What’s up with the TIFF trickle? There are just over 50 days until the 2022 Toronto International Film Festival, so we’re assembling a TIFF wish list with hopes of seeing more news coming out of the Lightbox. This year, TIFF’s doing an odd practice of announcing world premieres one by one. First it was Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery. Woo hoo, a star-studded caper to get us all excited for the big show! It was, however, awfully strange that the news about a solitary selection didn’t contain the words “opening night.” It seemed as if another festival was jockeying for the film and TIFF just called dibs first. (Or, worse, offered it the opening slot and Netflix declined.) Then came the news of Clement Virgo’s Brother, Sanaa Latham’s The Come Up, and Billy Eichner and Nicholas Stoller’s Bros as world premieres that aren’t, at the moment, opening the festival.
All four films sparked enthusiasm in the Twittersphere, though, so these TIFF amuses bouches aren’t really back-firing. (I’m especially excited for Bros and Brother.) But with that said, it’s weird.
TIFF announced Dear Evan Hansen as the opener on July 20 last year, so we should expect some big news this week or next. As we gear up for the festival and hope that TIFF will soon dump a big load on festival-goers (in terms of quantity, not quality), here’s a TIFF wish list for the 2022 festival. Every good line-up deserves a mix of Canadian flicks, Oscar hopefuls, documentaries, and indies, so away we go!
The 2022 TIFF Wish List
Earth Camp One
It’s been 32 years since Jennie Livingston’s debut film Paris Is Burning played the Festival of Festivals. It went on to win top honours at Sundance and Berlin, and remains one of the most influential American documentaries of all time. However, Livingston hasn’t made a feature doc since then. In the interim, Paris has only grown its fanbase. Its portrait of NYC’s ball scene remains a landmark of queer cinema. (Thanks, Drag Race!) Livingston’s sophomore documentary, Earth Camp One, also accounts for her absence quite poignantly. The film is a personal study of heartache years in the making, as Livingston lost five close family members in one decade. The doc frames her essay within a larger consideration of impermanence. It’s a study of resilience from a master who first told us what it means to survive as your authentic self.
Tár
I’m crossing my fingers that TIFF’s random addition of In the Bedroom to the “festival flashback” list of its digital platform means that Todd Field’s latest film will be at the festival. Tár is a portrait of German composer Lydia Tár, played by Cate Blanchett, and the high stakes world of classical music. (The cast includes Nina Hoss and Noémie Merlant.) Really, though, Tár could join films like Earth Camp One in making a rousing “welcome back!” back for filmmakers we haven’t seen in some time. Field’s Little Children played TIFF in 2006 (and was my favourite film of that year), and doubled-down on the subtle devastation of In the Bedroom. A teaser wowed and puzzled CinemaCon in equal measures with a look at a smoky Blanchett and little else. Tár’s distributor, Focus Features, usually debuts at least one awards hopeful in Toronto, so this one’s a safe bet.
Viking
I haven’t laughed as much during a Canadian film as I did during Stéphane Lafleur’s Tu dors Nicole. Although Lafleur mostly works as an editor on the Canadian scene, he’s one of Quebec’s most interesting voices. His offbeat films like Tu dors Nicole, En terrains connus, and Continental, a Film without Guns display a drolly distinct sense of humour. His latest film, Viking, sounds like a great romp through the lunatic fringe: a team readies for a mission to Mars while another, a B-team, plays out the mission on Earth. Three cheers for the B-team! How Canadian.
She Said
Is Hollywood ready to confront its recent past? The story that rocked the world and inspired a movement comes to the screen in She Said. Adapting the book by Pulitzer Prize winners Jodi Kantor and Meagan Twohey, She Said dramatizes the intricate investigation and water-tight journalism that exposed Harvey Weinstein’s history of sexual assault, abuse, and misconduct. The film stars Zoe Kazan and Carey Mulligan as the intrepid journalists encouraging women to go on record. Samantha Morton co-stars in what should be a scene-stealing role as silence breaker Zelda Perkins, while early casting notes suggest that audiences shouldn’t expect to see Gwyneth Paltrow or Ashley Judd. They figure prominently in the book, though, so perhaps we’re in for some surprises.
Thankfully, though, the film seems to have dropped parts two and three of the book, which covered the Brett Kavanagh hearings and a GOOPy round-table at Paltrow’s house, which tried to situate the Weinstein affair within a larger cycle, but didn’t quite stick the execution.
Women Talking
One of the most exciting Canadian projects of the year technically isn’t a Canadian film. Sarah Polley’s Women Talking, based on the brilliant novel by Miriam Toews, features a Hollywood who’s who that our publicly funded national cinema could never afford: Frances McDormand, Jessie Buckley, Claire Foy, Rooney Mara, and Ben Whishaw. The title is pretty self-explanatory as it features a group of women talking as survivors of serial sexual assault in a Mennonite community debate the merits of accepting their fate, rioting, or leaving. The premise may pose a challenge cinematically, but Polley’s an adept writer/director with a strong cast on her hands. A lot will ride on the editing by Christopher Donaldson (Crimes of the Future) and Roslyn Kalloo (Mary Kills People). She’s been sharing news of test screenings and whatnot on social media, so it’s ready presumably the biggest no-brainer on the TIFF wish list.
