The most conspicuous absences among the 2011 Toronto Film Festival’s just-announced gala and special presentation slate are Tomas Alfredson‘s Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and Roman Polanski‘s Carnage. Both are set to play at the partially overlapping Venice Film Festival. Deadline‘s Mike Fleming has heard Tinker may be the opening-night debut at the subsequent New York Film Festival, which would explain that particular situation. Hey, Scott and Todd…any truth to that?
More TIFF titles and programs are set to be announced so this is just the opening salvo. (I’m presuming that Martin Scorsese‘s 208-minute George Harrison doc will be announced down the path; ditto Ami Canaan Mann‘s Texas Killing Fields.) This is going to be a very high-throttle, heavy-star-wattage, Oscar-launchy festival. Here, alphabetically, are most of them:
Galas: Albert Nobbs (d: Rodrigo Garcia, w/ Glenn Close); Butter (d: Jim Field Smith, w/Jennifer Garner, Hugh Jackman, Ty Burrell); A Dangerous Method (d: David Cronenberg); The Ides of March (d: George Clooney); The Lady (d: Luc Besson); Moneyball (d: Bennett Miller); Peace, Love, & Misunderstanding (d: Bruce Beresford, w/ Jane Fonda, Catherine Keener, Chace Crawford, Elizabeth Olsen); Take this Waltz (d: Sarah Polley); W.E. (d: Madonna).
Special Presentations, Part 1: 50/50 (d: Jonathan Levine); 360 (d: Fernando Meirelles, w/ Jude Law, Anthony Hopkins, Rachel Weisz, Ben Foster); The Artist (d: Michel Hazanavicius); Americano (d: Mathieu Demy); Anonymous (d: Roland Emmerich); A Better Life (d: Cedric Khan); Burning Man (d: Jonathan Teplitzky); Chicken with Plums (d: Marjane Satrapi, Vincent Paronnaud); Coriolanus (d: Ralph Fiennes); Dark Horse (d: Todd Solondz….another dysfunctional weirdo piece?); The Deep Blue Sea (d: Terence Davies)
Special Presentations, Part 2: The Descendants (d: Alexander Payne); Drive (d: Nicolas Winding Refn); Elles (d: Malgoska Szumowska); The Eye of the Storm (d: Fred Schepisi w/ Geoffrey Rush, Charlotte Rampling); Friends With Kids (d: Jennifer Westfeldt, w/ Kristen Wiig, Megan Fox, Jon Hamm, Maya Rudolph, Edward Burns); Habemus Papam (d: Nanni Moretti); Hick (d: Derick Martini, w/ Blake Lively, Chloe Moretz, Alec Baldwin, Juliette Lewis); The Hunter (d: Daniel Nettheim); Jeff, Who Lives at Home (d: Jay & Mark Duplass); Killer Joe (d: William Friedkin); Like Crazy (d: Drake Doremus).
Special Presentations, Part 3: Machine Gun Preacher (d: Marc Forster); Melancholia (d: Lars von Trier); The Oranges (d: Julian Farino); Pearl Jam Twenty (d: Cameron Crowe); Rampart (d: Oren Moverman, w/ Woody Harrelson, Anne Heche, Cynthia Nixon, Sigourney Weaver, Ice Cube, etc.); Salmon Fishing in the Yemen (d: Lasse Hallstrom); Shame (d: Steve McQueen, w/ Michael Fassbender, Carey Mulligan); A Simple Life (d: Ann Hui); The Skin I Live In (d: Pedro Almodovar); Take Shelter (d: Jeff Nichols); Ten Year (d: Jamie Linden, w/ Channing Tatum, Rosario Dawson, Justin Long, Kate Mara, etc.); Trishna (d: Michael Winterbottom, w/ Freida Pinto and Riz Ahmed — an Indian Tess of the d?Urbervilles); Twixt (d: Francis Ford Coppola); Tyrannosaur (d: Paddy Considine); We Need to Talk About Kevin (d: Lynne Ramsay w/ Tilda Swinton); Woman in the Fifth (d: Pawel Pawlikowski w/ Ethan Hawke, Kristin Scott Thomas).
