Notizie

Indie Sales has closed a raft of deals on “Dandelion’s Odyssey,” Japanese director Momoko Seto’s feature debut. The movie will have its North American premiere in the Centrepiece section at Toronto.

“Dandelion’s Odyssey” world premiered at Cannes Critic’s Week where it won the Fipresci Award, and went to play at Annecy where it nabbed the Paul Grimault Award.

The animation film has sold in Switzerland (Praesens), Greece (Cinobo), Poland (Best Film), Baltic States (Gpi), Ex-Yugoslavia (McF Megacom), Latin America (Cinetopia), Indonesia (Pt Falcon) and Philippines (Crystalsky Multimedia).

Leading family movie distributor Gebeka will handle the French theatrical release in March 2026, while Bantam (“Flow”) will release it in the Benelux.

An ecological fable animated by Guionne Leroy (“Toy Story”) and scored by Nicolas Becker (“Sound of Metal”) and Quentin Sirjacq, “Dandelion’s Odyssey” is set in a a dystopian world where plants and animals are the main characters.

Hasta cuatro presencias españolas en el Festival canadiense.

© TIFF

El Festival Internacional de Cine de Toronto, que celebra su 50.ª edición del 4 al 14 de septiembre, ha anunciado los primeros títulos que integrarán sus dos secciones principales: Galas y Proyecciones Especiales. Aunque se esperan más incorporaciones, ya destacan nombres como Chloé Zhao, Edward Berger, David Michôd, Gus Van Sant, Guillermo del Toro, Mark Jenkin y Paul Greengrass. Además, España no se queda atrás y pone toda la carne en el asador con cuatro títulos. A la previamente anunciada El cautivo, de Alejandro Amenábar, que tendrá su estreno mundial en el certamen canadiense, se suman Tres adioses, de Isabel Coixet, también en calidad de premiere mundial; Sirat, de Oliver Laxe, tras su triunfo en la Croisette; y la coproducción Calle Málaga, que llegará tras su estreno en Venecia.

Galas

Adulthood (Alex Winter)

A Private Life (Rebecca Zlotowski)

Driver’s Ed (Bobby Farrelly)

Eleanor...

Exclusive: Canadian director Anne Emond’s romantic comedy Peak Everything (Amour Apocalypse), which is set to close this year’s Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), has sold widely for Indie Sales following its world premiere in Director’s Fortnight at Cannes in May.

Patrick Hivon and Piper Perabo star in the French- and English-language film about the unexpected encounter between a dog-kennel owner with existential fears about the world ending and the customer service representative on a technical support line for a therapeutic solar lamp he purchases.

Peak Everything has sold to Austria (Polyfilm), France (L’Atelier Distribution), Spain (Vertigo), Sweden...

Celebrating its 50th edition this year, the Toronto International Film Festival will take place September 4–14. The festival has now unveiled its Galas & Special Presentations lineup, featuring new films by Benny Safdie, Gus Van Sant, Alice Winocour, Baz Luhrmann, Mark Jenkin, Steven Soderbergh, Rian Johnson, Paul Greengrass, Mamoru Hosoda, Joachim Trier, Richard Linklater, Jafar Panahi, Guillermo del Toro, Arnaud Desplechin, and more.

See below.

2025 Galas (in alphabetical order):

*previously announced

*A Private Life | Rebecca Zlotowski | France

North American Premiere

Adulthood | Alex Winter | USA

World Premiere

Driver’s Ed | Bobby Farrelly | USA

World Premiere

Eleanor the Great | Scarlett Johansson | USA

North American Premiere

Eternity | David Freyne | USA

World Premiere

Fuze | David Mackenzie | United Kingdom

World Premiere

Glenrothan | Brian Cox | United Kingdom

World Premiere

Good Fortune | Aziz Ansari | USA

World Premiere

*Hamnet | Chloé Zhao | United Kingdom

Canadian Premiere

*Homebound | Neeraj Ghaywan | India

North American Premiere

*John Candy: I Like Me | Colin Hanks | USA...

It’s a big news week for the 50th Toronto International Film Festival starting with this morning’s announcement of their full Galas and Special Presentations section including world premieres of Aziz Ansari’s Lionsgate Keanu Reeves & Seth Rogen comedy Good Fortune, Maude Apatow’s feature directorial debut Poetic License, Isabel Coixet’s Three Goodbyes, James McAvoy’s feature directorial debut California Schemin’, Succession star Brian Cox’s feature directorial debut Glenrothan, Romain Gavras’ Sacrifice, David Michôd’s Christy, Yeon Sang-ho’s The Ugly, James Vanderbilt’s Nuremberg, and Alice Winocour’s Couture, as well as films from Mamoru Hosoda, Zacharias Kunuk, Baz Luhrmann, Kleber Mendonça Filho, Jafar Panahi, Benny Safdie, and Gus Van Sant.

Before Waiting for Godot begins its Broadway run on Sept. 13, both Bill and Ted will be in TIFF; Keanu Reeves starring in Good Fortune and Alex Winter with the world premiere of his Adulthood.

Good Fortune,...

World premieres of David Michôd’s boxing biopic Christy starring Sydney Sweeney, Alice Winocour’s fashion industry dramaCouturestarring Angelina Jolie,and David Mackenzie’s action thriller Fuze are among the line-up in Galas and Special Presentations unveiled by Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) today (July 21).

