2024 Toronto International Film Festival: David Gordon Green’s ‘Nutcrackers’ and Rebel Wilson’s ‘The Deb’ are Opening and Closing Films

The 2024 Toronto International Film Festival will kick off with David Gordon Green’s comedy Nutcrackers starring Ben Stiller on September 5, and close with Rebel Wilson’s directorial debut musical The Deb on September 15, both making their World Premiere at Roy Thomson Hall as part of the Gala program, sponsored by Dyson. 

“This year’s Festival is shaping up to be a star-studded event with highly anticipated films that reflect the world around us with humour and empathy, like our Opening and Closing Night selections, Nutcrackers and The Deb,” said Anita Lee, Chief Programming Officer, TIFF. “TIFF aims to showcase both returning and first-time directors to the Festival on a big stage, and we are excited for fans to experience these two films — and the many diverse works premiering in between.”

David Gordon Green’s Nutcrackers follows strait-laced and work-obsessed Mike (Ben Stiller) as he is suddenly thrust into being a caregiver for his rambunctious, orphaned nephews. Rebel Wilson’s directorial debut, The Deb, is an original musical comedy about two teenage cousins who dig deep to find self-acceptance and a date to the Debutante Ball in a small country town in Australia. The announcement comes less than a week after Wilson publicly accused the film’s producers of attempting to block the film from premiering at Toronto. Both films are sales titles looking for distribution.

The Deb | Rebel Wilson | Australia
World Premiere | Gala 
Sales Title – Rights Available (WME)

Nutcrackers | David Gordon Green | USA
World Premiere | Gala
Sales Title – Rights Available (UTA Independent Film Group)

The films join the previously announced titles Nightbitch, from Marielle Heller and starring Amy Adams (who will receive the TIFF Acting tribute), Ron Howard’s Eden, starring Jude Law, Ana de Armas, Sydney Sweeney, Vanessa Kirby and Daniel Brühl, John Crowley’s We Live in Time starring Andrew Garfield and Florence Pugh, the music doc Elton John: Never Too Late from R.J. Cutler, Harbin from Woo Min-ho, The Life of Chuck from Mike Flanagan, Rez Ball from Sydney Freeland and the animated film The Wild Robot from Chris Sanders starring Lupita Nyong’o.

The 49th Toronto International Film Festival takes place September 5–15, 2024.  More Festival details will be announced in the coming weeks. The full festival schedule will be released on Tuesday, August 13. 

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Erik Anderson

Erik Anderson is the founder/owner and Editor-in-Chief of AwardsWatch and has always loved all things Oscar, having watched the Academy Awards since he was in single digits; making lists, rankings and predictions throughout the show. This led him down the path to obsessing about awards. Much later, he found himself in film school and the film forums of GoldDerby, and then migrated over to the former Oscarwatch (now AwardsDaily), before breaking off to create AwardsWatch in 2013.

He is a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic, accredited by the Cannes Film Festival, Telluride Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival and more, is a member of the International Cinephile Society (ICS), The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics (GALECA), Critics Choice Association (CCA), San Francisco Bay Area Film Critics Circle (SFBAFCC) and the International Press Academy. Among his many achieved goals with AwardsWatch, he has given a platform to underrepresented writers and critics and supplied them with access to film festivals and the industry and calls the Bay Area his home where he lives with his husband and son.

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