10 Films to See at TIFF 2024

The 2024 Toronto International Film Festival (or TIFF) runs September 5-15. It’s the 49^th edition of the event (the 50^th anniversary next year should be amazing). Once again, I am on the ground for the first four days (and then some). With 278 films to choose from, it’s hard to know what to see. Below, I list 9 movies that I am excited about (sight unseen) and 1 that I can recommend based on the screener I just watched. Each title is linked to the TIFF page for that particular film. Stay tuned for more in-depth coverage (and full-length reviews) once the festival begins.

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Blue Road – The Edna O’Brien Story (Sinéad O’Shea) – WORLD PREMIERE

Born in 1930, Irish writer Edna O’Brien died just this past July, at the age of 93. She lived a full life, shocking her fellow Irish with a trio of novels in the 1960s—The Country Girls, The Lonely Girl, and Girls in Their Married Bliss—in which she explored female desire and ambition in explicit and beautiful prose. That was just the beginning. After leaving an abusive marriage, she raised two sons on her own, setting up shop in London and cultivating a social circle that included many of the great celebrities (beyond her) of the age. She also wrote for the theater and the movies (and quite a few of her works were adapted by others for the screen). In Blue Road – The Edna O’Brien Story, documentarian Sinéad O’Shea (Pray for Our Sinners) explores her subject’s groundbreaking literary output as well as her romantic adventures (and misadventures) in a rousing portrait that does this vibrant human being justice. I know because this is the one film on this list that I have already seen. You should see it, too.

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Cloud (Kiyoshi Kurosawa) – NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE

I have only watched one other movie by Japanese director Kiyoshi Kurosawa—the 2008 Tokyo Sonata—but that’s enough to make me jump at the chance to see his latest, Cloud, which takes its title from the ubiquitous online storage servers that dominate our modern world. A technology-centered thriller about how the digital marketplace can easily fuel criminal activity, the movie follows a man (Masaki Suda, Cube) whose retirement from city life is brutally interrupted by malevolent forces from the digital universe in which he makes a living. Artistic violence at its cinematic best.

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Dahomey (Mati Diop) – NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE

The winner of the Golden Bear (top prize) at this year’s Berlin International Film Festival (or Berlinale), this short-ish documentary feature (68 min.) from Mati Diop (Atlantics) follows the journey of a number of artworks from France to Benin (within whose borders the former Kingdom of Dahomey was once located). These pieces were stolen when France invaded in 1892. Diop gives voice to those who have long had none in what promises to be an inspiring look at long-overdue justice.

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Grand Tour (Miguel Gomes) – NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE

Portuguese director Miguel Gomes (The Tsugua Diaries) won the Best Director award at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, and if that is not enough reason to give this movie a chance, consider the sweeping nature of its plot. The film begins in 1917, in Burma, where a British diplomat (Gonçalo Waddington, Remains of the Wind) flees his impending marriage to the fiancée about to arrive (Crista Alfaiate, also in The Tsugua Diaries). As the one takes the titular voyage across the Asian continent, the other pursues. Part travelogue, part meditation on colonialism and desperation, Grand Tour promises visual and metaphysical delights.

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Nightbitch (Marielle Heller) – WORLD PREMIERE

Director Marielle Heller (A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood) has long been a director to watch, and with her new film—an adaptation of Rachel Yoder’s eponymous 2021 novel—she offers what looks to be yet another intriguing work. Starring Amy Adams (Disenchanted), Nightbitch follows a stay-at-home mother beginning to chafe under the restrictions of taking care of her young son while her husband is on the road. After trying to connect with other local moms, and failing, she takes to running at night, beginning to let out her inner beast. Or is it just “inner”? That remains to be seen.

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Santosh (Sandhya Suri) – CANADIAN PREMIERE

British-Indian director Sandhya Suri (Around India with a Movie) tells the tale of two women in Northern India connecting through their struggles to adapt within the patriarchal police force. The titular Santosh (Shahana Goswami, Zwigato) was formerly a housewife until her constable husband was killed on the job and she was chosen (via a government program) to take his place. Sharma (Sunita Rajwar, The Conversion) is a veteran investigator pursuing the killer(s) of a lower-caste teen girl. Together, Santosh and Sharma form a bond to help them overcome the rampant misogyny around them. Seems like a powerful premise.

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The Seed of the Sacred Fig (Mohammad Rasoulof) – CANADIAN PREMIERE

There Is No Evil was one of my favorite films of 2021. Now, Iranian director Mohammad Rasoulof is back, having fled an 8-year-prison sentence in his native country to premiere his latest work abroad. Winner of the Jury Special Prize and the FIPRESCI award at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, The Seed of the Sacred Fig is yet another uncompromising look at the human capacity to do bad things. Misagh Zare (Killing the Eunuch Khan) plays Iman, a lawyer-turned-state-investigator who finds himself in conflict with his wife and teenage daughters as he increasingly throws himself into his duties as prosecutor against young protestors objecting to repressive government policies. Rasoulof mixes real-life footage of the recent “Women, Life, Freedom” marches into his narrative, so it’s no wonder Iranian officials were offended. Let’s support his efforts and all watch the movie.

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Temporary Shelter (Anastasiia Bortuali) – WORLD PREMIERE

With a planet beset by conflict, humanity is no stranger to refugees adrift in strange new cultures. In Temporary Shelter, Ukrainian director makes her feature debut with a documentary about how she and other compatriots have made a home in Iceland, living on an old NATO base. The movie looks to be as much about fleeing war as about struggling to understand a foreign place, with all the tragicomic potential of both situations. Plus, Iceland is beautiful. I look forward to seeing it through fresh eyes.

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The Wild Robot (Chris Sanders) – WORLD PREMIERE

Any project featuring the talents of Lupita Nyong’o (Us) is worth considering. In the animated film The Wild Robot—an adaptation of Peter Brown’s children series—from director Chris Sanders (The Call of the Wild), she voices Rozim 7134, a robot designed to meet a human’s every needs. Unfortunately, she comes to consciousness on an island, where only animals exist, and must learn to adapt her skillset to meet the demands of those residents, in particular an orphaned gosling named Brightbill (Kit Connor, Little Joe). I’m happy to include one work of animation on this list, especially since this comes from DreamWorks, known for its spectacular imagery in movies like How to Train Your Dragon (which Sanders co-directed). So not only does this feature a heartwarming tale of love in unlikely places but will also surely be beautiful to behold.

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The Wolves Always Come at Night (Gabrielle Brady) – WORLD PREMIERE

I found Gabrielle Brady’s 2018 Island of the Hungry Ghosts a work of great thematic and aesthetic appeal, and that alone would make me open to seeing anything else by her. Add to that the hybrid nature of her new work, The Wolves Always Come at Night, and I am even more intrigued. Mixing fiction and documentary, Brady sets her movie in a remote region of Mongolia, where a couple with four children go about their daily lives. Until, that is, a sandstorm changes everything, forcing them to the city and to a new—and unwelcome—existence. In this manner, Brady examines how climate change and modernization affect traditional culture, exploring the ruptures, as well as the strong family bonds, of life in the 21^st century.

For tickets to these and other films, check out the festival website. Enjoy!