Also selected for their first public screenings at the festival’s 50th anniversary edition (September 4-14)are Isabel Coixet’s drama Three Goodbyes, Romain Gavras’s adventure comedy Sacrifice, mystery The Ugly from Train To Busan’s Yeon Sang-ho, James Vanderbilt’s Nuremberg Trials drama Nuremberg, acquired by Sony Pictures Classics for North America, Aziz Ansari...

The directorial debuts of comedian Aziz Ansari, “Euphoria” breakout Maude Apatow, “Succession” star Brian Cox and “Split” actor James McAvoy will world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival.

Ansari’s action comedy “Good Fortune,” Apatow’s coming-of-age comedy “Poetic License,” Cox’s British drama “Glenrothan” and McAvoy’s musical biopic “California Schemin'” are among the new additions to the TIFF lineup. Other films that will host world premieres at the annual Canadian-based gathering include Alex Winter’s “Adulthood” and Bobby Farrelly’s “Driver’s Ed.”

Meanwhile Benny Safdie’s “The Smashing Machine,” a wrestling drama starring Dwayne the Rock Johnson and Emily Blunt, and Guillermo del Toro’s “Frankenstein” will have their North American premieres at TIFF. Those movies have yet to announce where the world premieres will take place, though it’s likely the Venice Film Festival.

TIFF also announced that several movies that already debuted at other...

World premieres of Aziz Ansari’s comedy Good Fortune starring Seth Rogen and Keanu Reeves, David Michôd’s boxing biopic Christy starring Sydney Sweeney, and David Mackenzie’s action thriller Fuze are among the line-up in Galas and Special Presentations unveiled by Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) today (July 21).

Also selected for their first public screenings at the festival’s 50th anniversary edition (September 4-14)are Isabel Coixet’s drama Three Goodbyes, Romain Gavras’s adventure comedy Sacrifice, mystery The Ugly from Train To Busan’s Yeon Sang-ho, James Vanderbilt’s Nuremberg Trials drama Nuremberg, acquired by Sony Pictures Classics for North America,...

Guillermo del Toro’s “Frankenstein,” Edward Berger’s “Ballad of a Small Player,” Bobby Farrelly’s “Driver’s Ed,” Brian Cox’s “Glenrothan,” Gus Van Sant’s “Dead Man’s Wire,” Richard Linklater’s “Nouvelle Vague” and Baz Luhrmann’s “EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert” will screen in the Galas and Special Presentations sections of the 2025 Toronto international Film Festival, TIFF organizers announced on Monday.

Those films were among the more than 50 new movies that were added to the robust TIFF lineup. Previously, the festival had announced 17 other galas and special premieres, including Chloé Zhao’s “Hamnet,” Derek Cianfrance’s “Roofman,” Steven Soderbergh’s “The Christophers,” Agnieszka Holland’s “Franz,” Paul Greengrass’ “The Lost Bus” and Rian Johnson’s “Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery.” The festival will open with Colin Hanks’ documentary “John Candy: I Like Me.”

More than 30 of the newly announced films will be world premieres. Those include “Driver’s Ed,...

As the fall festivals begin to roll out their lineups (a phrase you’ll be seeing a lot of on IndieWire in the coming days), a word of both caution and delight: don’t forget about the festival films that have already premiered elsewhere, from Sundance to Cannes. The Toronto International Film Festival certainly has not, as today’s full lineup of Gala and Special Presentations includes plenty of previously-premiered films that are already ranking among the year’s best.

We’re talking Sundance standouts like Mary Bronstein’s “If I Had Legs I’d Kick You” and Clint Bentley’s “Train Dreams,” plus Cannes hits likes Joachim Trier’s “Sentimental Value,” Mascha Schilinski’s “Sound of Falling,” Jafar Panahi’s “It Was Just an Accident,” Richard Linklater’s “Nouvelle Vague,” and Óliver Laxe’s “Sirāt.”

And today’s announcement also includes world premieres like Aziz Ansari’s “Good Fortune,” Maude Apatow’s “Poetic License,...

The Toronto Film Festival has unveiled new star-driven Gala and Special Presentations titles, including Aziz Ansari’s Good Fortune, Maude Apatow’s Poetic License, Isabel Coixet’s Three Goodbyes, David Michod’s Christy, James Vanderbilt’s Nuremberg and Alice Winocour’s Couture.

Set for the buzzy red carpet at Roy Thomson Hall are world premieres for Bobby Farrelly’s road trip comedy Driver’s Ed, which stars Alyssa Milano, Kumail Nanjani and Molly Shannon; Russell Crowe’s Nazi thriller Nuremberg from director James Vanderbilt and Sony Pictures Classics, with the historical drama also starring Rami Malek, Michael Shannon and Leo Woodall; Succession actor Brian Cox bringing his directorial debut Glenrothan, where he stars alongside Alan Cumming and Shirley Henderson in a film about estranged brothers looking to save a family whisky distillery; and David Freyne’s romantic comedy Eternity for A24, which stars Da’Vine Joy Randolph, Miles Teller, Elizabeth Olsen and Callum Turner.

One of our favourite hidden gems from this year’s Cannes Film Festival was Anne Émond’s “Peak Everything” (“Amour Apocalypse”). It’s an eccentric rom-com about climate anxiety, the language divide in Canada, and the impending apocalypse. High On Film’s Shivam Pota was able to sit down with the director to discuss how the project came to be, environmentalism on film sets, and keeping optimism despite it all.

Shivam Pota: Congratulations on a fantastic film. It was a great time and a very refreshing watch. The film tackles quite a few pressing issues, including climate anxiety. Do you feel filmmakers have a responsibility to tackle these issues, especially because governments and institutions are failing to address these matters?

