Image courtesy of TIFF

The official end of Summer in Toronto for me comes with the excitement that is planning for the Toronto International Film Festival, or better known as TIFF.

This year, I will not be able to attend as many film screenings as previous years. However, I compiled a list of films that have piqued my interest in hope that some of you get to see them on my behalf.

I’m listing them here under the Programme you can find them in. Please also note that I did not pick any films that would classify as ‘Hollywood Blockbusters’ nor films that would most likely be released at a theatre near you in the near future.

CONTEMPORARY WORLD CINEMA
The Animal Project (Dir. Ingrid Veninger)
A Toronto theatre director endures a series of creative and personal travails in this affecting and typically inventive new film from Festival favourite Ingrid Veninger (MODRA, i am a good person/i am a bad person).

Child’s Pose (Dir. Calin Peter Netzer)
Romanian director Calin Peter Netzer won the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival for this sardonic tale about a wealthy, aging Bucharest matriarch who greases more palms than she can shake as she tries to buy her son’s way out of a hit-and-run conviction.

Cristo Rey (Dir. Leticia Tonos Paniagua)
Set in the Dominican Republic, Paniagua’s uniquely Caribbean retelling of Romeo and Juliet chronicles the love between a kind-hearted teenager, ostracized for his mixed Haitian-Dominican descent, and the beautiful sister of a local drug kingpin he’s hired to protect.

Heart of a Lion (Dir. Dome Karukoski)
The leader of a gang of racist skinheads finds his prejudices and misplaced loyalties pitted against his desire for love and family when he falls for a waitress whose son is of African descent.

The Immoral (Dir. Lars Daniel Krutzkoff Jacobsen)
Jacobsen’s corrosive look at contemporary Norwegian society is also a hilarious and provocative comedy that cuts across class lines and rampages through notions of good taste, as it follows an ex-soldier and a single mother who go into the prostitution business after getting kicked off welfare.

Metalhead (Dir. Ragnar Bragason)
Acclaimed Icelandic filmmaker Ragnar Bragason (Children, Parents) directs this darkly comic drama about a grief-stricken young woman who adopts the persona — and decibel-blasting predilections — of her deceased brother.

El Mudo (Dirs. Diego Vega, Daniel Vega)
Someone is out to get Constantino Zegarra, a judge with an impressive conviction rate — and any number of enemies. So why is it so hard for others to believe he’s the victim of a conspiracy? This black comedy and offbeat crime procedural combines elements of a paranoid thriller and with social commentary.

The Selfish Giant (Dir. Clio Barnard)
This loose update of the Oscar Wilde fable tells the tale of raging, impulsive Arbor, a boy kicked out of school and into an illegal trade, stealing copper cable for sale. With its underclass characters and misty Bradford setting, Clio Barnard’s second feature has the tone of a Dardennes film, but with a distinct British edge.

Stay (Dir. Wiebke von Carolsfeld)
Taylor Schilling (Netflix’s Orange is the New Black) stars as a newly-single pregnant woman who confronts an uncertain future in the long-awaited sophomore drama from Wiebke von Carolsfeld (Marion Bridge).

When Evening Falls on Bucharest or Metabolism (Dir. Corneliu Porumboiu)

Image courtesy of Wild Bunch

A director (Bogdan Dumitrache) with two weeks left on his latest film fakes an ulcer in order to delay production and pursue a romance with his lead actress and muse (Diana Avramut). In the hands of Romanian fimmaker Corneliu Porumboiu, this seemingly simple love story becomes a force of cinematic deconstruction similar to his meta police procedural, Police, Adjective.

DISCOVERY
1982 (Dir. Tommy Oliver)
A father struggles to protect his daughter from the reality of her mother’s drug addiction in Tommy Oliver’s powerful, semi-autobiographical debut.

Rhymes for Young Ghouls (Dir. Jeff Barnaby)
Guided by the spirits of her departed mother and brother, an Aboriginal teenager plots revenge against a sadistic Indian Agent in this fiercely irreverent debut feature from Canadian director Jeff Barnaby.

MASTERS
Concrete Night (Dir. Pirjo Honkasalo)
A fourteen-year-old boy in a stifling Helsinki slum takes some unwise life lessons from his soon-to-be-incarcerated older brother, in Finnish master Pirjo Honkasalo’s gorgeously stylized and emotionally devastating work about what we pass on to younger generations, and the ways we do it.

How Strange to be Named Federico: Scola narrates Fellini (Dir. Ettore Scola)
Combining memoir, archival photos and footage with complete recreation, director Ettore Scola lovingly depicts his relationship with friend, fellow journalist, and icon of postwar Italian cinema, Federico Fellini.

Moebius (Dir. Kim Ki-duk)
South Korea’s celebrated perennial provocateur Kim Ki-duk (Pieta) returns with this twisted family chronicle perched somewhere between psychological thriller, grotesque comedy, and perverse ode to the pleasures of sadomasochism.

