Toronto 2024 preview: Screen’s guide to the Platform and Midnight Madness titles

Daniela Forever (Sp-Belg)

Dir. Nacho Vigalondo
A 2005 Oscar nominee for short 7:35 In The Morning, Spain’s Vigalondo has gone on to direct four features (including TIFF 2016’s Colossal), while also contributing to horror anthologies and episodic TV. His self-penned fifth feature stars Henry Golding as a bereaved man who enrols in the clinical trial of a drug that allows him to reunite with his lost lover (Beatrice Grannò) through lucid dreams. Spain’s Sayaka Producciones produces with Wrong Men, Señor y Señora, Mediacrest Entertainment and XYZ Films.
Contact: XYZ Films

Daughter’s Daughter (Tai)

Dir. Huang Xi
For her second feature, Taiwanese director Huang reunites with exec producer Hou Hsiao-hsien and actress Sylvia Chang following 2022’s HBO series Twisted Strings. Starring Chang, who is also an exec producer, and Karena Lam, the film follows a widow who travels to New York to decide the fate of her late daughter’s IVF embryo as well as face the daughter she gave up for adoption. Huang has worked closely with Hou since 1996, including on her prize-winning 2017 feature debut Missing Johnny.
Contact: Rediance

Mr. K (Neth-Belg-Nor)

Dir. Tallulah H Schwab
Norwegian/Dutch filmmaker Schwab’s first feature Confetti Harvest debuted at 2015’s Berlinale. Follow-up Mr. K is billed as a Kafka­esque tale of a travelling magician (Crispin Glover) who finds himself in a hotel full of unusual guests — with no way out. Sunnyi Melles — best known to international audiences for heroic vomiting in Triangle Of Sadness — also stars, alongside Fionnula Flanagan. Producers and co-producers are the Netherlands’ Lemming Film, The Film Kitchen and AvroTros, Belgium’s A Private View and Norway’s Take 1.
Contact: Niklas Teng, LevelK

Paying For It (Can)

Dir. Sook-Yin Lee
Chester Brown’s autobiographical 2011 graphic novel serves as the foundation of Paying For It, produced by Wildling Pictures and Hawkeye Pictures, and directed by Brown’s former partner Lee. Dan Beirne and Emily Lê star in the Toronto-set story of an introverted cartoonist who starts to sleep with sex workers when his girlfriend wants to redefine their relationship. Lee and Joanne Sarazen adapted the screenplay.
Contact: Matt Code, Wildling Pictures; Aeschylus Poulos, Hawkeye Pictures

Pedro Páramo (Mex)

Dir. Rodrigo Prieto
Renowned cinematographer Prieto (Killers Of The Flower Moon) makes his feature-directing debut with an adaptation of Juan Rulfo’s 1955 Mexican novel. The story follows Juan Preciado, who after the death of his mother goes to the remote village where he was born in search of his father, the titular Pedro Páramo. Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, Tenoch Huerta and Dolores Heredia star; Stacy Perskie and Rafael Ley produce.
Contact: Netflix

They Will Be Dust (Sp-It-Switz)

Dir. Carlos Marques-Marcet
Marques-Marcet debuted in 2014 with Goya-winning romance 10,000km, and the prolific Spanish director is now on his sixth feature, while squeezing in a parallel career as an editor (Costa Brava, Lebanon). His latest is a musical tragicomedy about a woman with an incurable disease (Angela Molina) and her partner (Alfredo Costa) heading to Switzerland for assisted suicide. Spain’s Lastor Media, Switzerland’s Alina Film and Italy’s Kino Produzioni produce.
Contact: Latido Films

Triumph (Bul-Gre)

Dirs. Petar Valchanov, Kristina Grozeva
The Bulgarian duo were last in TIFF with The Father (2019), after it scooped Karlovy Vary’s best film prize. Their latest black comedy forms a loose trilogy with The Lesson (TIFF 2014) and Glory (Locarno 2016), all taking inspiration from bizarre true stories in their homeland. Borat Subsequent Moviefilm breakout Maria Bakalova leads the cast (and produces), joining Julian Kostov and Julian Vergov in the early 1990s-set story of psychics helping Bulgarian army officers locate an alien artefact. Producers are the directors’ Abraxas Film and Greece’s Graal Films.
Contact: Bankside Films

Viktor (Ukr-US)

Dir. Olivier Sarbil
Corsica-born documentarian Sarbil co-directed 2019 CPH:DOX entry On The President’s Orders, examining Philippines president Rodrigo Duterte’s bloody clampdown on drug dealers and addicts. Viktor, his first solo-directed feature-length doc, is billed as an immersive audiovisual experience capturing a deaf person’s navigation of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Darren Aronofsky is among the producers via Protozoa Pictures.
Contact: Cinephil

Winter In Sokcho (Fr)

Dir. Koya Kamura
French-Japanese writer/director Kamura debuts his adaptation of Elisa Shua Dusapin’s novel set in a snowy South Korean seaside village. It follows a woman on a quest for identity and independence whose routine is disrupted when a French artist moves into the guesthouse where she works. Roschdy Zem and newcomer Bella Kim star in the film, which is produced by Offshore’s Fabrice Préel-Cléach and co-produced by Keystone Films’ Yoon-Seok Nam.
Contact: Pamela Leu, Be For Films

The Wolves Always Come At Night (Australia-Mongolia-Ger)

Dir. Gabrielle Brady
Australia’s Brady made festival noise in 2018 with debut feature-length doc Island Of The Hungry Ghosts, going on to achieve a best documentary nod at the Film Independent Spirits in 2020. Her new hybrid documentary/narrative follows a Mongolian couple whose lives are uprooted when climate change forces them to relocate — and adapt — to a new life in the city. Australia’s Over Here Productions, Germany’s Chromosom and Mongolia’s Guru Media produce, and backers include Screen Australia and BBC Storyville.
Contact: Cinephil