Anne Émond: Thank you so much. 15 years ago, I wrote in my notebook that at some point, filmmakers would have to talk about climate change in the movies. I didn...

Written and directed by Anne Émond, Peak Everything (2025) is about the present-day anxieties that have consumed most of us. The world is rapidly getting worse and it seems like there’s no turning back. Despite the evident signs of the ecological crisis at hand, the authority figures are busy tending to their bloated egos and refusing to even acknowledge its presence. Émond’s script uses these worries to dive into the mind of a 40-something single man living in a small Canadian town, seemingly isolated from the rest of the world. So, it seems like an island in itself, much like he does.

Adam (Patrick Hivon) is a painfully reserved man, who rarely interacts with anyone beyond his immediate family: his father Eugene (Gilles Renaud) and his brother Frank (Eric K. Boulianne). However, they seem to be of no help to him. They ridicule him for his loneliness, considering it a purely self-imposed burden,...

With Peak Everything, director Anne Emond (Young Juliet, Nelly) offers a relatable, if somewhat uneven, dark rom-com that suits these uncertain times.

Patrick Hivon stars as Adam, a Francophone Quebecois kennel-owner wracked with depression and anxiety about climate catastrophe, who cutely meets Ontarian Tina (Piper Perabo) over the phone when he calls a technical support line. Although wildfires scorch, storms rage and earthquakes shake all around the periphery of the film’s plot, these two lonely, early-middle-aged souls can’t stop their feelings despite clear impediments to true love like — oops! — the fact that Tina is married. Emond’s script deftly contrives a third act that’s hopeful but still flecked with genuine despair.

That gloomy undertow may limit Peak Everything’s commercial appeal outside Canada, but its debut in the Directors’ Fortnight showcase at Cannes may help boost its offshore prospects. That said, this still feels like a profoundly Canadian film,...

Since founding Metafilms over two decades ago, Montreal-based producer Sylvain Corbeil has become a prolific and respected pillar of Quebec’s independent film scene, collaborating with filmmakers whose bold and idiosyncratic visions have served to bolster the place of modern Canadian cinema on a world stage. Alongside fellow producer Nancy Grant, who co-leads Metafilms, Corbeil has championed the work of widely acclaimed French-language filmmakers like Xavier Dolan, Maxime Giroux (Felix & Meira), Denis Côté (That Kind of Summer), Monia Chokri (A Brother’s Love), and Anne Émond. A frequent […]

The post “We Do Believe the Audience is More Intelligent Than the Industry Thinks: Producer Sylvain Corbeil on the Cannes-Premiering Peak Everything first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

Since founding Metafilms over two decades ago, Montreal-based producer Sylvain Corbeil has become a prolific and respected pillar of Quebec’s independent film scene, collaborating with filmmakers whose bold and idiosyncratic visions have served to bolster the place of modern Canadian cinema on a world stage. Alongside fellow producer Nancy Grant, who co-leads Metafilms, Corbeil has championed the work of widely acclaimed French-language filmmakers like Xavier Dolan, Maxime Giroux (Felix & Meira), Denis Côté (That Kind of Summer), Monia Chokri (A Brother’s Love), and Anne Émond. A frequent […]

The post “We Do Believe the Audience is More Intelligent Than the Industry Thinks: Producer Sylvain Corbeil on the Cannes-Premiering Peak Everything first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

While there’s the oft-repeated observation that every generation thinks they are living through the end of the world, the maelstrom of anxieties (both quotidian and universal) in today’s age is particularly concerning, even debilitating for many to comprehend. Anne Émond’s Peak Everything, borrowing its title from the scientific concept that humanity is exploiting maximum levels of everything on the planet, consolidates ubiquitous, world-ending concerns into a small-scale romantic dramedy about one man’s personal struggle to find happiness and purpose amidst impending climate disasters. While the quaint, well-observed Canadian production’s heart and mind are in the right place, there’s an overstated whimsy to these proceedings that renders its blend of romance, comedy, and real-world concerns a touch lacking.

Despite a public-facing sad-sack affability, something is deeply wrong in the mind of Adam. While the dogs of his modest kennel business can prove a welcome distraction,...

At a Cannes Film Festival in which many films have taken on a dark and even apocalyptic tone, only one actually has the word apocalypse in the title — and it’s a romantic comedy. Maybe that’s the state of the world today, that the end of the world can even intrude on a boy-meets-girl scenario the way it does in French Canadian director Anne Émond’s “Amour apocalypse,” which also used the English title “Peak Everything” when it premiered in the Directors’ Fortnight sidebar at Cannes on Sunday.

The film is the story of an unusual couple, but it’s also the story of the crippling anxiety that can come from living in a world that seems to be on the verge of falling apart at any moment. Coming from the same production company responsible for last year’s delightful Fortnight winner, “Universal Language,” it takes the anxieties that...

Anne Émond’s Peak Everything opens on Adam Tremblay, a 45-year-old kennel owner whose days bleed together under a cloud of climate dread. Shot in Quebec’s outlying countryside, the film marries a light romance to the rumble of storms and tremors—real and imagined—suggesting that personal hope can emerge even as the world feels unmoored.

When Adam’s therapeutic lamp fails, he dials customer service and meets Tina, a spirited support agent whose sunny voice pierces his gloom. Their phone exchanges—underscored by distant thunder—set a tone where grounded emotion meets surreal spectacle.

Émond balances a small-town feel with hints of looming disaster, inviting viewers to consider how love and anxiety coexist in an era when global cinema, from Bollywood to European art houses, is embracing stories of inner and outer turmoil.

