23/07/2025 - Arnaud Desplechin, Romain Gavras and Annemarie Jacir have world premieres lined-up at the event, playing alongside the best films of many other festivals from this year

Late July in the film industry has an odd way of making you very aware of early autumn; as we are coping with heatwaves (whilst hopefully enjoying some R&R), in come various exciting festival line-ups, stacked with the rest of the year’s best cinematic crop. The full, exhaustive Venice line-up came out yesterday (read news), with the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) Platform slate arriving later, joining a new batch of Galas and Special Presentations announced on Monday. With the fight for A-list world premieres as competitive as ever (although with Venice expectedly coming out on top), TIFF’s appeal for launching major European titles is still beyond doubt. The Canadian festival runs 4-14 September this year, overlapping with the final few days of Venice.

The difference between Galas and Special Presentations at TIFF requires a short explanation, as there are equally anticipated films in both categories; the former has formal red carpets, and take place in the city’s most prestigious venues. World premieres from European filmmakers just announced include Arnaud Desplechin’s Two Pianos - with François Civil and Nadia Tereszkiewicz his attractive leads this time - and Palestine 36 by Annemarie Jacir, considered among the best working Palestinian auteurs, a film concerning a key episode in the 1936 Arab Revolt by Palestinians against the British administration. The underrated and versatile Scottish director David Mackenzie returns to the festival after premiering Relay last year, with his London-set thriller Fuze, starring Aaron Taylor-Johnson, following the discovery of an undetonated WWII bomb.

Of the new world premieres in Special Presentations, Romain Gavras’s fantasy-thriller Sacrifice, with Anya Taylor-Joy and Chris Evans, should be a welcome dose of adrenaline. Alice Winocour’s Couture sees Angelina Jolie again working in high-end European cinema after Maria [+see also:
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film profile], as the Oscar-winning icon plays an American film director caught up in Paris Fashion Week, at the centre of multiple plot strands involving women and girls from France, Ukraine and Sudan. Edward Berger’s Ballad of a Small Player, a Netflix-backed and Macau-set gambling thriller with Colin Farrell, gets an official announcement as a “Canadian Premiere”, meaning it will show first at the exclusive Telluride Film Festival in Colorado; Venice chief Alberto Barbera faced a few questions in interviews yesterday about the absence of the director’s Conclave [+see also:
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interview: Red Carpet @ European Film …
film profile] follow-up from his choices. Guillermo del Toro’s lush-looking Frankenstein and Mona Fastvold’s The Testament of Ann Lee also play as Special Presentations soon after showing on the Lido. The new film by Spain’s Isabel Coixet, Italian production Three Goodbyes, also features in the section.

The nine-strong Platform line-up, with each film competing for the Platform Award, has more recognisable names, and potentially innovative filmmaking, than in previous years. Valentyn Vasyanovych impressed with his previous two Venice premieres Atlantis [+see also:
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interview: Valentyn Vasyanovych
film profile] and Reflection [+see also:
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interview: Valentyn Vasyanovych
film profile], and now, in To the Victory!, he stars as who else but a director struggling to get opportunities in a “dystopian” post-war Ukraine. Also standing out are Hungarian director György Pálfi’s nutty-sounding Hen, recounting a resilient member of that very species aiming to raise a family, and Tim Mielants’ Steve, where he reunites with Cillian Murphy after Small Things Like These [+see also:
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film profile] on another film based on blue-chip literary material, this time the eponymous novel from British writer Max Porter. Pauline Loquès’ charming Cannes Critics’ Week entry Nino [+see also:
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interview: Pauline Loquès
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interview: Agnieszka Holland
interview: Zofia Wichlacz
film profile]), The Currents by Switzerland-based Argentinian filmmaker Milagros Mumenthaler (winner of Locarno’s 2011 Golden Leopard with Back to Stay [+see also:
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interview: Milagros Mumenthaler
film profile]), Bouchra by Orian Barki and Meriem Bennani and At the Place of Ghosts by Bretten Hannam.

The full list of newly announced titles in the three sections:

Galas

Good Fortune - Aziz Ansari (USA)
Glenrothan - Brian Cox (UK)
Two Pianos - Arnaud Desplechin (France)
Driver’s Ed - Bobby Farrelly (USA)
Eternity - David Freyne (USA)
Palestine 36 - Annemarie Jacir (Palestine/UK/France/Denmark/Qatar/Saudi Arabia/Jordan)
Swiped - Rachel Lee Goldenberg (USA)
Fuze - David Mackenzie (UK)
Lilith Fair: Building a Mystery - Ally Pankiw (Canada)
Nuremberg - James Vanderbilt (USA)
Adulthood - Alex Winter (USA)

Special Presentations

Poetic License - Maude Apatow (USA)
Three Goodbyes - Isabel Coixet (Italy/Spain)
You Had to Be There: How the Toronto Godspell Ignited the Comedy Revolution… - Nick Davis (USA)
Charlie Harper - Tom Dean, Mac Eldridge (USA)
Bad Apples - Jonatan Etzler (UK)
Lovely Day - Philippe Falardeau (Canada)
Sacrifice - Romain Gavras (UK/Greece/Cyprus/France)
Meadowlarks - Tasha Hubbard (Canada)
Monkey in a Cage - Anurag Kashyap (India)
Ky Nam Inn - Leon Le (Vietnam)
Project Y - Lee Hwan (South Korea)
EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert - Baz Luhrmann (Australia/USA)
California Schemin’ - James McAvoy (UK/USA)
Primavera - Damiano Michieletto (Italy/France)
Christy - David Michôd (USA)
Easy’s Waltz - Nic Pizzolatto (USA)
Eternal Return - Yaniv Raz (UK/USA)
Degrassi: Whatever It Takes - Lisa Rideout (Canada)
It Would Be Night in Caracas - Mariana Rondón, Marité Ugás (Mexico)
Couture - Alice Winocour (France)
The Ugly - Yeon Sang-ho (South Korea)

Platform

Steve - Tim Mielants (Ireland/UK) (opening film)
Winter of the Crow - Kasia Adamik (Poland/UK/Luxembourg)
Bouchra - Orian Barki, Meriem Bennani (Italy/Morocco/USA)
Sk+te'kmujue'katik (At the Place of Ghosts) - Bretten Hannam (Canada/Belgium)
Nino [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Pauline Loquès
film profile] - Pauline Loquès (France)
The Currents - Milagros Mumenthaler (Argentina/Switzerland)
Hen - György Pálfi (Germany/Greece/Hungary)
Between Dreams and Hope - Farnoosh Samadi (Iran)
To the Victory! - Valentyn Vasyanovych (Ukraine/Lithuania)
The World of Love - Yoon Ga-eun (South Korea)