TIFF 2016 selects new Platform

Competition for the Toronto Platform Prize ($25,000 CAD) takes place for a second time at the 41^st Toronto International Film Festival.  The 2016 edition consists of 12 films from Canada, Australia, France, Bhutan, Belgium, USA, United Kingdom, and Netherlands.

“In its inaugural year in 2015, Platform successfully established itself as fundamental to the Festival, and we’re proud to present a dramatically thrilling and daring programme for its second year,” said TIFF Artistic Director Cameron Bailey. “This year’s group of bold and brilliant filmmakers brought forth narratives that are provocative, personal, and will challenge conventional forms of expression and redefine the art of storytelling. The line-up will give our audiences a window into the minds of some of the most masterful and exploratory directors of our time.”

Here are the World Premieres amongst the list of competitors:

Maliglutit (Searchers) by Zacharias Kunuk, Canada

Nunavut, Canada circa 1913. Kuanana returns from a caribou hunt to discover his wife and daughter kidnapped, and the rest of his family slaughtered. His father’s spirit helper, the loon Kallulik, sets him on course to overturn fate and reunite his family.  Starring Benjamin Kunuk, Karen Ivalu, and Jonah Qunaq.

Daguerrotype (Le Secret de la chambre noire) by Kiyoshi Kurosawa, France/Japan/Belgium

The obsession of an aging photographer with an archaic technique draws his young assistant and beautiful daughter into a dark and mysterious world.  Starring Tahar Rahim, Constance Rousseau, Olivier Gourmet, and Mathieu Amalric.

Lady Macbeth by William Oldroyd, UK

Rural England, 1865. Katherine is stifled by her loveless marriage to a bitter man twice her age and his cold, unforgiving family. When she embarks on a passionate affair with a young worker on her husband’s estate, a force is unleashed inside her so powerful that she  will stop at nothing to get what she wants. Starring Florence Pugh, Cosmo Jarvis, Paul Hilton, Naomi Ackie, and Christopher Fairbank.

Layla M. by Mijke de Jong, Netherlands/Belgium/Germany/Jordan

Eighteen year-old Layla, a Dutch girl with Moroccan roots, joins a group of radical Muslims. She encounters a world that nurtures her ideas initially, but finally confronts her with an impossible choice. Starring Nora El Koussour and Ilias Addab.

Those Who Make Revolution Halfway Only Dig Their Own Graves by Mathieu Denis and Simon Lavoie, Canada

Klas Batalo, Giutizia, Tumulto, and Ordine Nuovo, four twenty-somethings from Québec, reject the world in which they live. Three years after the collapse of the Maple Spring protest movement, they resort to a form of vandalism that gradually leads them closer to terrorism. But their revolutionary avant-garde is far from society’s prevailing aspirations and threatens to blow up in their faces. Starring Charlotte Aubin, Laurent Bélanger, Emmanuelle Lussier-Martinez, and Gabrielle Tremblay.

The 41st Toronto International Film Festival runs from September 8 to 18, 2016 and for more information visit tiff.net.