The Toronto International Film Festival’s Platform programme will begin with a screening of Frances O’Connor’s Emily, a biopic based on the famous novelist Emily Bronte. In the United Kingdom, Emily will be released by Warner Bros. in 2023, while it will be released by Bleecker Street in the United States in 2022. Before publishing her best-known work, Wuthering Heights, Emily will delve into the brief life of Charlotte Bront. O’Connor, well known for her roles in Mansfield Park, A.I. Artificial Intelligence, and The Importance of Being Earnest, makes her directorial and writing debut with this biopic.
In Blessed, she earned an AACTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role and was nominated for a Golden Globe for her roles in Madame Bovary and The Missing, respectively. Emma Mackey, Fionn Whitehead, Amelia Gething, Oliver Jackson-Cohen, and others will portray Bronte, Branwell Bronte, Anne Bronte, and William Weightman in the film. Jo Bamford, David Barron, Robert Patterson, and Piers Tempest are the film’s producers. Filmmakers from all around the world are encouraged to participate in TIFF’s Platform initiative, which aims to showcase their work to a wider audience.
This year’s winner of the Platform Prize, a $20,000 CAD award, will be chosen by a panel of programme judges. As well as “Emily,” the following films have been chosen for this year’s festival: “Carvo” (dir. Carolina Markowicz), “La Gravité” (dir. Cédric Ido), “Hawa” (dir. Mamouna Doucouré), “How to Blow up a Pinline” (dir. Daniel Goldhaber), “Riceboy Sleeps” (dir. Anthony Shim), “Tafrigh” (dir. Man Each of these films will have its international premiere at these events.
TIFF’s chair of programming, Anita Lee, made the following comment on the festival’s film selections: “Eclectic in vision, this year’s selection not only includes all World Premieres of exciting, on-the-rise voices from throughout the world, but it also highlights the extremely timely and distinct viewpoints of racialized filmmakers from diasporic communities extending the canvas.”