TORONTO – The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) recently released its 2024 line-up and schedule on tiff.net/films. The Festival’s 49th edition includes an additional 20 titles in Official Selection with a total of 278 films, up from last year’s 254. Toronto’s biggest International event kicks off on Thursday September 5th, two days before Venice concludes, and will run until Sunday September 15th. 

Italian filmmakers, eight in total, are well represented across various programs, most notably the Gala and Special Presentations. Last year saw six Italian films selected in total with two Special Presentations – “Kidnapped” (Marco Bellocchio) and “La Chimera” (Alice Rorhwacher). A point of pride as Gala and Special Presentations are reserved for high profile Canadian and World premiers and are recognized for celebrating the very best of contemporary cinema across all genres and styles.

Heading up this year’s festival as one of twenty Gala Presentations is Cosima Spender’s “Because I Believe”, a documentary on the life of renowned Tenor Andrea Bocelli. Last year’s awe inspiring concert at the Bath of Caracalla serves as the central backdrop for the film, as cameras follow Bocelli backstage and into his private life. In the Special Presentation program Maura Delpero’s film “Vermiglio” will be making its North American Premier. The film is set at the tail end of the Second World War, as a refugee soldier arrives in a high, remote mountain town where he begins a romance with one of the villagers. Joining “Vermiglio” in the Special Presentation line-up and also making its North American Premier is Luca Guadagnino’s “Queer” starring Daniel Craig, an adaptation of William S. Burroughs’ 1985 novel. The films by Delpero and Guadagnino are two of thirteen Special presentations, which include Pedro Amoldovar’s “The Room Next Door” and Jason Reitman’s “Saturday Night”.

Rounding out the group of Italian filmmakers at this year’s TIFF are Uberto Pasolini, Antonio Piazza & Fabio Grassadonia, Roberto Minervini and Giovanni Tortorici. Making its World Premier at Roy Thomspon Hall on September 7th is Pasolini’s “The Return”, an adaptation of Homer’s Odyssey starring Ralph Fiennes and Juliet Binoche. Piazza & Grassadonia co-direct “Sicilian Letters”, a cat and mouse between a Secret Service informant and the last major Cosa Nostra boss. The film stars Elio Germano and Toni Servillo. Roberto Minervini premiers with “The Damned”, about a group of volunteer Civil War soldiers on the western frontier, while Giovanni Tortorici presents his coming of age film “Diciannove”, produced by Luca Guadagnino and shot on 35mm. The film follows a nineteen-year-old Leonardo, who eagerly escapes his overbearing mother and leaves picturesque Palermo to study in bustling London.

Visit www.tiff.net/films to view the schedule for Italian films at TIFF

Bocelli photo copyright of Photographer Luca Rosetti    

Massimo Volpe is a filmmaker and freelance writer from Toronto: he writes reviews of Italian films/content on Netflix