{"id":890184,"date":"2026-09-10T06:56:15","date_gmt":"2026-09-10T06:56:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/890184\/"},"modified":"2026-09-10T06:56:15","modified_gmt":"2026-09-10T06:56:15","slug":"heres-what-to-look-for-at-this-years-toronto-international-film-festival-winnipeg-free-press","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/890184\/","title":{"rendered":"Here\u2019s what to look for at this year\u2019s Toronto International Film Festival \u2013 Winnipeg Free Press"},"content":{"rendered":"

TORONTO (AP) \u2014 The spotlight at the 51st edition of the Toronto International Film Festival will belong to Rocky Balboa, KPop superstar Lisa, late disability rights pioneer Judy Heumann and many more when North America\u2019s largest film festival gets underway Thursday.<\/p>\n

TIFF is so large and covers such a wide spectrum of movies that the chance to command attention can be fleeting. The majority of this fall\u2019s awards contenders will be vying to stand out alongside movies hoping to catch a distributor\u2019s eye.<\/p>\n

Coming quickly on the heels of festivals in Venice and Telluride, TIFF will screen many of the films that have just premiered at those events, too. Toronto funnels a large percentage of the top fall movies into a 10-day traffic jam of premieres.<\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tFILE – A sign for the Toronto International Film Festival appears on the opening night of the festival in Toronto on Sept. 5, 2024. (AP Photo\/Chris Pizzello, File)<\/p>\n

That includes starry debuts, midnight screenings and a lot of would-be Oscar contenders. Here are some of the storylines heading into this year\u2019s TIFF.<\/p>\n

Is there another \u2018Obsession\u2019 out there?<\/p>\n

In all likelihood, there is not a $1 million production waiting to be acquired and turned into a $512 million blockbuster. But that\u2019s exactly what happened at last year\u2019s TIFF, where Curry Barker\u2019s indie horror film premiered with modest fanfare and sold to Focus Features for $15 million.<\/p>\n

The hit that \u201cObsession\u201d became will, no doubt, be a tantalizing possibility for distributors shopping for the next hit at TIFF. Festival organizers have in recent years reoriented TIFF as a top movie market, with both finished films and packaged productions up for sale. More than 6,000 market delegates are expected this year, up from 1,000 last year.<\/p>\n

Some of the top sales premieres at TIFF this year include Tim Blake Nelson\u2019s \u201cThe Life and Deaths of Wilson Shedd,\u201d a prison drama with Amanda Seyfried; Susanne White\u2019s \u201cPrima Facie,\u201d with Cynthia Erivo as a barrister defending a man accused of sexual assault; and, from the midnight section, \u201cRogue Trooper,\u201d an animated science fiction by \u201cMoon\u201d director Duncan Jones. But there are many more, including a late-addition wildcard: \u201cThe Last Photograph\u201d from \u201cMan of Steel\u201d filmmaker Zack Snyder.<\/p>\n

How will the top premieres fare?<\/p>\n

TIFF starts things off with its opening night premiere: \u201cBeing Heumann.\u201d Si\u00e2n Heder\u2019s follow-up to her best picture-winning \u201cCODA.\u201d The film stars Ruth Madeley as Judy Heumann, the disability rights activist who died in 2023.<\/p>\n

Chris Rock will debut \u201cMisty Green,\u201d which he wrote and directed. A character study about a hard-headed actor in Hollywood (Rosalind Eleazar), it\u2019s poised to propel Eleazar (\u201cSlow Horses\u201d) into the Oscar race.<\/p>\n

Other top titles include \u201cYour Mother Your Mother Your Mother,\u201d starring Mahershala Ali as a religious hitman; Rachel Morrison\u2019s \u201cLove of Your Life,\u201d a romantic drama led by Margaret Qualley; and Peter Farrelly\u2019s \u201cI Play Rocky,\u201d starring Anthony Ippolito as a young Sylvester Stallone while making \u201cRocky.\u201d Farrelly\u2019s \u201cGreen Book\u201d first launched at TIFF in 2018 before going on to win best picture at the Academy Awards.<\/p>\n

Who will win the People\u2019s Choice Award?<\/p>\n

\n\t\tWinnipeg Free Press | Newsletter\n\t<\/p>\n

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Other festivals have prestigious awards like the Golden Lion (Venice) or the Palme d\u2019Or (Cannes). Toronto\u2019s top award isn\u2019t a juried selection, like those prizes, but the audience-voted People\u2019s Choice Award. It\u2019s an unusually good Oscar oracle, too. Since 2012, every winner but one has eventually been nominated for best picture at the Oscars. Last year, \u201cHamnet\u201d won it.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s partly because aside from hosting its own world premieres, many of the standouts from Cannes (\u201cMinotaur,\u201d \u201cFatherland,\u201d \u201cClub Kid,\u201d \u201cAll of a Sudden,\u201d \u201cLa Bola Negra,\u201d \u201cFjord\u201d), Venice (\u201cWild Horse Nine,\u201d \u201cPossible Love,\u201d \u201cInk\u201d) and Telluride (\u201cElsinore,\u201d \u201cThe Debut,\u201d \u201cTender Loving Care,\u201d \u201cA Long Winter\u201d) will stop at TIFF, too. Whatever TIFF attendees like the most will have a major edge in the Oscar race.<\/p>\n

What documentary will rock the hardest?<\/p>\n

The flashiest music documentary heading to Toronto is, without a doubt, \u201cAlways Lalisa,\u201d chronicling the solo turn of Lisa Manobal, the K-pop superstar of the group Blackpink.<\/p>\n

But a wide range of music will be blaring off of TIFF screens. \u201cPretenders\u201d profiles Chrissie Hynde and the seminal rock band she founded in 1978. In \u201cDarlene Love: I Know Where I\u2019ve Been\u201d the great vocalist of \u201cHe\u2019s a Rebel\u201d and \u201cChristmas (Baby Please Come Home)\u201d looks back on her legendarily up-and-down career. \u201cBleeding Hearts\u201d documents the rise of country newcomers Chaparelle. And \u201cNeil Peart: No One\u2019s Disciple\u201d pays tribute to the Rush drummer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TORONTO (AP) \u2014 The spotlight at the 51st edition of the Toronto International Film Festival will belong to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":890185,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194291],"tags":[49,48,3302],"class_list":["post-890184","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-toronto","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-toronto"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/890184","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=890184"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/890184\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/890185"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=890184"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=890184"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=890184"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}