{"id":19545,"date":"2025-07-24T03:17:13","date_gmt":"2025-07-24T03:17:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/19545\/"},"modified":"2025-07-24T03:17:13","modified_gmt":"2025-07-24T03:17:13","slug":"tiff-lineup-includes-john-earlys-maddies-secret","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/19545\/","title":{"rendered":"TIFF Lineup Includes John Early\u2019s ‘Maddie\u2019s Secret’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tComedy actor and writer John Early<\/a> has added director to his resume as he brings his first feature, Maddie\u2019s Secret, to open the Toronto Film Festival<\/a> Discovery sidebar for first-time and emerging filmmakers.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe film about Maddie, a Food Network content creator trying not to allow her dark past to pierce her perfect veneer, stars many of Early\u2019s colleagues in the L.A. stand-up comedy scene, including Kate Berlant<\/a>, Vanessa Bayer and Connor O\u2019Malley.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn all, Discovery programmers have assembled 23 world premieres for their 25th edition. Also booked into the Toronto section is director Nadia Latif\u2019s The Man in My Basement, which plays with the horror genre and stars Corey Hawkins as an African American man about to lose his family\u2019s home, until a white businessman (Willem Dafoe) offers to rent his basement to clear his debts in a deal he chose not to refuse, but should have.<\/p>\n

\n\tOther titles: Cato Kusters\u2019 love story Julian, about two women \u2014 Nina Meurisse playing Fleur and Laurence Roothooft as Julian \u2014 planning to marry in 22 countries where they legally can, only to tragically halt their journey after four marriages; and Taratoa Stappard\u2019s Maori gothic horror pic Marama, where Ariana Osborne plays a young woman fighting to reclaim her indigenous identity in Victorian-era Britain.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe section has two films with main characters who are deaf: writer\/director Ted Evans\u2019 debut thriller Retreat, starring an all-deaf cast led by Anne Zander, James Boyle and Sophie Stone; and Stroma Cairns\u2019 The Son and the Sea, another debut feature and about three boys, one of whom is profoundly deaf, on a trip to the Northeast coast of Scotland.<\/p>\n

\n\tOther Discovery titles include director Siyou Tan\u2019s coming of age drama Amoeba, about a young woman launching a rebellion at an elite all-girls school by starting a gang; Laundry, from director Zamo Mkhwanazi and set in 1968 during South Africa\u2019s apartheid era; and writer-director Eva Thomas\u2019 solo directorial debut Nika & Madison, about two young Indigenous women, played by Ellyn Jade and Star Slade, who go on the run after a violent encounter with police.<\/p>\n

\n\tAlso in the 2025 Discovery sidebar is Kunsang Kyirong\u2019s first feature, 100 Sunset, a character-driven mystery about a teenage kleptomaniac\u00a0who spies on her Tibetan community and meets an unexpected confidant; Bikas Ranjan Mishra\u2019s police drama Bayaan, an adaptation of a stage play; Sasha Leigh Henry\u2019s Dinner With Friends\u00a0drama about eight friends learning staying as a group is as hard as growing up; Joscha Bongard\u2019s pic Babystar, about a child influencer trying to break free of parents deciding to have another baby; and Andy Hines\u2019 debut feature and crime thriller Little Lorraine, starring Stephen Amell and Colombian reggaeton star J Balvin<\/a> in his first movie role.<\/p>\n

\n\tThere\u2019s also first looks for Tomas Corredor\u2019s Noviembre; Karla Badillo\u2019s Oca; Seyhmus Altun\u2019s As We Breathe; Pella Kagerman and Hugo Lilja\u2019s Egghead Republic; Seemab Gul\u2019s Ghost School; Lucia Alenar Iglesias\u2019 Forastera; Goran Stankovic\u2019s Our Father; Melanie Charbonneau\u2019s Out Standing; and Zain Duraie\u2019s Sink.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Toronto Film Festival is set to run from Sept. 4 to 14. Additional lineup announcements will be made in the coming weeks. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Comedy actor and writer John Early has added director to his resume as he brings his first feature,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":19546,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[49,48,361,75,16611,16612,2559],"class_list":["post-19545","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-j-balvin","tag-john-early","tag-toronto-film-festival"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19545","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19545"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19545\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19546"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19545"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19545"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19545"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}