culture
Final TIFF Announcements Add Prestige, Promise, and a New Episode of Shit Girls Say
Masters, Mavericks, Discoveries, and TIFF Docs Conference Selections round out the festival's full 2012 slate.
Not to be outdone by it’s own recent unveiling of Paul Thomas Anderson’s The Master, TIFF yesterday revealed the 14 esteemed participants in its 2012 Masters programme, along with full lineups for this year’s Discoveries, Mavericks, and TIFF Docs Conference selections. The announcements round out the festival’s final 289 film slate, which has been assembled into a typically labyrinthine festival screening schedule. (Happily, Tiffr is once again at your service.)
Given that TIFF determines its accolades by audience poll, it’s safe to say that the festival has never aspired to the prestige of Cannes. But if you put stock in such things, it’s worth noting that between the newly announced selections by 2012 Palme d’Or winner Michael Haneke (Amour) and Christian Mungiu (Beyond the Hills), who won the Cannes top prize in 2007, TIFF 2012 now boasts films by the last five winners of international cinema’s most distinguished honour. (Haneke also won the prize in 2009, while films by Terrence Malick, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, and Laurent Cantet have already been announced.)
Joining Haneke and Mungiu in the Masters programme are films by Certified Copy director Abbas Kiarostami (Like Someone in Love); late Chilean luminary Raul Ruiz (Night Across the Street); Olivier Assayas (Something in the Air); Hong Sang-soo (In Another Country); and, after a 10-year hiatus, Bernadro Bertolucci (Me and You). Prolific UK director Michael Winterbottom (Everyday) and Serbian filmmaker Goran Paskaljevic (When Day Breaks) also contribute world premiere selections.
Turning from celebrated old hands to the promise of youth, this year’s Discovery programme features 27 debuts and sophomore features from a diverse array of international up-and-comers. Recent highlights to emerge from this showcase of raw talent include Athina Rachel Tsangari’s Attenberg and Steve McQueen’s Hunger.
TIFF’s Mavericks section returns to provide audiences with an opportunity to participate in discussions with entertainment industry leaders. Notable names on this year’s slate include Jackie Chan, Javier Bardem, Johnny Depp, David Geffen, and Slavoj Žižek, plus Graydon Sheppard and Kyle Humphrey, better known as the duo behind Shit Girls Say. Not content with movies, TIFF is apparently moving into memes. The pair will premiere a new episode of their oft-parodied web series during their Mavericks panel. Other works featuring as part of the Mavericks programme include Tom Donahue’s showbiz doc Casting By and Amy Berg’s West of Memphis.
In a new venture this year, TIFF’s documentary-focused industry panels will also be open to the public. Scheduled speakers include Ken Burns and HBO film’s Sheila Nevins, while attendees can also look forward to two world premieres (from the directors of Control Room and Prom Night in Mississippi), as well as a work-in-progress sneak peek of a new film by Up the Yangtze‘s Yung Chang.
TIFF 2012 runs September 6–16. For a full festival schedule and ticketing information, visit tiff.net.