Characters in Contrast

At the center is Patrick Hivon’s Adam, whose quiet routine—walking dogs,...

Most of us involuntarily limit our daily interaction with the world’s incessant problems, just to preserve our basic sanity. But not Adam (Patrick Hivon), the instantly lovable lead of Anne Émond’s genially absurdist Quebecois tragicomedy “Peak Everything.” It’s not that Adam is stuck in a dysfunctional rut from opening his soul to every single global calamity. On the surface, he has it together: living in a small town by Montreal, keeping a modest but orderly home, dedicatedly running a local kennel full of disarmingly sweet dogs, and so on. Still, something feels off in his soul, and it’s something he cannot seem to fix.

In Émond’s bizarre tale that flirts with surrealism, you can’t help but feel for the hypersensitive Adam. He is one of those incurable nice guys you instantly want to protect, with a pair of kind, puppy-dog eyes that overflow with...

A movie called “Peak Everything” might seem to imply a certain measure of maximalism, but Anne Émond’s disarmingly low-key romance — its title alluding to the strain that the 21st century has placed on all of the world’s resources at once — prefers to vibe off the emotional paralysis of living at the end of the world. To borrow a word that the film doesn’t bother to define (we know what it means even if we don’t know what it means), this twee French-Canadian love story is steeped in the heartache of “solastalgia,” or the existential distress caused by a change to one’s home environment. The sea levels rise and the moon glows red, but “Peak Everything” remains at the pitch of a self-help tape as it strains to find a ray of light in the storm clouds of what’s coming.

Be that as it may,...

Canada lands at Cannes with a mission to shift the conversation — on the Croisette, at least — from the havoc U.S. tariffs could wreak on the global film industry to the benefits of creative collaboration and co-production with Canadian talent and companies.

As recent successes (Matt Johnson’s SXSW Midnighter audience-award winner “Nirvana the Band the Show the Movie”) and this year’s festival and market titles reveal, Canadian filmmakers are twisting horror and comedy into new shapes and reinforcing the country’s historic strongholds of animation and documentary with new ideas. Over the past decade, holistic, regionally focused companies have been springing up and producing auteur films that are redefining what Canadian cinema is. Indigenous Canadian films, creators and companies are a catalyst in this gradual paradigm shift and have become a regular active presence at major festivals and markets.

“We do arthouse cinema in Canada,” says Montreal producer Sylvain Corbeil,...

It’s a pretty stressful time to fall in love. The ice caps are melting. Autocracy is on the rise. The world is on fire.

Piper Perabo gets it. “This hum of anxiety is constant right now,” she admits. “The way we’re going to solve these problems is by talking about them. And as artists, we can have these conversations in different ways.”

Perabo’s newest film, “Peak Everything,” is a “meet cute” for a culture in desperate need of valium. It’s the story of Adam (Patrick Hivon), a depressed kennel owner who is freaked out by the climate crisis. He becomes infatuated with Tina, a call center operator, after she gives him a ring to see how he’s enjoying the therapeutic solar lamp he ordered. Their relationship blossoms after he takes a trip to meet her in person, only to discover that Tina isn’t some carefree dream girl.

Buyers are finally wise to the fact that Cannes is driving the Oscar race and even the specialized box office. Everyone wants to find the next “Anora,” “The Substance,” “Emilia Perez,” or “Anatomy of a Fall.” And more buyers like Mubi, Metrograph, Sideshow, and other upstarts have emerged to take on the likes of Neon and A24, who come to Cannes armed with several titles already set to debut.

Below, we’ve identified 13 movies looking for homes that could be the next awards breakout, including new films from Lynne Ramsay and Richard Linklater and the debuts of Kristen Stewart and Harris Dickinson.

All titles presented alphabetically.

“The Chronology of Water” (Un Certain Regard)

Director: Kristen Stewart

Stars: Imogen Poots, Thora Birch, Jim Belushi, Tom Sturridge

Buzz: Even if it’s in a sidebar for a first-time director, Kristen Stewart’s debut should be a hot ticket with a lot of...

Australian horror director Sean Byrne questions who is really the prey or predator in his third feature, “Dangerous Animals.” A mix of the serial killer and “sharks-ploitation” tropes, the film centers on a murderer (Jai Courtney) who stalks a surfer on the open water…all with sharks circling his boat.

The official synopsis reads: “When Zephyr (Hassie Harrison), a rebellious surfer, is abducted by a shark-obsessed serial killer and held captive on his boat, she must figure out how to escape before he carries out a ritualistic feeding to the sharks below. She must outwit a predator more dangerous than the ocean itself — will she escape, or become the next offering to the deep?” Josh Heuston co-stars, while Nick Lepard wrote the script.

Byrne told Bloody Disgusting that real sharks were used onscreen for the underwater sequences. “The majority of the time, we’re actually using 4K footage of the...

Directors’ Fortnight, the independent selection running alongside the Cannes Film Festival, has added Israeli filmmaker Nadav Lapid’s “Yes” to its 2025 lineup.

“Y., a jazz musician struggling to make ends meet, and his wife Jasmine, a dancer, sell their art, souls and bodies to the elite, and bring pleasure and consolation to a bleeding nation. Soon, Y. is given a mission of the highest importance: setting to music a new national anthem,” reads the synopsis provided by Directors’ Fortnight.

The cast includes Ariel Bronz, Efrat Dor, Naama Preis and Alexey Serebryakov.

