That Shelf’s Most Anticipated TIFF 2022 Films

The TIFF excitement is mounting! After thumbing through the programme book and playing schedule Tetris on TIFFR, we’ve finally had a chance to form our list of the most anticipated TIFF 2022 films. Sure, all the obvious favourites are being gabbed about in the That Shelf Slack thread. The Fablemans? Check. Glass Onion? Bingo! Festival favourites? Yep. Check. Tár? Well…we wish. (Zing!)

But there’s no point complaining about missing out on a few movies that have distribution, anyway. There are oodles of movies to see at this year’s festival. As Single Ticket Day and the inevitable crashing of the TIFF website approach, the team at That Shelf has valiantly sussed out the films that are atop our TIFF schedules to help provide a few handy pointers.

 

Here are That Shelf’s Most Anticipated TIFF 2022 Films

Photo by Reiner Bajo / Netflix

All Quiet on the Western Front

Program: Special Presentations

Im Westen nichts Neues (All Quiet on the Western Front) is one of the most prolific books about war ever written. Authored by Erich Maria Remarque, a German veteran of World War I, the novel was published in 1929 and detailed the horrors of the Great War with unapologetic brashness. In 1930, Lewis Milestone directed a war epic based on the novel, which was widely acclaimed in the US, winning the Academy Award for Best Picture. Both the novel and film, while well received in most of the world, were criticised heavily in Remarque’s native Germany. Some believed his tale to be an over-exaggeration, anti-German and self-serving to Remarque’s pacifist agenda. With the rise of the Nazi Party, both film and novel were eventually banned in Germany — reportedly, Joseph Goebbels even unleashed mice and threw stink bombs during the former’s Berlin premiere! With this history in mind, it is with great interest that almost a century after the publication of Remarque’s novel, the first German interpretation of the text is finally being made. Directed by Edward Berger (Your Honor) and staring Felix Kammerer and Daniel Brühl, the story of Paul Bäumer will be brought to life for a new generation in a very different world than it was first written. I’m eager to see how a change in perspective and the passage of time will differentiate this film from the 1930 epic. – Rachel Ho

Elevation Pictures

Brother

Programme: Special Presentations

The TIFF lineup is an embarrassment of riches, which makes it hard to pick just one film. However, anytime Clement Virgo has a new film it immediately moves onto my must-see list. Adapting David Chariandy’s gripping novel of the same name, Brother is a coming of age tale that explores masculinity, family, race, and more from the perspective of two brothers in a Scarborough housing complex. If there is one director who can bring this rich story to life, it is Virgo. – Courtney Small

TIFF

Emily

Programme: Platform (Opening night)

It’s not often that authors are demonstrably more interesting than the characters they create, but such is the case with the Brontë sisters—Charlotte, Emily, and Anne. That is saying something, considering their layered and fascinating novels. Actress Frances O’Connor’s directorial debut looks to be a fittingly moody portrait of middle sister Emily (Death on the Nile’s Emma Mackey) and her life before Wuthering Heights. It’s a story of her secret desires, her quest to find her voice as both an author and a woman in prudish 19th century England, and her relationship with her siblings including her troubled brother Bramwell (Fionn Whitehead). Far from a simple period biopic, there are wild and painful depths to be plumbed in this author’s tragic story and, in the hands of O’Connor and Mackey, each atmospheric moment has the potential to be unforgettable. – Emma Badame

Prime Video

Good Night Oppy

Program: Special Presentations

I’m trying to avoid repeating myself having already written about Women Talking and All the Beauty and the Bloodshed as top picks, so I’ll give some love elsewhere. I’m quite excited for Ryan White’s documentary Good Night Oppy. The film chronicles the 15-year mission on Mars in which NASA’s Opportunity Rover, or “Oppy” for short, roamed the Red Planet in search of knowledge of the great beyond. White consistently brings an observant, compassionate eye for human characters and timely subjects, as seen in films like The Case Against 8, Good Ole Freda, and Ask Dr. Ruth, so I’m intrigued to see how—or if—he humanizes the robotic rover. Good Night Oppy promises cutting-edge VFX from George Lucas’s Industrial Light & Magic, which makes the film one of the must-see docs for the big screen at TIFF 2022.  (And because I’m indecisive: Decision to Leave, The Grab, Viking, Bros, The Whale, Empire of Light, the Hillary Clinton industry talk.)  – Pat Mullen

 

TIFF runs Sept. 8 – 18, 2022.

 



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