2024 Toronto International Film Festival Platform Program Lineup: Directorial Debut from Cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto; Atom Egoyan, Jane Schoenbrun Among Jury Members
TIFF today announced its 2024 Platform lineup, TIFF’s competitive program featuring 10 World Premieres representing 17 countries. This year’s jury includes the Academy Award–nominated Canadian director, screenwriter, and producer Atom Egoyan, who will serve as the Jury Head. Celebrated South Korean filmmaker Hur Jin-ho, known for his poignant explorations of love and humanity in movies and whose film A Normal Family had its world premiere at TIFF last year, joins the esteemed jury, alongside award-winning American filmmaker and essayist Jane Schoenbrun, who will bring their unique perspectives and expertise to the selection process. Spanish filmmaker Nacho Vigalondo, best known for Colossal (TIFF ’16), will open the program with his latest work, Daniela Forever.
Among the titles making their world premiere are Oscar-nominated cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto (Brokeback Mountain, Killers of the Flower Moon) with his feature directorial debut Pedro Páramo, based on the short novel of the same name about a literal ghost town populated by spectral characters, Gabrielle Brady’s The Wolves Always Come at Night about a young couple are forced to adapt to a new way of life after a devastating storm wrought by climate change forces them from their home in the Mongolian countryside to the city, and Taiwanese filmmaker Huang Xi’s Daughter Daughter, about a mother who must confront her eldest daughter who she gave up after a teenage pregnancy.
Named after Jia Zhang-Ke’s groundbreaking second feature, Platform, and now in its ninth year, the program showcases bold and distinct directorial voices and emerging international talent, offering audiences a first look at some of the most innovative and compelling works from around the globe. Platform has showcased films that have gone on to achieve significant success. Notable previous Platform selections include Barry Jenkins’ Moonlight, which won the Academy Award for Best Picture, and Darius Marder’s Sound of Metal, which received multiple Oscar nominations, winning Best Sound and Best Film Editing.
The 10 films in the program are eligible for the Platform Prize, an award of $20,000 CAD given to the best film in the program. Previous jury members include: Claire Denis, Béla Tarr, Brian De Palma, Mira Nair, Riz Ahmed, Jia Zhang-Ke, Patricia Rozema, and Barry Jenkins. Platform titles are nominated by TIFF’s programming team, led by Robyn Citizen, Director of Programming, Festival and Cinematheque.
2024 Platform Program (in alphabetical order):
Opening Film
Daniela Forever Nacho Vigalondo | Spain/Belgium
World Premiere
Sales Title
Henry Golding (Crazy Rich Asians) soulfully portrays a bereaved man who enrolls 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 Huang Xi | Taiwan
World Premiere
Sales Title
Taiwanese filmmaker Huang Xi’s (Missing Johnny, Twisted Strings) latest work is Daughter’s Daughter. After a terrible accident takes the life of her youngest, a mother must confront her eldest daughter who she gave up after a teenage pregnancy.
Mr. K Tallulah H. Schwab | Netherlands/Belgium/Norway
World Premiere
Sales Title
This is a second feature by Amsterdam-based director Tallulah H. Schwab (Confetti Harvest). Mr. K star Crispin Glover brings his best to Schwab’s delightfully Kafkaesque tale of a travelling magician who finds himself in a hotel full of unusual guests — with no way out.
Paying For It Sook-Yin Lee | Canada
World Premiere
Sales Title
Canadian filmmaker, musician, and actor Sook-Yin Lee connects the past with the present, bringing together Canadian underground artists and innovative cross-generational musicians in a cultural snapshot of turn-of-the-millennium Toronto in Paying For It. With subtle comic energy and a great cast, this adaptation of Chester Brown’s autobiographical 2011 graphic novel is a movie only Lee could make… because it’s her story, too.
Pedro Páramo Rodrigo Prieto | Mexico
World Premiere
Unfolding in a seemingly abandoned Mexican town where past and present beguilingly coexist, the feature directorial debut of legendary cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto (Killers of the Flower Moon) is a mesmerizing story of desire, corruption, and inheritance.
The Wolves Always Come at Night Gabrielle Brady | Australia/Mongolia/Germany
World Premiere
Sales Title
Australian director and screenwriter Gabrielle Brady (Hungry Ghosts) lays bare the emotional ruptures of climate change and urban migration on Mongolian herders, told through the experiences of one family. After a devastating storm wrought by climate change forces them from their home in the Mongolian countryside to the city, a young couple are forced to adapt to a new way of life in this breathtaking and heartbreaking hybrid film.
They Will Be Dust (Polvo serán) Carlos Marqués-Marcet | Spain/Italy/Switzerland
World Premiere
Sales Title
Spanish film director, screenwriter, and film editor Carlos Marqués-Marcet, whose 2014 film 10.000 KM won the Goya for best new director, treats the audience to a unique, daring, and rewarding look at our unavoidable death. Unequal parts contemporary dance-musical and ensemble drama, They Will Be Dust reaches for the raw emotional core of humanity in all its inherent messiness.
Triumph Petar Valchanov, Kristina Grozeva | Bulgaria/Greece
World Premiere
Sales Title
This latest work from co-directors Petar Valchanov and Kristina Grozeva, combined with their previous films The Lesson (TIFF ’14) and Glory (2016), forms a trilogy inspired by sensationalist news stories from their homeland that prove once and for all that truth is stranger than fiction.
Viktor Olivier Sarbil | Ukraine/USA
World Premiere
Sales Title
This bold documentary from filmmaker and veteran war photographer Olivier Sarbil offers a deeply personal perspective on the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Crafting an audiovisual experience carefully designed to match that of its subject, Viktor is an intimate portrait of a Deaf person navigating chaos and violence.
Winter in Sokcho Koya Kamura | France
World Premiere
Sales Title
In this debut from filmmaker Koya Kamura, a young woman struggling to claim her identity and independence has her routine disrupted when a French artist checks into the small guesthouse in snowy Sokcho where she works.
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), Hollywood Critics Association (HCA) 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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