The film is a France-Israel-Cyprus-Germany co-production. Producers are Les Films du Bal (Judith Lou Lévy) et Chi-Fou-Mi Productions (Hugo Sélignac & Antoine Lafon) and co-producers include Bustan Films (Thomas Alfandari – Israeel), Amp Filmworks, Komplizen Film GmbH and Arte France Cinéma with the participation of Zdf/Arte. French distribution and global sales are being handled by

Les Films du Losange.

Lapid’s...

The Cannes Directors’ Fortnight (May 14 – 24) has unveiled its 2025 lineup. The 57th edition of the Cannes Film Festival sidebar again showcases director-driven works from emerging and established filmmakers, this year opening for the second time in a row with a posthumous movie: “Enzo,” directed by French “Bpm” filmmaker Robin Campillo, who picks up the reins from late Palme d’Or-winning “The Class” director Laurent Cantet, who died in April. (Sophie Fillières’ final film “This Life of Mine” opened the event last year.) The Fortnight will close with Eva Victor’s Sundance sensation “Sorry, Baby,” which A24 acquired for release later in 2025 during the January festival.

The coming-of-age story “Enzo” follows an aspiring young mason worker in Marseille whose friendship with an older Ukrainian coworker offers him a renewed sense of life. “Sorry, Baby,” meanwhile, stars writer/director Victor as a college literature professor reeling from trauma.

Making his Cannes debut will...

The last major Cannes sidebar lineup has now arrived with Directors’ Fortnight, and featured in the slate is perhaps our most-anticipated film across the entire festival: the world premiere of Christian Petzold’s Miroirs No. 3. Also featured is Robin Campillo’s opening-night selection Enzo, Sean Byrne’s shark thriller Dangerous Animals, and Eva Victor’s Sundance stand-out Sorry, Baby, which will close the festival.

The organizers said of this year’s lineup, “In a turbulent world beset on all fronts by reactionary attitudes, where republican and universalist values are under attack, art’s subversive role is threatened and major works are cancelled, filmmakers on all continents stand fiercely opposed to these trends. The richness and dynamism of the young generation’s cinema are intact. The films – some of which come from countries at war or regions where obscurantism and populism prevail – avoid lofty speeches, preferring to show us another reality.

Paris-based Indie Sales has acquired international sales rights to “Peak Everything,” a romantic comedy directed by Canadian helmer Anne Émond, in the run-up to its world premiere at Cannes Directors’ Fortnight.

“Peak Everything” stars Patrick Hivon (“A Brother’s Love”) and Piper Perabo (“Yellowstone). Hivon plays Adam, a kind-hearted kennel-owner who is hypersensitive and borderline depressed. To help combat his eco-anxiety, Adam orders a therapeutic solar lamp, which leads him to meet Tina, a radiant woman with a voice that soothes all of his worries.

“Peak Everything” hails from Sylvain Corbeil at Metafilms, the powerhouse Canadian production company behind Matthew Rankin’s “Universal Language” which won the inaugural Director’s Fortnight prize in 2024, as well as the works of Xavier Dolan, most notably the Cannes Jury Prize winner “Mommy,” Monia Chokri’s “The Nature of Love,” and Charlotte Le Bon’s “Falcon Lake.”

The cast is completed by Connor Jessup (“Locke & Key”), Gilles Renaud,...

Eighteen features and 10 short films will be in the lineup of the independent Directors’ Fortnight section at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival, organizers announced at a press conference on Tuesday morning.

The section will open with Robin Campillo’s “Enzo” and will also include German director Christian Petzold’s “Mirrors No. 3,” starring Paula Beer; the Ukrainian documentary “Militantropos,” from directors Yelizaveta Smith, Alina Gorlova and Simon Mozgovyi; “Dangerous Animals,” a horror film set at sea from Australian director Sean Byrne (“The Devil’s Candy”); the comedy “Peak Everything” from Canadian director Anne Émond; and the closing-night film, first-time director Eva Victor’s Sundance hit “Sorry, Baby,” which will be released by A24 in June.

The section does not convene a jury to choose the best of its films, but for the second consecutive year it will give out an audience award. Last year’s audience award, the first ever given out by any section at Cannes,...

The Directors’ Fortnight, the Cannes film festival independent sidebar focused on cutting-edge, auteur cinema, has unveiled its 2025 lineup.

Laurent Cantet and Robin Campillo’s French drama Enzo will open the section on May 14, with Eva Victor’s Sundance hit Sorry, Baby as the closing film on May 24.

Acclaimed German director Christian Petzold (Yella, Barbara, Afire) will make his Cannes debut in the Directors’ Fortnight this year, with Miroirs No. 3. Petzold regular Paula Beer plays an aspiring pianist whose life is upended when she miraculously survives a car crash and is taken in by a family of strangers who offer to take care of her. Metrograph Pictures pre-bought the film for North America last year.

Other Fortnight highlights include Peak Everything from Canadian director Anne Émond, a bilingual rom-com about a kennel owner who falls in love with a customer service rep over the phone and sets off to find her; Lee Sang-il’s Kokuho,...

Directors’ Fortnight has unveiled the selection for its 57th edition running May 14-24 which is heavy on first-time filmmakers and established auteurs including Robin Campillo, Lee Sang-il and Christian Petzold.

Artistic director Julien Rejl revealed the lineup at a press conference in Paris on Tuesday (April 15) for the Cannes parallel section run by French directors guild the Srf.

