Toronto International Film Festival’s (TIFF) competitive Platform section will open with Daniela Forever by Nacho Vigalondo, whose Colossal premiered at the festival in 2016.
The 10-title selection also includes Mexico-set Pedro Páramo from renowned cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto, 10,000KM filmmaker Carlos Marqués-Marcet’s They Will Be Dust, and Gabrielle Bradys’ hybrid documentary The Wolves Always Come At Night set in Mongolia.
The Platform jury will be led by Canadian auteur Atom Egoyan whose Seven Veils premiered at TIFF last year. His two fellow jurors are South Korean filmmaker Hur Jin-ho who also played the festival last year with A Normal Family, and US filmmaker and author Jane Schoenbrun, whose I Saw The TV Glow premiered at Sundance this year.
The 10 films in the programme are eligible for the Platform Prize, an award of $20,000 CAD given to the best film in the programme.
Platform, named after Jia Zhang-Ke’s second feature, enters its ninth year and showcases ”bold and distinct directorial voices and emerging international talent”. Previous successes from the programme include Barry Jenkins’ Moonlight and Darius Marder’s Sound Of Metal.
Platform 2024 line-up
Synopses provided by the festival
Daniela Forever (Sp-Bel)
Dir: Nacho Vigalondo
Henry Golding (Crazy Rich Asians) portrays a bereaved man who enrols in a clinical trial for a drug that allows him to reunite with his lost lover, played by Beatrice Grannò (The White Lotus) through lucid dreams.
Daughter’s Daughter (Tai)
Dir: Huang Xi
Taiwanese filmmaker Huang Xi is known for her debut feature, Missing Johnny, and HBO series Twisted Strings. In Daughter’s Daughter a grieving mother must confront her eldest daughter whom she gave up after a teenage pregnancy.
Mr. K (Neth-Bel-Nor)
Dir: Tallulah H. Schwab
The second feature by Amsterdam-based director Tallulah H. Schwab (Confetti Harvest) stars Crispin Glover in a Kafkaesque tale of a travelling magician who finds himself in a hotel full of unusual guests — with no way out.
Paying For It (Can)
Dir: Sook-Yin Lee
Canadian filmmaker, musician, and actor Sook-Yin Lee brings together Canadian underground artists and innovative cross-generational musicians in a cultural snapshot of turn-of-the-millennium Toronto. The adaptation of Chester Brown’s autobiographical 2011 graphic novel is also the filmmaker’s story.
Pedro Páramo (Mex)
Dir: Rodrigo Prieto
Unfolding in a seemingly abandoned Mexican town where past and present coexist, the feature directorial debut of legendary cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto (Killers Of The Flower Moon) is a story of desire, corruption, and inheritance.
The Wolves Always Come At Night (Australia-Mon-Ger)
Dir: Gabrielle Brady
Australian director and screenwriter Brady (Hungry Ghosts) explores the emotional ruptures of climate change and urban migration on Mongolian herders, told through the experiences of one family.
They Will Be Dust (Sp-It-Switz)
Dir: Carlos Marqués-Marcet
Spanish film director, screenwriter, and film editor Marqués-Marcet, whose 2014 film 10,000 KM won the Goya for best new director, reaches for the raw emotional core of humanity in his contemporary dance musical and ensemble drama.
Triumph (Bul-Gre)
Dirs: Petar Valchanov, Kristina Grozeva
The latest film from the directors behind The Lesson (TIFF 2014) and Glory (2016) forms a trilogy inspired by sensationalist news stories from their Bulgarian homeland that prove once and for all that truth is stranger than fiction.
Viktor (Ukr-US)
Dir: Olivier Sarbil
The documentary from filmmaker and veteran war photographer Olivier Sarbil offers a deeply personal perspective on the Russian invasion of Ukraine – an intimate portrait of a deaf person navigating chaos and violence.
Winter In Sokcho (Fr)
Dir: Koya Kamura
Kamura’s debut centres on a young woman struggling to claim her identity and independence whose routine is disrupted when a French artist checks into the small guesthouse in snowy Sokcho, South Korea, where she works.
On Monday TIFF unveiled the 63 selections in Galas and Special Presentations. The festival previously announced an inital selection and additions. Nutcrackers is the opening night film. The 49th edition runs September 5-15.
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