TIFF48: Primetime Lineup Announced featuring Lulu Wang’s ‘Expats,’ ‘All the Light We Cannot See’ from Shawn Levy and Steven Knight

The Toronto International Film Festival Primetime program for 2023 was announced today, with nine series from around the world, eight of which are World Premieres, including the series Expats – Lulu Wang’s highly anticipated follow up to her feature film The Farewell, starring Academy Award winner Nicole Kidman, Ji-young Yoo and Sarayu Blue, about the personal and professional lives of a tight-knit group of expatriates living in Hong Kong.

The Prime Video original is a six-part limited series based on the internationally best-selling novel, The Expatriates, by Janice Y. K. Lee. Set against the vibrant and tumultuous tapestry of 2014 Hong Kong, the series centers on three American women whose lives intersect after a sudden family tragedy. “Central,” the feature-length penultimate episode of the series, shifts the narrative away from the entangled lives of expats to spend one fateful Sunday with two Filipina domestic workers and a disparate ensemble of Hong Kong locals as a massive typhoon descends upon the city and the 2014 political movement reaches a point of no return.

“This year’s Primetime program is bigger than ever and gives audiences the exclusive and unmatched opportunity to celebrate the best new international series together, in cinema, on the big screen,” says Anita Lee, TIFF Chief Programming Officer. 

Also among the first looks will be the Netflix adaptation of the Pulitzer Prize-winning All the Light We Cannot See from Shawn Levy and Steven Knight, the story a blind French teenager a German soldier whose paths collide in occupied France as both try to survive the devastation of World War II. The program also includes Alice & Jack, an atypical love story from Victor Levin, Juho Kuosmanen and Hong Khaou starring Domhnall Gleeson and Academy Award nominee Andrea Riseborough and three Canadian shows all spotlighting underrepresented voices from a new wave of storytellers: Black Life: Untold Stories from Leslie Norville, Bria Mack Gets A Life from Sasha Leigh Henry and Telling Our Story from Kim O’Bomsawin. The Korean thriller Bargain from Byun Seung-min and Jeon Woo-sung is the section’s sole North American premiere, it will premiere on Paramount+ in the U.S. on October 5.

The 48th Toronto International Film Festival run September 7-17, 2023.

2023 TIFF PRIMETIME PROGRAM

Alice & Jack Victor Levin, Juho Kuosmanen, Hong Khaou | United Kingdom World Premiere (North American Sales Title)

All the Light We Cannot See Shawn Levy, Steven Knight | USA World Premiere

Bad Boy Hagar Ben-Asher, Ron Leshem, Daniel Chen, Roee Florentin, Moshe Malka, Amit Cohen, Daniel Amsel | Israel World Premiere (North American Sales Title)

Bargain Byun Seung-min, Jeon Woo-sung | South Korea North American Premiere

Black Life: Untold Stories Leslie Norville | Canada World Premiere

Bria Mack Gets a Life Sasha Leigh Henry | Canada World Premiere

Estonia Miikko Oikkonen | Finland/Sweden/Belgium/Estonia World Premiere (North American Sales Title)

Expats Lulu Wang | USA World Premiere

Telling Our Story Kim O’Bomsawin | Canada World Premiere (English Language Version)

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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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