Toronto International Film Festival 2017: A glance at the major highlights this year

The 42nd edition of Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) is all set to kick start from 7 September and span through 17 September in the Canadian capital. Ever since its conception, TIFF has been one of the most prestigious platforms exhibiting some of the best specimens of cinema from Canada and around the globe. Like every year, this year too, TIFF boasts of an enviable line-up of films featuring major Hollywood A-listers of the likes of Jennifer Lawrence, Emma Stone, Julianne Moore, Matt Damon, Kate Winslet any many more. Stars like George Clooney and Angelina Jolie will screen their directorial ventures this year at the festival. Clooney’s film, Suburbicon revolves around the dark and shady lives of people living in a small town in America (hence, suburbs) and how their lives shape up because of some of the “bad” decisions they make in their lives. The film stars Damon, Moore and Oscar Isaac in lead roles. Jolie’s venture, _First They Killed My Father_ , chronicles the Khmer Rouge genocide that rocked Cambodia under the dictatorial regime of Pol Pot during the 1970s. It is a biographical tale based on the memoir by Loung Ung published in 2000 of the same name. Jessica Chastain’s _Molly's Game_ will also be screened this year at the festival. The film is based on the true story of Molly Bloom, an Olympic-class skier who ran the world’s most exclusive high-stakes poker game for a decade before being arrested in the middle of the night by 17 FBI agents wielding automatic weapons, as per the film’s official synopsis. [caption id=“attachment_4015445” align=“alignnone” width=“825”]  Clockwise: Jennifer Lawrence in mother!; Matt Damon in Suburbicon; Emma Stone and Steve Carrell in Battle of the Sexes; and Angelina Jolie’s First They Killed My Father. Images via Facebook.[/caption] 2017’s Academy Award winner actress Emma Stone will be seen along with her Crazy Stupid Love co-star Steve Carrell in the upcoming film, Battle of the Sexes which centres around the 1973 match between tennis icon Billie-Jean King and retired player Bobby Riggs. Darren Aronofsky’s upcoming mother!, starring Jennifer Lawrence, Javier Bardem, Ed Harris and Michelle Pfeiffer, is another riveting film which will be screened at the festival. mother! will feature Lawrence in yet another film that touches the psychological realms of a relationship (After Silver Linings Playbook and Joy). Here is the list of all the films to be featured this year at TIFF. TIFF has always been considered the deciding phase for many films before the Oscar race. The films and awards given during the festival have also won major awards at Oscars. Hence, production studios and artistes never miss a chance to showcase their work at the Canadian platform. Last year’s winner La La Land by Damien Chazelle won the Grolsch People Choice Award. To everybody’s surprise the film, in a very dramatic and unprecedented goof-up(ish) way, lost the Best Picture Academy Award to Moonlight. This year’s jury include Japanese filmmaker and Palm D’Or winner Chen Kaige and is known for his films like Together (2002), To Each His Own (2007), and Caught in the Web (2012). Małgorzata Szumowska from Kraków, Poland, who has won many international honours for her films, will also be sitting in the jury. Wim Wenders, filmmaker from Düsseldorf, will accompany Kaige and Szumowska in judging the films this year. For more details on the jury panel, click here.