Scroll down for the full selection

The sidebar will open with Enzo, co-directed by the late Laurent Cantet and Robin Campillo. After Cantet died last year, his longtime friend and collaborator Campillo stepped in to direct the film set and filmed in...

Directors’ Fortnight, the independent selection running alongside the Cannes Film Festival, has unveiled an eclectic lineup for its 57th edition, which will showcase Christian Petzold’s “Miroirs No.3,” Eva Victor’s “Sorry, Baby,” Robin Campillo’s “Enzo” and Lloyd Lee Choi’s “Lucky Lu.”

Curated by Julien Rejl, Directors’ Fortnight will open with “Enzo,” a film directed by Robin Campillo (“Bpm Beats Per Minute).” Campillo stepped in at the helm after Laurent Cantet, his longtime friend and collaborator, died in April. Cantet and Campillo had previously collaborated on the script of the Palme d’Or-winning “The Class.”

Produced by Marie-Ange Luciani (“Anatomy of a Fall”) at Les Films de Pierre, “Enzo” is set in Marseille and follows the journey of a young apprentice mason, Enzo, who befriends a Ukrainian colleague who gives him a glimpse of a new horizon. The film stars newcomers Eloy Pohu and Maksym Slivinskyi, alongside Élodie Bouchez and Pierfrancesco Favino.

Marking his second decade as a film producer, I had the opportunity to sit down with Montreal-based Sylvain Corbeil at the 2024 Marrakech International Film Festival to discuss his latest collaboration with the uniquely talented Matthew Rankin. Rankin’s sophomore feature, Universal Language (set for release this Friday by Oscilloscope Laboratories), has been making waves on the festival circuit since its premiere last May in Cannes. Chosen as Canada’s Oscar submission and a standout in the Directors’ Fortnight, the film transcends borders, weaving Canadiana into a reimagined vision of community.

Corbeil is a seasoned producer with that magic touch, under the Metafilms moniker he has championed projects from acclaimed filmmakers such as Denis Côté, Xavier Dolan, Maxime Giroux, and Anne Émond, and more recently Cannes hits such as Charlotte Le Bon’s Falcon Lake (2022) and Monia Chokri’s Simple comme Sylvain (2023).…...

French-Canadian filmmaker Anne Émond has begun production into her first foray into English-language cinema (we imagine that this will be a bilingual film) with Adam fka Peak Everything – which has Patrick Hivon (Monia Chokri’s Babysitter) and Piper Perabo toplining. Also onboard in terms of supporting players we find Gilles Renaud, Elizabeth Mageren, Éric K. Boulianne, Connor Jessup and Gord Rand. Metafilms’ Sylvain Corbeil and Immina Films are producing. Production will take place in Montreal and in Ontario. Émond exploded onto the scene with Nuit #1 in 2011 and has stuck to mostly drama formats.

This is about Adam (45) owns a kennel.…...

Pakistani Canadian filmmaker Anam Abbas has won the Canadian Media Producers Assn.’s 2023 Kevin Tierney Emerging Producer Award, it was announced Sept. 7 at the Indiescreen Awards, the opening event of the Toronto International Film Festival’s industry conference at Glenn Gould Studios.

Abbas’ latest feature is writer and director Zarrar Kahn’s feature debut “In Flames,” a Pakistani Canadian horror-drama about a Karachi woman and her mother who are beset by malevolent figures from their past after the family patriarch dies. The film, which screens next week in Toronto, premiered in Director’s Fortnight at Cannes, where XYZ Films’ announced the title would launch its New Visions slate.

The award, which comes with a C$10,000 cash prize, recognizes the talents of emerging feature producers. Abbas was recognized by the jury for her ingenuity and her passion for creating films that feel real and essential.

Nancy Grant of Metafilms received the...

La meute

After exploring body issues in the teenage years with 2019’s Jeune Juliette, Anne Émond‘s once again moves towards an entire new genre with her fifth feature. Starring Catherine-Anne Toupin (who wrote the screenplay based on her own play), Guillaume Cyr and Lise Roy, Émond went into production on La meute in July of last year. Physically escaping personal trauma by embarking on a simple vaca at a countryside airbnb, Sophie finds commonality with a stranger. This is produced by Max Films Media’s Félize Frappier and KO24’s Louis Morissette and Louis-Philippe Drolet. We’ve been onboard Émond’s look into how women filter the chaos around them since Nuit #1 (2011).…...

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSThe Academy has released its shortlist of nominees for nine categories, including Best Foreign-Language Film, Best Documentary Feature, and Best Original Score. Let the speculating, predicting, and betting begin! The latest issue of short story journal Zoetrope features a cover by guest designer David Lynch. His artist bio: "Born Missoula, Montana. Eagle Scout." Recommended VIEWINGThe USC Hugh M. Hefner Moving Image Archive has uncovered and identified a 1898 silent film entitled Something Good—Negro Kiss, including possibly the earliest known depiction of "affection between a Black couple." The splendid U.S. trailer of Jean-Luc Godard's fierce new film, The Image Book, courtesy of Kino Lorber.Annapurna Pictures's first trailer for Richard Linklater's Where'd You Go, Bernadette contains quirky family fun, suburban dinner parties, and a fair share of criminal hijinks. Recommended READINGAlongside the overabundance of streaming services,...

“People lack imagination.” This is how controversial Quebecois celebrity author Nelly Arcan (Mylène Mackay) accounts for the public’s prurient desire to know just how much of her bestselling novel, “Putain” (“Whore”), is informed by her experiences as a call girl in Anne Émond’s sympathetic-to-a-fault deconstructed biopic “Nelly.” But imagination is the one thing that Arcan herself does not lack. Love, understanding, self-control, calm, and ultimately, tragically, the will to keep on living — all these things are in short supply. But of imagination, if anything, Nelly had a surfeit.

