Daily Festival Schedule
Friday Sept 26
Film // The Life of Chuck
Start Time: 7pm
Written and Directed by Mike Flanagan
Adapted from the novella by Stephen King
Starring: Tom Hiddleston, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Karen Gillan, Jacob Tremblay and Mark Hamill
110 mins – English
From the hearts and minds of Stephen King and Mike Flanagan comes THE LIFE OF CHUCK, the extraordinary story of an ordinary man. This unforgettable, genre-bending tale celebrates the life of Charles ‘Chuck’ Krantz as he experiences the wonder of love, the heartbreak of loss, and the multitudes contained in all of us.
The Life of Chuck is a singular and surprising cinematic experience: a story told in reverse, spanning one man’s life from his death at the end of the world to his quiet, wondrous childhood. Based on Stephen King’s novella, the film charts a path through global catastrophe, intimate memory, and transcendent hope, revealing how even the most ordinary life can be a universe unto itself.
The Life of Chuck joins the canon of King adaptations that explore the emotional and philosophical undercurrents of human life, more in the vein of Stand By Me or The Shawshank Redemption than his horror fare. It’s a film that challenges the traditional structure of storytelling, asking us to look not only backward but inward.
At a time when audiences are searching for meaning amidst chaos, The Life of Chuck offers a bold, resonant, and deeply affecting vision of what it means to live and to matter.
Who is Chuck Krantz and why does his life matter? – The answer unfolds in three acts.
Winner of the TIFF People’s Choice Award 2024
Saturday Sept 27
In Conversation // Emma Donoghue
Start Time: 12pm
Award winning novelist, screenwriter and playwright, Emma Donoghue’s fiction ranges from the contemporary to the historical and includes two books for young readers.
Her novel Room has sold almost three million copies, won the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize, the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize and was shortlisted for the Man Booker and Orange Prizes. Donoghue scripted the film adaptation, which was nominated for four Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay.
The Wonder was shortlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize. Donoghue co-wrote the screen adaptation of the Netflix film which starred Florence Pugh.
Join the conversation as Emma discusses adapting her own work for the screen, her latest novel The Paris Express and the new challenge of adapting someone else’s fiction as she tackles bringing Helen Macdonald’s H is for Hawk to the screen.
Film // Bonjour Tristesse
Start Time: 3pm
Written and Directed by Durga Chew-Bose
Adapted from the novel Bonjour Tristesse by Françoise Sagan
Starring: Lily McInerny, Claes Bang and Chloë Sevigny
94 min – English/French
At the height of summer, 18-year-old Cécile (Lily McInerny) is languishing by the French seaside with her handsome father, Raymond (Claes Bang), and his girlfriend, Elsa (Naïlia Harzoune), when the arrival of her late mother’s friend, Anne (Chloë Sevigny), changes everything. Amid the sun-drenched splendour of their surroundings, Cécile’s world is threatened and, desperate to regain control, she sets in motion a plan to drive Anne away with tragic consequences.
An adaptation of Françoise Sagan’s unforgettable coming-of-age novel by the same title, Durga Chew-Bose’s Bonjour Tristesse masterfully captures the complexity of relationships between women and how they wield influence over one another’s fates.
Previously adapted by Otto Preminger in 1958, Chew-Bose’s film feels both modern while evoking a classic feel. Shot on the beautiful French Mediterranean coast, the film is gorgeous in its refined and classic visual style.
Durga Chew-Bose’s Bonjour Tristesse is an adaptation of care and ingenuity – The Globe and Mail.
In Conversation // Sarah Polley
Location: The Regent Theatre
Start Time: 7pm
Written and Directed by Sarah Polley
Adapted from the short story “The Bear Came Over the Mountain” by Alice Munro
Starring: Julie Christie, Gordon Pinsent and Olympia Dukakis
110 Mins – English
In the midst of an impressive acting career, Sarah Polley burst on the scene as a director with her now classic Away From Her. Based on Alice Munro’s short story “The Bear Came Over the Mountain” Away From Her is an enduring love story with a powerful message about friendship, generosity and devotion. Away From Her was nominated for two Oscars and won seven Genies, including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Screenplay.
The film tells the story of Fiona (Christie) and Grant (Pinsent), a couple who have been married for over 40 years. As Fiona’s “forgetfulness” grows worse, the couple are forced to come to terms with the fact that it is actually Alzheimer’s, and she is placed in a new nursing home.
At the end of the difficult 30-day “no visitor” policy, Grant comes to visit Fiona, except there are some wrinkles: Fiona remembers little of the life they shared, and has found a new partner in the home. Beginning a journey that will test the bond they’ve shared for decades, Grant must draw upon his deep love for Fiona in order to adjust to this reality, and help ensure her continued happiness and support.
Special Guest: Sarah Polley joins us to reflect on her career and the film that first garnered her Oscar attention. After Away from Her, she went on to craft her first documentary film, Stories We Tell, and write the miniseries Alias Grace, based on the novel by Margaret Atwood. In 2022, she wrote and directed Women Talking, based on the novel by Miriam Toews, for which she won the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay.