Hopefully they aren’t as brutal with Canadian media as the Toews adaptation All My Puny Sorrows was at last year’s fest! I will never forgive or forget that.
Rustin
Colman Domingo should have been this year’s Best Supporting Actor Oscar winner for his madcap turn in Zola. However, the film didn’t quite break through, so maybe some residual love will work in his favour for what will inevitably be one of Netflix’s Oscar hopefuls. Rustin is a biography of gay activist Bayard Rustin and his often behind-the-scenes role in the civil rights movement, which, presumably makes it an ideal choice for a festival that is really putting representation at the forefront. With George C. Wolfe (Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom) directing, Oscar winner Dustin Lance Black (Milk) writing, and a character actor like Domingo finally getting a lead role for which he’s way overdue, there’s a nice symmetry to one unheralded star paying tribute to another.
Producer Bruce Cohen scored People’s Choice Awards when he brought American Beauty and Silver Linings Playbook to TIFF, so it’s a likely strategy for launching this film. And hey, with the Obamas’ Higher Ground attached, that could be quite the red carpet!
The Occupied City
Steven McQueen makes his feature documentary debut with The Occupied City. The film adapts the book by McQueen’s wife and creative partner Bianca Stigter about Amsterdam under Nazi occupation. It’s a huge project by any standards for a documentary with a reported price tag of $5 million. City explores the history and geography of Amsterdam and the sites of memory that housed Jews during the Holocaust. I asked Stigter about the project when interviewing her for her film Three Minutes: A Lengthening ahead of TIFF last year and while she was reluctant to say too much, she expressed excitement over McQueen’s shoot at the house where Anne Frank hid. However, Screen reports that The Occupied City is among projects seeking financing at Venice this year, so it might not be TIFF-ready. Mind you, Clement Virgo’s Brother is on the Venice list and it’s already been announced for TIFF.
Madeleine
It’s borderline ludicrous how prolific French auteur François Ozon has been during COVID. His Summer of ’85 was a highlight of TIFF 2020 with its sun-kissed romance, and he gave Sophie Marceau a subtly devastating role in the end-of-life drama Everything Went Fine. He then opened Berlin this year with Peter von Kant, which received mixed reviews, but he could rebound in September. His latest film, Madeleine, is a hush-hush project featuring Isabelle Huppert, reuniting after their hugely popular 2002 film 8 Women, and Fabrice Luchini, who was a hoot in In the House. Ozon is one of my favourite directors working today, so whatever he’s offering, I’m in.
Bones and All
Bust out the peach hand sanitizer, because Timothée Chalamet and Luca Guadagnino are back together! After 2017’s Call Me By Your Name made Chalamet an international star, Guadagnino could do the same for Canadian actress Taylor Russell. After making an impression in 2019’s Waves, Russell gets the lead alongside Chalamet in this story of a young woman on a journey of self-discovery after being abandoned by her mother. The film adapts Camille DeAngelis’s YA novel of the same name with David Kajganich, who penned Guadagnino’s A Bigger Splash and Suspiria, on the script. It seems to hit the sweet spot between awards hopeful and commercial flick that one often sees in TIFF picks.
Frontières
Quebecois director Guy Édoin hasn’t always hit the mark, but his work consistently intrigues even when it doesn’t wholly deliver. He has a great cinematic eye and hand for characters, as one sees in films like Wetlands, which made Canada’s Top Ten in 2011, and the Monica Bellucci melodrama Ville-Marie, which screened the 2015 festival. His latest drama, Frontières, is a story of three women on a Quebec farm near the American border where they’re haunted by ghosts of the past and family secrets. Filming wrapped last fall with Édoin reuniting with Wetlands star Pascale Bussières. Quebec’s been notably under-represented in recent incarnations of the festival, so let’s hope 2022 remedies that given the offerings. Although word trickling out is that the Canadian crop will be smaller this year.
Testament
Speaking of Quebec, will the festival find room for the most prolific and significant dramatic filmmaker from la belle province, Denys Arcand? Canada’s only Oscar winner in the International category returns after his incendiary, but weirdly underrated The Fall of the American Empire, saw Arcand enjoy a return to form after a late career slump. The latest film from the 80-year-old director is the ominously titled Testament. It continues the satirical bent that made audiences roar in The Decline of the American Empire and The Barbarian Invasions. This time, Arcand takes on political correctness, cancel culture, and one man’s declining faith in humanity. But does anyone still have faith in humanity?
