Antoine Fuqua, director of The Magnificent Seven, said he couldn’t “think of a better place, or a better crowd for the film’s world premiere”.
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The Toronto festival is considered a launching pad to Hollywood’s awards season, and this year features a buzzy and diverse lineup of both world premieres and some of the best offerings from other festivals that in the past have shaped the Oscar conversation.
Organizers announced the first slate of 2016 festival films Tuesday, including Villeneuve’s sci-fi thriller “Arrival“, starring Amy Adams and Jeremy Renner, which is set to screen first at the Venice Film Festival.
Antoine Fuqua’s “The Magnificent Seven” remake starring Denzel Washington and Chris Pratt will have its world premiere as the opening film of the 41st Toronto International Film Festival.
“We are pleased to welcome acclaimed filmmaker Antoine Fuqua back to the Festival, and have been proud to present audiences with his feature films including Training Day and The Equalizer”, said Piers Handling, director and CEO of TIFF. Last year’s big victor was Lenny Abrahamson’s Room starring Brie Larson.
The festival’s 2016 edition on Tuesday unveiled another 17 movies to receive gala treatment at Roy Thomson Hall, with Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Ryan Gosling, Mark Wahlberg, Gerard Butler, David Oyelowo, Lupita Nyong’o and Rooney Mara among those set to walk the red carpet in Toronto.
The special presentations section also includes Jim Jarmusch’s Paterson, starring Adam Driver as a New Jersey bus driver, which bowed in Cannes; Lifetime’s Paris Can Wait, starring Diane Lane and Alec Baldwin and directed by Eleanor Coppola; Andrea Arnold’s Cannes victor American Honey, starring Sasha Lane and Shia LaBeouf; Vikram Ghandi’s Barry; Ben Younger’s Bleed For This, with Miles Teller as pro boxer Vinny Pazienza and Aaron Eckhart as his trainer; and Alex Lehmann’s Blue Jay.
– In “Queen of Katwe“, directed by Mira Nair, David Oyelowo and Lupita Nyong’o star in the real-life story of Ugandan chess prodigy Phiona Mutesi. Rooney Mara has a few films at TIFF as well, including Gareth Davis’s “Lion”, based on Saroo Brierley’s memoir of finding his birthmother, which stars Dev Patel, and Jim Sheridan’s “The Secret Scripture”.
In an unusual move, Handling and Bailey also announced this year’s closing night feature: The Edge Of Seventeen, a coming-of-age comedy from writer/director Kelly Fremon Craig starring Hailee Steinfeld, Blake Jenner and Woody Harrelson.
Christopher Guest will premiere the comedy “Mascots“, starring Fred Willard, Parker Posey and many of his mockumentary regulars.
– Ewan McGregor makes his directorial debut on “American Pastoral“, He also stars, alongside Dakota Fanning and Jennifer Connelly, in the adaptation of Philip Roth’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel.
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Films that impressed juries at festivals earlier this year will also make stops at TIFF, including the Cannes hit, Loving and Sundance breakouts The Birth of a Nation and Manchester by the Sea.
