Late July in the film industry has an odd way of making one 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 (see the 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 from 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 takes 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 as his attractive leads this time - and Palestine 36 by Annemarie Jacir, considered among the best working Palestinian auteurs. The latter is 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 World War II bomb.

Of the new world premieres in Special Presentations, Romain Gavras’s fantasy-thriller Sacrifice, with Anya Taylor-Joy and Chris Evans, should provide a welcome dose of adrenaline. Alice Winocour’s Couture sees Angelina Jolie again working in high-end European cinema after Maria [+lire aussi :
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fiche film], as the Oscar-winning icon plays a US 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; indeed, Venice chief Alberto Barbera faced a few questions in interviews yesterday about the absence of the director’s Conclave [+lire aussi :
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interview : Tapis rouge @ European Fil…
fiche film] follow-up from his choices. Guillermo del Toro’s lush-looking Frankenstein and Mona Fastvold’s The Testament of Ann Lee [+lire aussi :
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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 [+lire aussi :
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interview : Valentyn Vasyanovych
fiche film] and Reflection [+lire aussi :
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interview : Valentyn Vasyanovych
fiche film], 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 [+lire aussi :
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fiche film] 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 [+lire aussi :
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interview : Pauline Loquès
fiche film] gets another turn in the limelight, enjoying its international premiere in the section. The section also features other European co-productions, such as Winter of the Crow by Poland’s Kasia Adamik (co-director of Agnieszka Holland’s Spoor [+lire aussi :
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interview : Agnieszka Holland
interview : Zofia Wichlacz
fiche film]), The Currents by Swiss-based Argentinian filmmaker Milagros Mumenthaler (winner of Locarno’s 2011 Golden Leopard with Back to Stay [+lire aussi :
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interview : Milagros Mumenthaler
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Here is 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)
Eleanor the Great - Scarlett Johansson (USA)
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)
Peak Everything - Anne Émond (Canada) (closing film)

Special Presentations

Poetic License - Maude Apatow (USA)
Train Dreams - Clint Bentley (USA)
Ballad of a Small Player - Edward Berger (UK/Germany)
If I Had Legs I’d Kick You - Mary Bronstein (USA)
Three Goodbyes - Isabel Coixet (Italy/Spain)
Frankenstein - Guillermo del Toro (USA)
You Had to Be There: How the Toronto Godspell Ignited the Comedy Revolution… - Nick Davis (USA)
Charlie Harper - Tom Dean, Mac Eldridge (USA)
Silent Friend - Ildikó Enyedi (Germany/Hungary/France)
Bad Apples - Jonatan Etzler (UK)
Lovely Day - Philippe Falardeau (Canada)
The Testament of Ann Lee [+lire aussi :
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Sacrifice - Romain Gavras (UK/Greece/Cyprus/France)
Scarlet - Mamoru Hosoda (Japan)
Meadowlarks - Tasha Hubbard (Canada)
A Pale View of Hills [+lire aussi :
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interview : Kei Ishikawa
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Rose of Nevada [+lire aussi :
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Monkey in a Cage - Anurag Kashyap (India)
Wrong Husband - Zacharias Kunuk (Canada)
Sirāt [+lire aussi :
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interview : Óliver Laxe
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Ky Nam Inn - Leon Le (Vietnam)
Project Y - Lee Hwan (South Korea)
Kokuho - Lee Sang-il (Japan)
New Wave [+lire aussi :
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fiche film] - Richard Linklater (France)
EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert - Baz Luhrmann (Australia/USA)
California Schemin’ - James McAvoy (UK/USA)
The Secret Agent [+lire aussi :
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A Poet [+lire aussi :
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interview : Simón Mesa Soto
fiche film] - Simón Mesa Soto (Columbia/Germany/Sweden)
Primavera - Damiano Michieletto (Italy/France)
Christy - David Michôd (USA)
It Was Just an Accident [+lire aussi :
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interview : Jafar Panahi
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Easy’s Waltz - Nic Pizzolatto (USA)
Eternal Return - Yaniv Raz (UK/USA)
Degrassi: Whatever It Takes - Lisa Rideout (Canada)
Tuner - Daniel Roher (USA)
It Would Be Night in Caracas - Mariana Rondón, Marité Ugás (Mexico)
Couture - Alice Winocour (France/USA)
The Smashing Machine - Benny Safdie (USA)
Sound of Falling [+lire aussi :
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Calle Málaga - Maryam Touzani (Morocco/France/Spain/Germany/Belgium)
Sentimental Value [+lire aussi :
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interview : Joachim Trier
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Dead Man’s Wire - Gus Van Sant (USA)
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 [+lire aussi :
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interview : Pauline Loquès
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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)