The 38th Toronto International Film Festival today announced the films in the Masters program, which highlights the work of the world’s most compelling cinematic creators. The program features a diverse collection of new films including world premieres from Quebecois directors Robert Lepage and Pedro Pires and Finnish filmmaker Pirjo Honkasalo; and North American premieres by Jia Zhangke, Jafar Panahi, Kim Ki-duk, Edgar Rietz and Claire Denis. One additional title has also been announced in the Midnight Madness program: the world premiere of Alex de la Iglesia’s Witching & Bitching (Las brujas de Zugarramurdi).
A TOUCH OF SIN (TIAN ZHU DING) Jia Zhangke, China/Japan North American Premiere
An angry miner, enraged by the corruption of his village leaders, takes action. A rootless migrant discovers the infinite possibilities that owning a firearm can offer. A pretty receptionist working in a sauna is pushed to the limit when a wealthy client assaults her. A young factory worker goes from one discouraging job to the next, only to face increasingly degrading circumstances. Four people, four different provinces.
ABUSE OF WEAKNESS (ABUS DE FAIBLESSE) Catherine Breillat, France/Belgium/Germany World Premiere
An extraordinary collaboration between two legends of French cinema, Catherine Breillat’s brutally candid autobiographical drama stars Isabelle Huppert as a stroke-afflicted filmmaker manipulated by a notorious con man.
BASTARDS (LES SALAUDS) Claire Denis, France North American Premiere
Supertanker captain Marco Silvestri is called back urgently to Paris. His sister Sandra is desperate; her husband has committed suicide, the family business has gone under, and her daughter is spiraling downwards. Sandra holds powerful businessman Edouard Laporte responsible. Marco moves into the building where Laporte has installed his mistress and her son, but he isn’t prepared for Sandra’s secrets, which muddy the waters. Starring Vincent Lindon and Chiara Mastroianni.
CLOSED CURTAIN (PARDE) Kambozia Partovi and Jafar Panahi, Iran North American Premiere
A house by the sea; the curtains are pulled shut, the windows covered with black. Inside, a man is hiding with his dog. He is writing a screenplay, when suddenly a mysterious young woman appears and refuses to leave, much to the writer’s annoyance. But at daybreak, another arrival will flip everyone’s perspective.
CONCRETE NIGHT Pirjo Honkasalo, Finland/Sweden/ Denmark World Premiere
A 14-year-old boy in a stifling Helsinki slum takes some unwise life lessons from his soon-to-be-incarcerated older brother, in Finnish master Pirjo Honkasalo’s gorgeously stylized and emotionally devastating work about what we pass on to younger generations, and the ways we do it.
HOME FROM HOME – CHRONICLE OF A VISION (DIE ANDERE HEIMAT – CHRONIK EINER SEHNSUCHT) North American Premiere
Edgar Reitz, Germany/France
Edgar Reitz tells this dramatic story of love and family against the backdrop of rural Germany in the mid-19th century, a time when entire poverty-stricken villages emigrated to faraway South America. The story centers on two brothers who have to decide whether they will stay or go.
HOW STRANGE TO BE NAMED FEDERICO: SCOLA NARRATES FELLINI (CHE STRANO CHIAMARSI FEDERICO: SCOLA RACCONTA FELLINI) Ettore Scola, Italy International Premiere
On the 20th anniversary of Federico Fellini’s death, Ettore Scola, a devoted admirer of the incomparable maestro, commemorates the lesser-known aspects of Fellini’s personality, employing interviews, photographs, behind-the-scenes footage as well as Fellini’s drawings and film clips.
MOEBIUS Kim Ki-duk, South Korea North American Premiere
South Korea’s celebrated perennial provocateur Kim Ki-duk (Pieta) returns with this twisted family chronicle perched somewhere between psychological thriller, grotesque comedy and perverse ode to the pleasures of sadomasochism.
NORTE, THE END OF HISTORY (NORTE, HANGGANAN NG KASAYSAYAN) Lav Diaz, Philippines North American Premiere In Philippine cinematic luminary Lav Diaz’s latest work, partially influenced by Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment, a man is accused of murder while the real killer roams free.
OUR SUNHI (URI SUNHI) Hong Sangsoo, South Korea North American Premiere Korean auteur Hong Sang-soo’s latest follows an aspiring young filmmaker who becomes the object of desire for three very different men, in this smart, resonant dramedy.
Quebecois filmmakers Robert Lepage and Pedro Pires’s Triptych (Triptyque) was previously announced as part of the Canadian features lineup.
MIDNIGHT MADNESS
WITCHING & BITCHING (LAS BRUJAS DE ZUGARRAMURDI) Alex de la Iglesia, Spain/France World Premiere Desperate dad José and his friends run from a coven of witches hell-bent on their souls and on the 25,000 wedding rings the guys stole from a Cash-for-Gold shop in a desperate attempt to escape their lives of wife troubles. Witching & Bitching marks the seventh film by cult-favorite Spanish genre specialist Alex de la Iglesia (The Last Circus) to be screened at TIFF.
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