So much so that, writer-director Émond posits, she imagined herself into a state of fragmented identity, inventing several different personas, each to protect or conceal another in a kind of psychological shell game that eventually became too exhausting and confusing to maintain. At the age of just 36, in 2009, Arcan hanged herself. This tragic end inevitably exerts a retrospective lunar pull on the film,...

Exclusive: French-Canadian drama Nelly is set for a U.S. release after Cinema Libre Studio picked up the rights to Anne Émond’s feature film.

The company, hot on the heels of picking up Vanessa Filho-directed and Marion Cotillard-fronted Angel Face, has taken U.S. rights from eOne’s Seville International.

The film, which stars French-Canadian actress and Toronto International Film Festival Rising Star Myléne Mackay (Endorphine), tells the story of Nelly Arcan, a sex worker in Montreal who wrote a semi-autobiographical novel Putain, based on her experiences.

Arcan, who wrote about self-destruction and feminine beauty as obsessive themes in all of her books, was fixated on being an object of desire herself and she killed herself in 2009, four days after submitting the last edits to her fourth book.

The film, which premiered at Tiff, was produced by Go Films’ Nicole Roberts and was written by Émond. It...

Festival brass unveil Rising Stars, Telefilm Canada Pitch This! finallists, and more.

Mary Harron, Kim Nguyen (both pictured above), Ingrid Veninger, and Denis Côté are among the familiar names in the 26-strong Canadian Features slate that Toronto International Film Festival programmers unveiled on Wednesday.

The selection comprises the highest number of feature directorial debutants and films from Western Canada in recent years. More than 30% of the titles are by first-time feature directors.

Festival brass also announced Short Cuts, Tiff Cinematheque, Rising Stars, Telefilm Canada Pitch This! finallists, and the recipient of the 2017 Len Blum Residency.

The 42nd Toronto International Film Festival runs from September 7-17.

Canadian Features

“It is exciting to see a new wave of Canadian first-time feature directors play with genres and take risks,” Tiff senior programmer Steve Gravestock said. “This year’s line-up has a truly international feel to it, too, with a number of features shot all over the globe — something that also...

April event celebrates 150th anniversary of Canada.

A celebration of Canadian cinema will take place in Los Angeles from April 18-23 with a variety of screenings at The Cinefamily and The Aero.

The Consulate General of Canada in Los Angeles will celebrate Canadian Film Day 150 (Ncfd 150), presented by Reel Canada, with a free marathon of films to mark Canada’s sesquicentennial.

The event will run on April 18 and 19 at The Cinemafamily theatre in Los Angeles.

The Los Angeles screenings will kick-off on April 18 with Polytechnique from Denis Villeneuve and continue with The Saddest Music In The World, Meatballs, Strange Brew, and Villeneuve’s Incendies, followed by a Q&A with the director.

Canada Now: Best New Films 2017, presented by Telefilm Canada, will feature eight new Canadian films from the festival circuit and will screen from April 20–23 at the Aero theatre in Santa Monica, with several post-screening discussions.

Anne Émond’s biopic Nelly, about Quebec...

Oh, Canada, our beloved upstairs neighbors. 2017 marks two essential anniversaries integral to the celebration of Canadian culture: the 150th anniversary of Canada’s Confederation (when British influence receded from Canadian lines allowing all colonies to unite as one nation) and the 50th anniversary of Canada’s Telefilm.

Read More: Tiff and Telefilm Canada Partner to Bring Best New Canadian Films to U.S.

Telefilm Canada is an appendage of the Canadian government that supplies monetary means and financial sponsoring of Canadian cinema. The platform as to which Telefilm functions is through the promotion of Canadian audiovisual talent of today and tomorrow. This year hales the second annual Canada Now film series which will be hosted at the IFC Center from April 6 – 9. Canada Now will screen Canada’s best films from the past year.

On the docket for this year’s screenings are Sundance award-winning “Rumble: The Indians Who Rocked The World,...

Distinguished Canadian features from the last year to screen in New York from April 6-9 at IFC Center

Sundance selection Rumble: The Indians Who Rocked The World (pictured) will kick off the Canada Now: Best New Films From Canada 2017 series.

The second tour of Canadian excellence is presented in partnership with the Consulate General of Canada in New York.

The series includes Xavier Dolan’s It’s Only The End Of The World, Kevan Funk’s Hello Destroyer, and Bruce McDonald’s Weirdos.

Rounding out the selection are Maliglutit (Searchers) from Zacharias Kunuk, Nettie Wild’s Koneline: Our Land Beautiful, Window Horses (The Poetic Persian Epiphany Of Rosie Ming) by Anne Marie Fleming, and Anne Émond’s Nelly.

“Celebrating in 2017 the 150th anniversary of Confederation across Canada, as well as Telefilm Canada’s 50th, is an opportunity to spotlight what makes Canada, and its cinema, so special—its rich diversity,” Carolle Brabant...

The current crop of acclaimed Quebec filmmakers shooting feature films south of the border speaks to an unprecedented infatuation on Hollywood’s part with French-Canadian directors.

Among the heavy hitters: Jean-Marc Vallée (“Wild,” “The Dallas Buyers Club,” HBO’s upcoming “Big Little Lies”), Philippe Falardeau (“The Bleeder,” “The Good Lie”), Denis Villeneuve (“Arrival,” “Sicario,” the forthcoming “Blade Runner” sequel), not to mention Xavier Dolan, who’s currently shooting his star-studded English-language debut, “The Death and Life of John F. Donovan.”