MAVERICKS
What is Cinema? (Dir. Chuck Workman)
Featuring interviews with the likes of Hitchcock, Kurosawa, Robert Bresson and David Lynch, What is Cinema? is documentarian Chuck Workman’s engrossing visual essay about mastery of cinematic form. Our world premiere will be followed by a live conversation with Workman.

MIDNIGHT MADNESS
R100 (Dir. Hitoshi Matsumoto)
A mild-mannered family man with a secret taste for S&M finds himself pursued by a gang of ruthless dominatrixes — each with a very special talent — in this hilarious and bizarre take on the sex comedy from Japanese comedy giant Hitoshi Matsumoto (Big Man Japan, Symbol).

The Greeen Inferno (Dir. Eli Roth)
Horror maestro Eli Roth (Hostel) returns to the director’s chair for this gruesome homage to the notorious Italian cannibal movies of the late seventies and early eighties.

Why Don’t You Play In Hell? (Dir. Sion Sono)
A renegade film crew becomes embroiled with a yakuza clan feud in this wild, perverse and blood-soaked orgy of outrageousness from cult director Sion Sono (Suicide Club).

Witching & Bitching (Dir. Álex de la Iglesia)
Fleeing through the impenetrable forests of the Basque countryside after a jewel heist, a hapless band of robbers runs afoul of a coven of witches, in this madcap supernatural spectacle from Spanish genre specialist Álex de la Iglesia (The Last Circus).

SPECIAL PRESENTATIONS
Blind Detective (Dir. Johnnie To)
Master director Johnnie To’s latest collaboration with superstars Sammi Cheng and Andy Lau is a deliciously madcap riff on the “buddy cop” genre, as a retired sleuth with an uncanny ability teams with a quick-witted inspector to fight Hong Kong’s criminal underworld, one costume at a time.

CANNIBAL (Dir. Manuel Martín Cuenca)
In the sleepy Spanish town of Granada, a mild-mannered tailor and secret cannibal unexpectedly finds himself falling in love with his latest prospective victim, in director Manuel Martín Cuenca’s disturbing yet intoxicating tale of bizarre romance.

‘Caníbal’ – Tráiler (HD) by elseptimoarte

REAL (Dir. Kiyoshi Kurosawa)
Master filmmaker Kiyoshi Kurosawa (Cure, Tokyo Sonata) returns with this story of a man who uses an advanced neurological technology to enter the frightening mindscape of his comatose lover.

TIFF DOCS
The Mayor (Dirs. Emiliano Altuna Fistolera, Carlos Federico Rossini, Diego Osorno)
This engrossing documentary introduces us to Mexican millionaire mayor Mauricio Fernandez, a larger-than-life and frequently controversial politician who lords over Latin America’s wealthiest municipality from his eccentrically decorated palace — and has a predilection for taking justice into his own hands.

Tim’s Vermeer (Dir. Teller)
Renowned illusionists and professional debunkers Penn & Teller unite for this documentary investigation into the mysterious methods of Dutch Master Johannes Vermeer, whose photo-realistic paintings predated the invention of the camera by 150 years.

Jodorowsky’s Dune (Dir. Frank Pavich)
This fascinating documentary explores the genesis of one of cinema’s greatest epics that never was: cult filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky’s (El Topo) adaptation of Frank Herbert’s sci-fi classic Dune, whose cast would have included such icons as Salvador Dalí, Orson Welles and Mick Jagger.

When Jews Were Funny (Dir. Alan Zweig)
Insightful and often hilarious, the latest from documentary filmmaker Alan Zweig surveys the history of Jewish comedy, from the early days of Borsht belt to the present, ultimately exploring not just ethnicity in the entertainment industry, but also the entire unruly question of what it means to be Jewish.

VANGUARD
PROXY (Dir. Zack Parker)
Seeking consolation in a support group after a vicious attack, a young woman gradually comes to realize that nothing in her life is as it appears, in this shocking and challenging thriller from director Zack Parker (Scalene).

The Fake (Dir. Yeon Sangho)
The sophomore feature from provocative South Korean animator Yeon Sangho (The King of Pigs) is a blistering critique of organized religion, set in a rural village where a manipulative church minister schemes to defraud his flock.

The Strange Colour of Your Body’s Tears (Dirs. Helene Cattet, Bruno Forzani)
The latest from Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani (Amer) is a sensual, blood-soaked homage to the 1970s giallo aesthetic that will keep you guessing.

WAVELENGTHS
A Field in England (Dir. Ben Wheatley)
A single muddy West Country field provides the setting for this brilliantly bizarre English Civil War drama and psychedelic horror film from genre-fusing cult director Ben Wheatley (Kill List, Sightseers), which features a group of deserters, a necromancer, psychoactive plants and buried treasure.