Midnight Madness

Dead Mail (US)

Dirs. Joe DeBoer, Kyle McConaghy
Launching at SXSW in March, Dead Mail is the second feature from the Missouri-born writer/director pair, following BAB (2020); McConaghy — who is also a cinematographer — solo-directed Sheeps Clothing (2022). Set in a pre-internet 1980s, this retro-thriller stars Tomas Boykin as a lonely post-office worker who specialises in resolving misdirected mail, investigating a blood-stained card that is a clue to a crime. Brett Arndt and Zachary Weil produce.
Contact: Bill Strauss, Bridge Independent

Dead Talents Society (Tai)

Dir. John Hsu
Chen Bolin, Sandrine Pinna and Gingle Wang star in this supernatural comedy, as ghosts train the newly dead to become the next superstars of the afterlife. It marks the first Taiwanese film backed and distributed worldwide by Sony Pictures International in more than two decades. The Taiwanese release was August 7, ahead of its North American premiere at Toronto. Director Hsu’s big break was 2019 horror Detention, a box-office hit and winner of five Golden Horse Awards including best new director and adapted screenplay.
Contact: Desmond Yang, Mandarin Vision

Else (Fr-Belg)

Dir. Thibault Emin
French filmmaker and La Fémis graduate Emin’s first feature — based on his short of the same name — is a body-horror romance following a couple facing a bizarre epidemic that causes people to merge with objects and melt into their surroundings. Their love is put to the test as bodies blend with bed sheets. Matthieu Sampeur and Edith Proust headline the young cast, while Paris-based Les Produits Frais produces with Belgium’s Wrong Men.
Contact: Tanguy Archimbaud, WTFilms

Escape From The 21st Century (China)

Dir. Li Yang
Chinese director Li’s debut solo feature receives its international premiere following release in China on August 2. The action film follows three friends who find they can travel 20 years through time with a mere sneeze, only to find themselves responsible for saving the world. The cast includes Zhang Ruoyun, Zhong Chuxi and Song Yang. Li directed short Lee’s Adventure and co-directed the feature of the same name with Frant Gwo (The Wandering Earth).
Contact: Fortissimo Films

Friendship (US)

Dir. Andrew DeYoung
Following more than a decade directing shorts and episodic TV (Net­flix’s The Decameron, Max Original Our Flag Means Death), DeYoung offers a self-penned debut feature about a married man (Tim Robinson) whose contented life is threatened by the arrival in the neighbourhood of a macho yet vulnerable weatherman (Paul Rudd). Kate Mara also stars in the comedy, which Fifth Season financed and produces alongside Raphael Margules and JD Lifshitz of BoulderLight, Nick Weidenfeld and Johnny Holland.
Contact: WME Independent

The Gesuidouz (Japan)

Dir. Kenichi Ugana
Ugana centres his latest cult feature on the titular horror-themed punk band (‘gesuidou’ means ‘sewer’ in Japanese) who move to the countrys­ide to write the world’s greatest punk anthem. Ugana made his feature directing debut with Ganguro Gals Riot in 2016 and more recently made horror films Visitors: Complete Edition and Love Will Tear Us Apart. The Gesuidouz features music by Kyono, formerly of rockers The Mad Capsule Markets, and Leo Imamura of ALI, who also appears in the film. It is produced by Riku Sumida (Baby Assassins: 2 Babies) and released in Japan in spring 2025.
Contact: Rights Cube 

Ick (US)

Dir. Joseph Kahn
Kahn returns with a throwback to the creature features of the 1980s, after directing the TIFF 2017 Midnight Madness people’s choice award winner Bodied and music videos for Taylor Swift and Kendrick Lamar. Brandon Routh plays Hank, a high-school science teacher who pines for his childhood sweetheart (Mena Suvari) and must team up with his unruly students to thwart an alien threat. Interstellar Entertainment backed the project and Steven Schneider of Paranormal Activity and Insidious produces.
Contact: CAA Media Finance; Peter Trinh

It Doesn’t Get Any Better Than This (US)

Dirs. Rachel Kempf, Nick Toti
The US DIY filmmaking pair (2020 short Wendy Got Old) make their first feature together. Arriving at TIFF after playing a number of US genre festivals, It Doesn’t Get Any Better Than This sees a married couple buy an abandoned home to use as the location for a low-budget horror flick — and discover the building exerts a strange power over local inhabitants. The film emerged after Kempf and Toti bought a graffiti-covered duplex to serve as a location for upcoming feature Homebody (which has now been shot), and started improvising this found-footage chiller before fixing it up.
Contact: Elliot Gipson, Art Brut Films

The Shadow Strays (Indo)

Dir. Timo Tjahjanto
This Netflix original is an action feature about a trainee assassin who goes all out to save her only friend, even at the cost of defying her clandestine organisation. It marks Indonesian director Timo’s most ambitious project to date in terms of its setpieces and fight scenes and features a young ensemble cast in their first big action film. His credits include 2022 Netflix film The Big 4, which made the streamer’s top 10 list globally in 53 countries; Headshot, co-directed with Kimo Stamboel, which played at Toronto in 2016; and upcoming Universal sequel Nobody 2.
Contact: Netflix

TIFF profiles by Gabriella Berkeley-Agyepong, Ellie Calnan, Adam Cole, Ben Dalton, Charles Gant, Elaine Guerini, Jeremy Kay, Rebecca Leffler, Lee Marshall, Michael Rosser, Matt Schley, Mona Tabbara, Silvia Wong

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