A still from ‘Lift Like a Girl’. Photo: Twitter/@tiff_net
Taking place between September 10 and September 19, the 45th edition of the Toronto International Film Festival is set to feature a number of exciting, new titles. While the full line up will be released on August 25, the schedule thus far already includes a promising list of titles from the Middle East. Featuring a vast array of segments, ranging from short films to features, the festival will provide audiences with a hybrid model of physical and digital platforms from which they can attend screenings, engage with members of the film fraternity and listen to interviews and interactive talks.
In a statement relating to the newly released line-up, artistic director of the festival, Cameron Bailey said, “we began this year planning for a festival much like our previous editions, but along the way, we had to rethink just about everything.” “This year’s line-up reflects that tumult. The names you already know are doing brand new things this year, and there’s a whole crop of exciting new names to discover,” he concluded. Opening with a debut showing of Spike Lee’s David Byrne’s American Utopia, a documentary centred around the former Talking Heads frontman’s Broadway show, the festival will continue with a plethora of new screenings, including Halle Berry’s directorial debut Bruised, which features a former mixed martial arts fighter struggling to regain custody of her son, and Good Joe Bell, a poignant drama about the realities of bullying starring Mark Wahlberg.
.@manijeh_hekmat's BANDAR BAND is a music-infused twist on a road movie starring Reza Koolghani, Pegah Ahangarani, Amir Hossein Taheri, and Mahdieh Mousavi. #TIFF20 https://t.co/42Hrlq2QRJ pic.twitter.com/X2ncAx87ij
— TIFF (@TIFF_NET) July 30, 2020
Before being closed by Mira Nair’s six-episode adaptation of Vikram Seth’s A Suitable Boy, the festival will also provide audiences with the opportunity to engage with a number of highly anticipated titles from the region. Among them; Gaza Mon Amour, a whimsical romance inspired by true events and created by Palestinian filmmakers Tarzan and Arab Nasser, tells the story of a spirited fisherman who discovers an Ancient Greek statue. 180 Degree Rule, by Iranian director Farnoosh Samadi also makes an appearance, sharing the story of a teacher from Tehran who makes a family-altering decision when forbidden from attending a wedding by her husband. Other titles include Manijeh Hekmat’s Bandar Band, which follows a music group’s journey across a flooded Tehran, as well as Ash Ya Captain (Lift Like a Girl), a documentary by Mayye Zayed that follows an aspiring female weightlifter in Egypt. Promoting diversity in all areas, the festival will also see a rise in female-directed films this year, with the percentage of female-directed or co-directed titles jumping to forty-sex percent from thirty-six last year.
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