Entertainment / TIFF 2014 Is Here

TIFF 2014 Is Here

Entertainment Sep 04, 2014

by Matthew Currie

Get Ready For Interviews, Reviews and Red Carpet Coverage Coming Your Way.

Canada may own the nickname Hollywood North, but that’s mostly because the real Hollywood sends their talent up here to film on the cheap. But now, we’re set to embark on the one two-week period each year when all the glitz, glamour and unparalleled pageantry of the film business actually makes its way over the border.

At this very moment, streets are being cordoned off, projectors are being loaded with the year-to-come’s finest cinematic offerings and A-list celebrities, having dieted and yoga-ed their bodies into Greek god-like proportions, are squeezing into designer gowns. Reese Witherspoon, Tina Fey, Al Pacino, Benedict Cumberbatch and the luminous Priyanka Chopra are among the stars dropping by at the TIFF Bell Lightbox for the 2014 festival.

Over the next 11 days, Anokhi will bring you comprehensive coverage of all things TIFF, including red carpets, cool festival-adjacent events and analysis of the jaw-dropping celebrity fashion. And of course, in-depth reviews and interviews on this year’s films. On that front, here’s a preview of just a few of the flicks we’ll have our eye on.

The South Asian Slate

Mary Kom

Bollywood superstar Priyanka Chopra gets rough and bloody to play the title character—the real-life Indian woman who went from a normal life in a remote Manipur village to the world champion in women’s boxing.

Dukhtar

Pic Credit: tns

Afia Nathaniel’s tense, starkly shot film tells the tale of a Pakistani woman who decides to flee through the mountainous terrain with her daughter after the girl is married away to seal a peace treaty. All the while, she’s doggedly chased by her chieftain husband and her daughter’s groom-to-be.

Margarita, With a Yellow Straw

That Girl in Yellow Boots’ Kalki Koechlin stars in this heartwarming story of an aspiring Delhi musician with cerebral palsy who moves to New York to pursue her dreams and along the way manages to find herself and, just maybe, her true love.

Newborns

Mumbai filmmaker Megha Ramaswamy tackles a harrowing subject with this documentary, which delves into the lives of several women who survived acid attacks and how they’ve bravely managed to remake their lives in the wake of such devastating cruelty.

Rest of the Fest

Rosewater

Jon Stewart took a break from skewering modern news and pop culture to direct this much-buzzed biopic of Iranian journalist Maziar Bahari (Gael Garcia Bernal), who was imprisoned for five months by the Iranian government in 2009, as a result of appearing on Stewart’s The Daily Show.

Foxcatcher

Having previously screened at Cannes and Telluride, Bennett Miller’s fact-based account of the twisted relationship that develops between an off-beat millionaire (an unrecognizable Steve Carell) and the elite wrestler (Channing Tatum) he tries to take under his wing is already garnering Oscar buzz for pretty much all involved.

The Judge

The Judge/ fatmovieguy

Having its world premiere at TIFF, Robert Downey Jr. heads up this prestige drama playing a hot-shot lawyer who must return to his small town to defend a local judge (Robert Duvall) who’s been accused of murder. The real hook? Said judge also happens to be his old man.

Wild

Canadian helmer Jean-Marc Vallee wowed at last year’s festival with the Oscar-winning Dallas Buyer’s Club. Now, he returns with this intimate drama about a recovering drug addict and divorcee (Reese Witherspoon) who decides to head off on a spirit quest of sorts, hiking the entirety of the thousand-mile Pacific Crest trail all by herself.

99 Homes

Spider-Man himself, Andrew Garfield, spars with consummate charismatic creep Michael Shannon in Iranian-American auteur Ramin Bahrani’s exploration of the American mortgage crisis. Garfield plays a down-on-his-luck construction worker who tries to save his family from becoming destitute by agreeing to work for the predatory real estate magnate (Shannon) who swindled him.

The Imitation Game

Much-ballyhooed Sherlock heartthrob Benedict Cumberbatch is once again a sizable fixture on the festival circuit with this biopic of Alan Turin, the brilliant cryptologist who was key to cracking the German codes and winning WWII, as well as advancing computer science significantly, before he was prosecuted in the 1950s for homosexual acts.

Be sure to check back in throughout the coming week for more of our comprehensive TIFF coverage.

See you at the cinema!

^{Featured Image Source: facebook.com/TIFF}

Matthew Currie

Author

A long-standing entertainment journalist, Currie is a graduate of the Professional Writing program at Toronto’s York University. He has spent the past number of years working as a freelancer for ANOKHI and for diverse publications such as Sharp, TV Week, CAA’s Westworld and BC Business. Currie ...

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