The Oscar race picks up steam as festival season begins

With the festival season upon us, the race for Oscars has begun albeit unofficially. As the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) announced the first wave of films that are scheduled to premiere at the event next month (Sept. 7–17), a conversation about possible Oscar nods is well on its way.

A number of prominent filmmakers including George Clooney, Angelina Jolie, Guillermo del Toro, Hany Abu-Assad, Haifaa Al Mansour, Stephen Frears, Deniz Gamze Ergüven will premiere their films at TIFF this year. Actors like Gary Oldman (The Darkest Hour), Jessica Chastain (Woman Walks Ahead) and Frances McDormand (Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri) will also make their presence felt.



CEO and festival director, Piers Handling, while speaking about the upcoming edition, said in a statement, “Festival-goers from around the world can anticipate a remarkable lineup of extraordinary stories, voices and cinematic visions from emerging talent and some of our favourite masters.”

Other projects making waves include The Current War, which features Benedict Cumberbatch as Thomas Edison and Michael Shannon as George Westinghouse; Breathe, in which Andrew Garfield stars as polio victim Robin Cavendish; The Mountain Between Us, where Kate Winslet and Idris Elba star together as plane-crash survivors; Stronger, in which Jake Gyllenhaal essays Boston Marathon bombing victim Jeff Bauman and is joined by Tatiana Maslany; I, Tonya in which Margot Robbie essays the disgraced Olympic figure skater Tonya Harding.

The Orchard’s Kings starring Daniel Craig and Halle Berry is also playing in Toronto as is Alexander Payne’s Downsizing starring Matt Damon and Darren Aronofsky’s Mother! starring Jennifer Lawrence, Javier Bardem, Michelle Pfeiffer and Ed Harris. In addition, Brad’s Status, a film written and directed by Mike White and starring Ben Stiller, will have its world premiere at TIFF as well.