July 23, 2019
DGC at TIFF 2019
Congratulations to all DGC Members whose films will be showing at TIFF 2019, September 5 - 15.
(This list will continue to update as films are announced)
Gala Presentations / Special Presentations
Once Were Brothers: Robbie Robertson and The Band (World Premiere, Selected as Opening Night Gala)
Directed by Daniel Roher (Ghosts of Our Forest) and executive produced by Martin Scorsese, Brian Grazer, and Ron Howard, the feature documentary follows Robertson from his early life in Toronto and on the Six Nations of the Grand River reserve, in Southern Ontario, to the creation of legendary roots-rock group The Band.
Director Daniel Roher, Picture Editor Eamonn O'Connor, Sound Editor Adam Raley, Executive Producer Peter Raymont.
American Woman (Canadian Premiere)
A political activist (Hong Chau) helps take care of a group of America’s most wanted fugitives — including a well-known, recently radicalized heiress — in this fictionalized reimagining of the Patty Hearst affair.
Click here for a full list of DGC Members who worked on American Woman.
Guest Of Honour (North American Premiere)
A father (David Thewlis) and daughter (Laysla De Oliveira) attempt to work through their complicated relationship, secret histories, and personal demons, in Atom Egoyan’s latest exploration of unresolved personal trauma and its unintended consequences.
Click here for a full list of DGC Members who worked on Guest Of Honour.
The Songs of Names (World Premiere)
Tim Roth and Clive Owen star in François Girard’s (Hochelaga, Land of Souls) latest sweeping historical drama, about a man searching for his childhood best friend — a Polish violin prodigy orphaned in the Holocaust — who vanished decades before on the night of his first public performance.
Click here for a full list of DGC Members who worked on The Songs of Names.
The Lighthouse (North American Premiere)
Shot on 35mm black-and-white film, this psychological thriller from Robert Eggers (The Witch) follows the slow descent into madness of two lighthouse keepers (Willem Dafoe and Robert Pattinson) on a remote New England island at the turn of the 19th century.
Click here for a full list of DGC Members who worked on The Lighthouse.
Clifton Hill (World Premiere)
Tuppence Middleton stars in Albert Shin’s psychological thriller, which follows a troubled young woman returning to her hometown of Niagara Falls, where the memory of a long-ago kidnapping quickly ensnares her.
Click here for a full list of DGC Ontario Members who worked on Clifton Hill.
Castle In The Ground (World Premiere)
Two lost souls — one kicking her habit, one developing his own — befriend each other and grapple with the hard truths of addiction, in Joey Klein's exploration of the opioid crisis in Canada.
Click here for a list of all Members who worked on Castle In The Ground.
Tammy's Always Dying (World Premiere)
Actor-turned-director Amy Jo Johnson's heart-wrenching second feature, starring Felicity Huffman and Anastasia Phillips, depicts a daughter's attempt to care for her ornery, ailing mother.
Click here for a list of all Members who worked on Tammy's Always Dying.
Antigone (World Premiere)
Critically acclaimed Québécois filmmaker Sophie Deraspe’s provocative and timely adaptation of the classic Greek tragedy of the same name reimagines the story of a woman’s quest for justice as a commentary on the immigrant experience in contemporary Montreal.
Click here for a list of all Members who worked on Tammy's Always Dying.
The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open (North American Premiere)
One woman’s decision to comfort a stranger she finds crying in the street leads to a revealing and powerful conversation between two Indigenous women from very different circumstances, in this poignant collaboration from Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers and Kathleen Hepburn.
Director Kathleen Hepburn, 1AD Jennifer K. Nelson, 2AD Natalie Fiteni, LM Debra Beaudreau, ALM Steven Kammerer
The Rest Of Us (World Premiere)
A single-mother welcomes her ex-partner’s wife and daughter into her life, leading to a new, sometimes tense, family dynamic and an unlikely female friendship, in Aisling Chin-Yee’s humorous and heartbreaking debut.
Click here for a list of DGC Members who worked on The Rest of Us.
Easy Land (World Premiere)
Director Sanja Zivkovic’s poignant debut feature follows a mother and daughter, Serbian refugees, as they struggle to navigate the many obstacles facing newcomers to Canada.
Picture Editor Chris Mutton
Murmur (World Premiere)
An aging, isolated woman ordered to perform community service for a DUI discovers that adopting ailing pets to fill the void in her life can be its own obsession, in Heather Young’s bold debut feature.
Production Designer Ryan Vessey
Black Conflux (World Premiere)
The seemingly separate lives of an anxious, disillusioned teen girl and a troubled, alienated man converge fatefully in this haunting exploration of womanhood, isolation, and toxic masculinity, set in 1980s Newfoundland.
Click here for a list of DGC Members who worked on Black Conflux.
Kuessipan (World Premiere)
Two childhood friends from the same Quebec Innu community begin to realize that they face very different futures, in Myriam Verreault’s bittersweet adaptation of Naomi Fontaine's acclaimed novel about the ties that bind people, places, and possibilities.
Click here for a list of DGC Members who worked on Kuessipan.
This Is Not A Movie (World Premiere)
The groundbreaking and often game-changing reporting of legendary foreign correspondent and author Robert Fisk is profiled in the latest from acclaimed documentarian Yung Chang (Up the Yangtze).
Director Yung Chang
Blood Quantum (World Premiere, Midnight Madness Opening Night Film)
Jeff Barnaby’s astutely titled second feature is equal parts horror and pointed cultural critique. Zombies are devouring the world, yet an isolated Mi’gmaq community is immune to the plague. Do they offer refuge to the denizens outside their reserve or not?
Click here for a list of DGC Members who worked on Blood Quantum.
The Twentieth Century (World Premiere)
Winnipeg’s Matthew Rankin (The Tesla World Light) doubles down on his signature mode of gonzo history films with this bizarro biopic of William Lyon Mackenzie King, which reimagines the former Canadian Prime Minister’s early life as a series of abject humiliations, both professional and sexual.
Click here for a list of DGC Members who worked on The Twentieth Century.
Hot Flash (World Premiere)
A newscaster is due to go live on local television in the middle of a hot flash, in Thea Hollatz's animated comedy about a woman trying to keep her cool when one type of flash leads to another.
Director Thea Hollatz
Life Support (World Premiere)
The great Jayne Eastwood gets straight to the heart of the matter in Renuka Jeyapalan’s funny and poignant true-life tale of a very different kind of dog-park encounter.
Director Renuka Jeyapalan
Please Speak Continuously And Describe Your Experiences As They Come To You (North American Premiere)
A psychiatric patient with a brain implant that allows her to relive her dreams finds her reality being encroached upon in unappetizing and surreal ways, in Brandon Cronenberg's psychedelically retro thriller.
Director Brandon Cronenberg, Picture Editor James Vandewater, Produced by Director Andrew Cividino
Oracle (World Premiere)
While their parents undertake prolonged home renovations, a child is left to roam the house, absorbing the chaos of construction and adult anxieties. In this unsettling directorial debut by actor-turned-filmmaker Aaron Poole, childhood imaginings soon manifest themselves in dreadful ways.
Picture Editor Orlee Buium
Delphine (North American Premiere)
In the latest by celebrated filmmaker Chloé Robichaud, two precisely rendered episodes in the adolescence of a Lebanese-Canadian girl highlight complicated matters of gender, identity, and power dynamics.
Click here for a list of DGC Members who worked on Delphine.
