This year’s edition of the Toronto International Film Festival is scheduled to take place from September 8th through the 18th, and The Hollywood Reporter has just revealed the titles of the films that will be showing as part of the festival’s Midnight Madness sidebar – including Ti West’s X prequel Pearl, a new entry in the V/H/S franchise, and the Weird Al biopic Weird: The Al Yankovic Story, which stars Daniel Radcliffe!
Weird: The Al Yankovic Story, which was made for The Roku Channel, is set to have its world premiere at TIFF at the Royal Alexandra Theater on September 8th. Midnight Madness curator Peter Kuplowsky provided the following statement: “I couldn’t have hoped for a more appropriate opening night film than Weird: The Al Yankovic Story — a beautifully deranged biopic made in the great Midnight movie tradition of challenging conventions and forging one’s own path, no matter how weird.”
Here’s what The Hollywood Reporter had to say about the Midnight Madness line-up:
The gore-filled Midnight Madness program has world bows for Tim Story’s horror comedy The Blackening, starring Dewayne Perkins and Grace Byers; John Hyams’ Sick, a pandemic-era drama co-written by Kevin Williamson where best friends quarantine at a family lake house alone, or so they think; and Vera Drew’s The People’s Joker, which reimagines the comic book villain franchise as a queer coming-of-age pic.
Other world premieres for the Midnight Madness program include V/H/S/99, a new film from the found footage anthology franchise V/H/S, this time directed by Flying Lotus, Johannes Roberts, Maggie Levin, Tyler MacIntyre, Vanessa Winter and Joseph Winter; Kim Hongsun’s genre actioner Project Wolf Hunting; Spanish horror veteran Jaume Balagueró’s Venus, starring Ester Expósito; and Jalmari Helander’s Second World War action film Sisu, already picked up by Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions.
The Midnight Madness program will close with Leonor Will Never Die, directed by Martika Ramirez Escobar, while there’s a North American premiere for Ti West’s Pearl after a SXSW debut. A24’s prequel horror flick has Mia Goth playing a young woman lusting for fame and wielding a pitch fork on her family’s isolated farm.
The Hollywood Reporter also revealed the titles that will be included in the Toronto Film Festival’s Discovery sidebar and the Wavelengths program for experimental works. The Discovery line-up includes Elegance Bratton’s narrative directorial debut The Inspection, starring Gabrielle Union and Jeremy Pope in a drama about a young gay man enlisting in the Marines to win his mother’s approval; Sophie Kargman’s dark comic thriller Susie Searches, starring Kiersey Clemons; Bess Wohl’s Baby Ruby, where a mother battles postpartum depression and her baby’s apparent hostility; Marian Mathias’ Runner, a relationship drama set in the U.S. Midwest; Aitch Alberto’s Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe, which stars Eva Longoria and Eugenio Derbez; Benjamin Millepied’s Carmen, a modern-day retelling of the popular opera that stars Paul Mescal; Laura Baumeister’s Daughter of Rage; the first Nicaraguan feature directed by a woman; Basil Khalil’s satire A Gaza Weekend; Davit Pirtskhalava’s A Long Break; Return to Seoul, directed by Davy Chou; Angela Wanjiku Wamai’s Shimoni; Selcen Ergun’s Snow and the Bear; Jub Clerc’s Sweet As; The Taste of Apples is Red, directed by Ehab Tarabieh; Malou Reymann’s Unruly; Chandler Levack’s I Like Movies, about a self-obsessed teenager pursuing his dreams and testing relationships in 1990s suburban Ontario; Joseph Amenta’s Pussy; Gail Maurice’s Rosie; V.T. Nayani’s This Place; Sophie Jarvis’s Until Branches Bend; When Morning Comes from Kelly Fyffe-Marshall; Sheila Pye’s The Young Arsonists; and Something You Said Last Night, directed by Luis De Filippis.
In the Wavelengths program are Antoine Bourge’s Concrete Valley, a drama about a doctor from Syria, played by Hussam Douhna, who struggles along with his wife and son to adjust to a new life in Canada while living and working in Toronto’s Thorncliffe Park neighborhood; De Humani Corporis Fabrica, by directors Véréna Paravel and Lucien Castaing-Taylor; Joana Pimenta and Adirley Queiros’ Dry Ground Running; Albert Serra’s Pacification; and Queens of the Qing Dynasty, directed by Ashley McKenzie.
So it’s clear that the Toronto Film Festival has quite a strong selection of films this year. The Midnight Madness sidebar is of greatest interest to me, and I’m really looking forward to hearing what the reactions are going to be to the likes of Pearl, V/H/S/99, Weird: The Al Yankovic Story, The Blackening, Sick, The People’s Joker, Project Wolf Hunting, Venus, Sisu, and Leonor Will Never Die.
Will you be attending the festival? Which of these films are you most interested in? Let us know by leaving a comment below.