But there’s another remarkably prolific, genre-bending Montreal filmmaker – an award-winning festival regular who has clocked in nine features, one medium-length production and shorts to spare over the last decade – who’s never shown much enthusiasm about dipping his toes in the American studio system. No matter how many prizes or festival selections his films rack up (Berlin, Cannes, Locarno and Sundance among them) or how many retrospectives film societies program about his work,...

The Vancouver International Film Festival (Viff) has today announced 22 additional Canadian feature films in two series, Canadian Images and Future//Present. These films join 10 British Columbia-produced features announced previously to create one of the largest annual showcases of Canadian cinema in the world. Standouts include Nathan Morlando’s Cannes premiere “Mean Dreams,” Johnny Ma’s “Old Stone” and Bruce McDonald’s “Weirdos.”

The longstanding Canadian Images series will once again feature some of the country’s best narrative films and documentaries, while the new Future//Present series highlights the work of emerging independent filmmakers from across the country. Future//Present promises to “bring together the most talented, bold and distinct voices in Canadian film.”

Read More: Tiff Adds New Round of Titles, Including ‘It’s Only the End of the World,’ ‘Mean Dreams’ and More

As part of its commitment to Canadian filmmakers, Viff offers three cash awards to celebrate...

A selection of films from the 2016 edition of the Toronto International Film Festival has been unveiled, with films by Jim Jarmusch, Maren Ade, Tom Ford, Paul Verhoeven, Damien Chazelle, and many more.Opening NIGHTThe Magnificent Seven (Antoine Fuqua)GALASDeepwater HorizonArrival (Denis Villeneuve)Deepwater Horizon (Peter Berg)The Headhunter's Calling (Mark Williams)The Journey Is the Destination (Bronwen Hughes)Jt + The Tennessee Kids (Jonathan Demme)Lbj (Rob Reiner)Lion (Garth Davis)Loving (Jeff Nichols)A Monster Calls (J.A. Bayona)Planetarium (Rebecca Zlotowski)Queen of Katwe (Mira Nair)The Rolling Stones of Olé Olé Olé!: A Trip Across Latin America (Paul Dugdale)The Secret Scripture (Jim Sheridan)Snowden (Oliver Stone)Strange Weather (Katherine Dieckmann)Their Finest (Lone Scherfig)A United Kingdom (Amma Astante)Special PRESENTATIONSLa La LandThe Age of Shadows (Kim Jee-woon)All I See Is You (Marc Forster)American Honey (Andrea Arnold)American Pastoral (Ewan McGregor)Asura: The City of...

The third cascade of world premieres in 15 days flowed from the headquarters of the Toronto International Film Festival on Tuesday as programmers revealed their Midnight Madness, Tiff Docs, Vanguard, Tiff Cinematheque and Short Cuts selections.

This week’s offering includes Ben Wheatley’s all-star gangster thriller Free Fire, which opens Midnight Madness one year after the premiere of the British auteur’s High-Rise; fast-rising Chadwick Boseman in revenge thriller Message From The King in Vanguard and a Tiff Docs strand that features climate change documentary The Turning Point, featuring and produced by Oscar-winner Leonardo DiCaprio.

The 41st Toronto International Film Festival runs from September 8 to 18.

Wp = world premiere, IP = international premiere, Nap = North American premiere, Cp = Canadian premiere, Tp = Toronto premiere.

Midnight Madness

Ben Wheatley’s all-star gunfight Free Fire starring Brie Larson, Armie Hammer and Cillian Murphy will open the section, which includes Morgan Spurlock’s documentary Rats, Adam Wingard’s Blair Witch, André Øvredal’s [link...

The Toronto International Film Festival has nearly completed its slate announcement this year — expect a few stragglers to be announced in the coming days, but this is about the size of it — rounding out its lineup with today’s announcement of its Docs, Midnight Madness, Vanguard and Tiff Cinematheque picks. And what a group this is, including plenty of returning favorites and some very exciting new names.

Tiff’s Docs section features a collection of works from award-winning directors including Steve James, Raoul Peck, Errol Morris and Werner Herzog. Leonardo DiCaprio even pops up for a “rousing call to action on climate change” in “The Turning Point,” made in collaboration with Academy Award winner Fisher Stevens and already picked up by National Geographic.

Read More: Tiff Reveals First Slate of 2016 Titles, Including ‘Magnificent Seven,’ ‘American Honey,’ ‘La La Land’ and ‘Birth of A Nation’

The beloved Midnight Madness section offers...

After a promising initial line-up, the Toronto International Film Festival has delivered more titles with their full Canadian slate. Among the line-up is Xavier Dolan‘s It’s Only the End of the World, Bruce MacDonald‘s new feature Weirdos, Deepa Mehta‘s Anatomy of Violence, as well as Two Lovers and a Bear, starring Tatiana Maslany and Dane DeHaan, which we have the first trailer for today.

We said in our review from Cannes, “Kim Nguyen’s Two Lovers and a Bear is a film that suffers from a bit of an identity crisis. Like an indie playlist stuck on constant shuffle, unapologetically reveling in a sort of manic unclassifiable genre. This isn’t always necessarily a bad thing, but, for some reason, Nguyen’s scattershot tonal shifts — which hop between a romance on the rocks; a self-serious study of grieving; and a surreal buddy comedy — can prove quite jarring.