TIFF 2016 guide: La La Land, The Magnificient Seven, Loving among must-see films

The 41st Toronto International Film Festival is all set to take Toronto by storm from 8 September 2016 to 18 September 2016. TIFF is essentially a celebration of film, filmmakers and film lovers. In the years since its beginning in 1976, TIFF has grown to become one of the world’s most prominent film festivals, with 9 Best Picture Oscar winners getting their premiere in Toronto in the last decade. There are a total of 397 films being screened at the festival, and that means there are a lot of films to choose from. Here’s our guide to the five must-see films at the Toronto International Film Festival or TIFF as it is called:   The Magnificent Seven

The festival kicks off with the premiere of director Antoine Fuqua’s The Magnificent Seven. The reboot of the 1960 classical western stars Oscar Winner Denzel Washington, Chris Pratt (of Guardians of Galaxy fame) and Ethane Hawke (of _Before Sunris_e fame). The story line is a sort of a throwback to Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight, with it’s theme of assassins with their own agendas being thrown together because of adverse circumstances. Here however, the seven assassins use their talents to defend a village against the plundering of a wealthy businessman. La La Land

Right from the Ryan Gosling’s City of Stars being used as the background score for the film, to Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling’s sizzling onscreen chemistry, this trailer will definitely make you want to see La La Land. This is director Chazelle’s followup to the 2014 film Whiplash, and it looks like it will be bursting at the seems with music, colour and spectacle. The film is set to release worldwide on 16 December 2016. The Bad Batch [caption id=“attachment_2977502” align=“alignnone” width=“825”]  A still from the film. Image courtesy: TIFF.net[/caption] The Bad Batch is Anna Lily Amirpour’s follow up to  A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night. An apocalyptic film set in a Texas wasteland where a community of cannibals reside, ‘The Bad Batch’ is as a love story about a cannibal Miami Man (Jason Momoa) and his food, Arlene (Suki Waterhouse). The love story develops after Arlene loses an arm and leg escaping from a group of cannibals including Miami Man. But love blossoms between the two when Arlene helps Miami Man look for his lost daughter. TIFF has a reputation of screening a batch of eccentric films every year, and if we take notes out of Amirpour’s A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, The Bad Batch might just be the weirdest of the batch. Nocturnal Animals [caption id=“attachment_2977504” align=“alignnone” width=“825”]  Amy Adams in the film. Image courtesy: TIFF.net[/caption] Tom Ford, who is the creative head of fashion giants like Gucci, Yves Saint Laurent and Tom Ford, made his directorial debut with the very well-received film A Single Man in 2009. This is his second foray into the world of directing and stars Hollywood A-listers like Amy Adams, Jake Gyllenhal, Isla Fisher and Laura Linney. Amy Adams plays Susan, a successful Los Angeles art-gallery owner who is forced to confront the demons of her past as she is drawn into the world of a thriller novel written by her ex-husband Tony (Jake Gyllenhaal). Loving

This period drama is based on the true story of Mildred and Richard Loving, who were arrested in 1958 because of their marriage. Their crime: she was a coloured person and he was white, and this made their marriage illegal. Their struggle to overrule the judgement that made their marriage illegal took them to the US Supreme Court, and ultimately changing the rules of the US Constitution which brought an end to Virginia’s anti-miscegenation laws. Loving is directed by Jeff Nichols and starts Joel Edgerton and Ruth Negga as the mixed race couple who waged a decade-long legal battle against Virginia’s law prohibiting interracial marriage.