (Son of Saul), Sunset, shot on 35mm; Marielle Heller's Can You Ever Forgive Me? starring Melissa McCarthy as a failed writer trying to get away with the literary scam of the decade; and Maya, the latest from Mia Hansen-Løve, about a former war correspondant trying to adjust to normal life.
More titles from Cannes will make an appearance, such as Lee Chang-Dong's Burning (which our own Pierce Conran had nothing but praise for), Eva Husson's war drama Girls of the Sun, Paul Dano's directorial debut Wildlife, and Pawel Pawlikowski's Cold War, about two musical performers in post-war Eastern Europe.
With even more films from the like of Amma Asante, Jason Reitman, Michael Winterbottom, Don McKellar, Kim Nguyen, and more, this program is quite spectacular. More films are listed in the link below.