Sunday Sept 28
Film // Zodiac Killer Project
Start Time: 12pm
Written and Directed by Charlie Shackleton
Having tried and failed to make a true crime documentary, filmmaker Charlie Shackleton tells the story of what might have been. Through the course of the film, Shackleton explains how he tried and eventually failed to option the rights to California highway patrolman Lyndon Lafferty’s true crime book and explores how one creates a film when you do not own the rights!
In this wholly original, self-aware cinematic work, the true crime boom is put under the microscope as filmmaker Charlie Shackleton tells the story of his abandoned documentary about the infamous Zodiac Killer, describing beat-by-beat how he imagined it playing out. Over vacant Bay Area landscapes, stylized re-enactments and clips from recent true crime hits, his wry voiceover conjures the unrealized project in real time, offering an object lesson in creative frustration—and a hilarious critique of a genre at saturation point.
WINNER — NEXT Innovator Award, 2025 Sundance Film Festival
“There is no film like it’ — Jury head Elijah Wood
‘A true-crime flop turned documentary masterpiece… a sharp, hilarious, self-aware, and acutely insightful work of both celebration and critique’ . THE DAILY BEAST
Film // Paying For It
Start Time: 3pm
Special Guests: Sook-Yin Lee and Chester Brown
Directed by Sook-Yin Lee
Written by Sook-Yin Lee and Joanne Sarazen
Adapted from the graphic novel Paying For It by Chester Brown
85 mins – English
PAYING FOR IT is a live-action adaptation of acclaimed alternative-cartoonist Chester Brown’s best-selling graphic novel. In the late 90s, Chester and Sonny are a long-term, committed, romantic couple. When Sonny wants to redefine their relationship, Chester, an introverted cartoonist, starts sleeping with sex workers and discovers a new kind of intimacy in the process. PAYING FOR IT is about love, sex and non-monogamy for adults. It deals with the complicated subject of the exchange for sex-work versus the complications of romantic love.
In a kind of double-act of portraiture, Sook-Yin Lee, Chester Brown’s real-life ex, adapts his graphic novel in a compassionate and unique movie. The result is a singular work of cinematic autofiction that is alive, funny and moving. The handling of sex and intimacy is deft, narrative and necessary. Nothing is hidden, but at the same time, never gratuitous. The humour is grounded and smart.
The city of Toronto, where the actual story took place, provides the backdrop for PAYING FOR IT with a vibrant specificity of time and place. The indie community rallied around Lee and the production, which filmed in a number of locations playing themselves: legendary local music venue Sneaky Dee’s; the iconic neighbourhood of Kensington Market; and the actual house where Chester and Sook-Yin lived together.
Screenwriter/Director Sook-Yin Lee and graphic novelist Chester Brown join us to discuss the film
Sook-Yin Lee (Writer, Director, Co-Producer) is a Toronto-based filmmaker, musician, actor and broadcaster. She is a former MuchMusic VJ and a former radio host on CBC Radio.
Her feature film directorial debut Year of the Carnivore premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2009. Her second feature film as a director, Octavio Is Dead!, received several Canadian Screen Award nominations.
Chester Brown (Author of the graphic novel, Paying For It) is the author of seven books and is best known for the non-fiction graphic novels Louis Riel: A Comic-Strip Biography (2003) and Paying for It: A Comic-Strip Memoir About Being a John (2011). In 2024, Brown created a Louis Riel stamp for Canada Post as part of a set honouring Canadian cartoonists.
Film // Steal Away
Start Time: 7pm
Special Guests: Tamara Berger and Damon D’Oliveira
Directed by: Clement Virgo
Written by: Tamara Faith Berger and Clement Virgo
Adapted from Karolyn Smardz Frost’s non-fiction book Steal Away Home
Starring: Angourie Rice, Mallori Johnson and Lauren Lee Smith
113 mins – English
Fresh from world-premier at TIFF, director Clement Virgo (The Book of Negros, Brother) returns with a bold, mesmerizing, thriller that’s part fairy tale, part fever dream. Virgo’s sixth feature quickly leaves the realm of fairy tales and takes us into challenging and shadowy spaces.
Steal Away starts with Karolyn Smardz Frost’s work of narrative non-fiction as its base but mixes elements of erotic thriller, suspense and horror to craft a film which tackles current sociopolitical themes.
Fanny, a naive teenager, starts her journey to adulthood when Cécile, a mysterious refugee, is taken in by her charitable family. As the two girls develop an intense and obsessive bond, Fanny becomes captivated by Cécile’s way of navigating life, leading to an awakening of desire and jealousy. Gradually, both girls realize that the benevolent world they inhabit is not what it appears.
Screenwriter Tamara Faith Berger and Producer Damon D’Oliveira join us to discuss the film
Tamara Faith Berger is an author and novelist best known for her novel Maidenhead. Her debut novel Lie With Me was adapted into a 2006 film by her filmmaker Clement Virgo.
Damon D’Oliveira is an actor and film and television producer often working with Clement Virgo, his partner in Conquering Lion Pictures. Together they have adapted Brother and The Book of Negroes for the screen.
