TIFF, the Toronto International Film Festival’s 41st edition opens this evening with a line-up of almost 400 films for audiences over the next 10 days.
“People from 83 countries are coming to this festival: filmmakers, film artists, buyers, sellers, some of the key, most important film talent in the world,” TIFF CEO Piers Handling, told CBC News.
“A western for 2016”
Tonight begins with what’s hoped to be a Hollywood blockbuster, starring Denzel Washington, and Chris Pratt in ‘The Magnificent Seven‘.
This version of the original 1960s western, inspired by Akira Kurosawa‘s film, The Seven Samurai, is by director Antoine Fuqua.
“There’s a much stronger role for female characters in this Magnificent Seven,” TIFF artistic director Cameron Bailey told CBC News. “It’s a much more diverse range of the characters’ ethnicities, reflecting what the Old West was actually like.
“You often didn’t see those clearly in classic westerns of the last century, but you do now, because this is a western for 2016,” he added.
As for the Canadian content, Xavier Dolan‘s ‘It’s Only the End of the World‘ is screening. It premiered at Cannes this year winning the Grand Prix and the Ecumenical Jury Prize.
Another hotly anticipated film is the Canadian premier of Denis Villeneuve‘s latest called ‘Arrival‘. Starring Amy Adams, Forest Whitaker and Jeremy Renner, it’s a sci-fi thriller about the reaction to spacecraft landing all over the planet, and it’s getting rave reviews.
And for fans of Tatiana Maslany, the star of the TV show ‘Orphan Black‘, she’s in a new film called ‘Two Lovers and a Bear‘. Directed by Canadian Kim Nguyen it’s the story of two troubled young people confronting the future while captive to the past. Shot in the Canadian Arctic it’s sure to be breathtaking on the big screen.
And Canadian Ryan Gosling will be in Toronto with co-star Emma Stone for the screening of their musical, La La Land. It too is getting rave reviews.
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