The fact this is only the start of the films announced for the 2012 Toronto International Film Festival is staggering. I don’t even think someone’s wishlist could have matched what we’re looking at and there is still more to be announced. But we’ll worry about what’s to come soon enough, let’s have a look at what will be arriving.
First taking a look at the World Premieres we see the opening night film, Rian Johnson‘s time travel feature Looper starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Bruce Willis and Emily Blunt followed by the highly anticipated Wachowski sibling feature Cloud Atlas; Ben Affleck will bring Argo to the fest just as he did The Town; David O. Russell‘s The Silver Linings Playbook will have its premiere; Blue Valentine helmer Derek Cianfrance will premiere The Place Beyond the Pines starring Ryan Gosling, Bradley Cooper and Eva Mendes; Mike Newell’s Great Expectations will also arrive; as well Roger Michell‘s Hyde Park on Hudson starring Bill Murray and Laura Linney.
They premieres don’t stop there either as we see The Perks of Being a Wallflower starring Emma Watson, Logan Lerman and Ezra Miller; the Kristen Wiig starrer Imogene; David Ayer‘s End of Watch; Joss Whedon‘s Much Ado about Nothing; Juan Antonio Bayona‘s The Impossible; Dustin Hoffman‘s Quartet; Neil Jordan‘s Byzantium; Capital from Costa-Gravas; Mr. Pip from Andrew Adamson and The Deep from Baltasar Kormakur.
Oh wait, don’t leave. Those are just notable names from the World Premieres, now for the International/North American Premieres, which tells me some of these will be bowing at Venice and/or Telluride and there are some that already played Cannes.
The two most notable of the bunch are Terrence Malick‘s To the Wonder and Joe Wright‘s Anna Karenina, both of which will probably show up in Venice before Toronto, but that won’t likely dampen the excitement around their screenings. Following them we see Venice opener, Mira Nair’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist followed by Robert Redford’s The Company You Keep and Billy Bob Thornton’s Jayne Mansfield’s Car. Ariel Vroman’s The Iceman starring Michael Shannon as the notorious contract killer Richard Kuklinski will play the fest along with Cannes standouts Rust And Bone, The Sapphires, Reality, The Hunt and Pablo Larrain’s No, which I missed but everyone was raving about it.
There’s also a few I hadn’t heard of such as Everybody Has a Plan directed by Ana Piterbarg with Viggo Mortensen and Takeshi Kitano is bringing Outrage Beyond, a sequel to the lackluster 2010 original.
Finally, Ben Lewis’ Sundance standout The Sessions will have its Canadian Premiere.
Looking at that batch of films alone I see over 20 I would like to see in the days I’ll be in attendance and that is a hefty number before we even get to the Vanguard, Midnight Madness and Documentary line-ups. The Midnight Madness in particular typically has at least a couple to take into consideration.
I have listed everything announced so far directly below and will continue to update you on the films announced. The festival takes place September 6-16 and I will be there through the 14th so hopefully I’ll be able to catch most if not all of the films mentioned here.
- A Royal Affair (dir. Nikolai Arcel) – Denmark/Sweden/Czech Republic/Germany
- Argo (dir. Ben Affleck) – USA
- The Company You Keep (dir. Robert Redford) – USA
- Dangerous Liaisons (dir. Hur Jin-ho) – China
- English Vinglish (dir. Gauri Shinde) – India
- Free Angela and All Political Prisoners (dir. Shola Lynch) – USA/France
- Great Expectations (dir. Mike Newell) – United Kingdom
- Hyde Park on Hudson (dir. Roger Michell) – United Kingdom
- Inescapable (dir. Ruba Nadda) – Canada
- Jayne Mansfield’s Car (dir. Billy Bob Thornton) – USA/Russia
- Looper (dir. Rian Johnson) – USA [Opening Film]
- Love, Marilyn (dir. Liz Garbus) – USA
- Midnight’s Children (dir. Deepa Mehta) – Canada/ United Kingdom
- The Reluctant Fundamentalist (dir. Mira Nair) – USA
- Silver Linings Playbook (dir. David O. Russell) – USA
- Thermae Romae (dir. Hideki Takeuchi) – Japan
- Twice Born (dir. Sergio Castellitto) – Italy/Spain/Croatia
- A Few Hours of Spring (dir. Stephane Brize) – France
- Anna Karenina (dir. Joe Wright) – United Kingdom
- At Any Price (dir. Ramin Bahrani) – United Kingdom/USA
- The Attack (dir. Ziad Doueiri) – France
- Byzantium (dir. Neil Jordan) – United Kingdom
- Capital (dir. Costa-Gavras) – France
- Caught in the Web (dir. Chen Kaige) – Japan/China
- Cloud Atlas (dir. Tom Tykwer, Andy Wachowski, Lana Wachowski) – USA
- The Deep (dir. Baltasar Kormakur) – Iceland/Norway
- Dormant Beauty (dir. Marco Bellocchio) – Italy/France
- Dreams for Sale (dir. Nishikawa Miwa) – Japan
- End Of Watch (dir. David Ayer) – USA
- Everybody Has A Plan (dir. Ana Piterbarg) – Argentina
- Foxfire (dir. Laurent Cantet) – France/Canada
- Frances Ha (dir. Noah Baumbach) – USA
- Ginger and Rosa (dir. Sally Potter) – United Kingdom
- Hannah Arendt (dir. Margarethe von Trotta) – Germany
- The Hunt (dir. Thomas Vinterberg) – Denmark
- The Iceman (dir. Ariel Vromen) – USA
- Imogene (dir. Robert Pulcini, Shari Springer Berman) – USA
- The Impossible (dir. J.A. Bayona) – Spain/USA
- In the House (dir. Francois Ozon) – France
- Kon-Tiki (dir. Joachim Roenning and Espen Sandberg) – United Kingdom/Norway/Denmark
- The Last Supper (dir. Lu Chuan) – China
- A Late Quartet (dir. Yaron Zilberman) – USA
- A Liar’s Autobiography – The Untrue Story of Monty Python’s Graham Chapman
Ben Timlett, Bill Jones, Jeff Simpson) – United Kingdom - Lore (dir. Cate Shortland) – Australia/United Kingdom/Germany
- Mr. Pip (dir. Andrew Adamson) – New Zealand
- Much Ado About Nothing Joss Whedon) – USA
- No (dir. Pablo Larrain) – Chile/USA
- Outrage Beyond (dir. Takeshi Kitano) – Japan
- The Perks of Being a Wallflower (dir. Stephen Chbosky) – USA
- The Place Beyond the Pines (dir. Derek Cianfrance) – USA
- Quartet (dir. Dustin Hoffman) – United Kingdom
- Reality (dir. Matteo Garrone) – Italy/France
- Rust and Bone (dir. Jacques Audiard) – France/Belgium
- The Sapphires (dir. Wayne Blair) – Australia
- The Sessions (dir. Ben Lewin) – USA
- Tai Chi 0 (dir. Stephen Fung) – China
- Thanks for Sharing (dir. Stuart Blumberg) – USA
- The Time Being (dir. Nenad Cicin-Sain) – USA
- To The Wonder (dir. Terrence Malick) – USA
- Venus and Serena (dir. Maiken Baird) – USA
- Writers (dir. Josh Boone) – USA
- Zaytoun (dir. Eran Riklis) – United Kingdom/Israel
