TIFF unveils 2022 winter programming slate

MEDIA RELEASE
December 8, 2021

TIFF unveils 2022 winter programming slate

Coming up this season at TIFF Bell Lightbox:

Retrospectives on Hollywood icon Natalie Wood and celebrated Swedish filmmaker Roy Andersson; a spotlight on Erotic Thrillers and Korean Cinema; the return of the TIFF Next Wave Film Festival and Canada’s Top Ten features series

Plus: New! Midnight Madness is now year-round!

TORONTO — Whether you’re yearning for solitude or looking to heat things up, TIFF has something for everyone this winter. TIFF Cinematheque is offering a wide-ranging showcase of series, including erotic thrillers; a spotlight on Korean cinema starring, directed, and written by contemporary Korean women; a retrospective on the triple Academy Award–nominated actor Natalie Wood; new year-round Midnight Madnness programming; and the return of See the North, MDFF Selects, and Boosie Fade Film Club. Plus, the works of revered artist Roy Andersson will be featured as part of a year-long retrospective series devoted to the best of Nordic cinema.

“Our programmers have done it again — curated an exceptional lineup of international series that invite discerning cinephiles and all movie lovers to an escape at TIFF Bell Lightbox this winter,” said Cameron Bailey, CEO, TIFF. “On the heels of our successful director spotlight series this fall and the introduction of free access to Cinematheque films for TIFF Members, we're excited to welcome audiences to these carefully selected Cinematheque and New Release screenings."

Showcasing the best international feature films for young audiences and free to anyone under 25, TIFF’s Next Wave Film Festival returns to TIFF Bell Lightbox February 18 to 20, 2022, while a special presentation of Canada’s Top Ten feature films will be screening all month long in March 2022. Stay tuned for guest announcements and more programming details in January.

Several New Releases screening at TIFF Bell Lightbox this winter premiered at the 46th Toronto International Film Festival, including: a feature film from the Canada’s Top Ten list, Scarborough and TIFF 2021 People's Choice Award First Runner-up, adapted from the critically acclaimed novel by Catherine Hernandez; and Clint Bentley's Jockey, which won Clifton Collins Jr. a U.S. Dramatic Special Jury acting award at the Sundance Film Festival for his starring role. In addition, Blerta Basholli’s Sundance award–winning Hive, Kosovo’s submission for the Best International Feature Oscar, will also screen as a New Release.


TIFF CINEMATHEQUE SERIES

As announced recently, TIFF Members now receive free access to over 250+ Cinematheque screenings as an addition to their annual Member benefits. This benefit includes up to two complimentary tickets per TIFF Membership for each regular-price Cinematheque screening, excluding 70mm and 3D presentations.

Lockdown, Loneliness and Solitude
January 7 to February 18, 2022
On the occasion of TIFF’s return to the cinema, a selection of films reflecting on the seclusion and social disconnect that has characterized the COVID-19 era, spanning genres, time periods, and emotional registers. Films in this series include: High Life, This is Not a Film, Woman in the Dunes, Black Girl, Grey Gardens, and Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles.

World of Glory: The Films of Roy Andersson
January 13 to 23, 2022
Celebrated Swedish filmmaker Roy Andersson has created a singular body of work, most notably with his “Living Trilogy” (Songs from the Second Floor; You, the Living; and A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence) and his recent feature About Endlessness. Utilizing a trompe-l’œil technique, a static camera, and non-professional performers (who often deliver disarming confessions directly to the camera), he constructs his films as a series of eerie, comically absurd vignettes. All of his films since the 1990s were shot in his shop, Studio 24, and their unique aesthetic was pioneered in the commercials he produced there. Andersson’s films have a haunting atmosphere, punctuated by unexpected grace notes. This programme includes two key, rarely seen early features — A Swedish Love Story and Giliap — and two pivotal shorts.

The Films of Roy Andersson is the first of three retrospectives in a year-long series celebrating the best of Nordic cinema and filmmakers, made possible as part of NORDIC BRIDGES 2022 in collaboration with Harbourfront Centre, Toronto. The Andersson retrospective will also stop at the Winnipeg Cinematheque (January 14-30), The Cinematheque in Vancouver (February 12- 27), and La Cinémathèque québécoise in Montreal (February 6-17).

New and Restored
January 8 to February 21, 2022 (monthly series)
A selection of recent restorations that have been painstakingly brought back to life in revived cinematic presentations. Films include Chameleon Street, an Official Selection at the 1989 Toronto International Film Festival (Festival of Festivals) and Winner of the Grand Jury Prize at the 1990 Sundance Film Festival; Chess of the Wind, Mohammad Reza Aslani’s narrative feature-film debut, considered lost until 2020, when a negative of the film was discovered by his son in a Tehran antique shop; Gojira, known as “Godzilla” to generations of North Americans, presented in 4K in its original Japanese version; and a 4K presentation of Possession, Andrzej Żuławski’s best-known film starring Sam Neill and Isabelle Adjani as a couple whose marriage begins to crumble when she takes a monstrous new lover.

MDFF Selects
January 20, 2022 & February 17, 2022 (monthly series)
MDFF Selects features a showcase of the world’s best, most challenging, and most provocative new international cinema. Films in this series include El Planeta, an official selection at Sundance and Film at Lincoln Center’s New Directors/New Films from director, writer, producer, and actor Amalia Ulman; Kadıköy: Town of the Blind from Arca Arvesen, a Turkish-born filmmaker currently studying at York University who edited the film in Canada during the pandemic; and The Two Sights, the first solo feature from Canadian interdisciplinary artist Joshua Bonnetta and an official selection at the Berlinale, Viennale, and Cinéma du réel. MDFF co-founder Kazik Radwanski will host a Q&A with directors following their screenings.

Both Sides, Now: The Roles of Natalie Wood
January 22 to February 13, 2022
Natalie Wood’s career spanned four decades, beginning in early childhood and including three Academy Award nominations by the time she was 25. This series explores Wood’s most familiar role as a woman between two worlds, navigating shifting romantic expectations and social mores with a modern combination of fragility and assertiveness. Featuring Gypsy, Splendor in the Grass, This Property is Condemned, and Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice.

Korean Cinema: Triple F-Rated
January 28 to February 10, 2022
First developed by the Bath Film Festival in 2014, the F-Rating was created to highlight the roles of women in film. A triple F-Rating, the organization’s gold standard, applies to films that have been both directed and written by women, and that also feature women in significant roles on screen. This series of four films starring, directed, and written by contemporary Korean women spans a range of generations and perspectives. Featuring House of Hummingbird, The World of Us, Microhabitat, and Gull, Korean Cinema: Triple F-Rated offers a glimpse into the challenges women experience — both with themselves and their circumstances.

Dark Twisted Fantasies: Erotic Thrillers
February 5 to March 3, 2022
The erotic thriller has become a bona fide genre in its own right. A descendent of the melodrama, thriller, and film noir alike, it reached its zenith in the ’80s and ’90s — anchored by the critical and commercial success of racy blockbusters such as Adrian Lyne’s Fatal Attraction and Paul Verhoeven’s Basic Instinct — and was reimagined by daring iconoclasts such as Jane Campion and Katt Shea. Other films in this series include: In the Cut, The Handmaiden, Poison Ivy, and Stranger by the Lake.

Midnight Madness
February 26, 2022 (monthly series)
Since 1988, TIFF’s annual Midnight Madness programme has presented the wildest and strangest cinematic provocations from around the world while cultivating an infectiously raucous audience experience. Fans of this series can look forward to screening The Plastic Dome of Norma Jean, in which a teenage psychic (Sharon Henesy) and her enormous mail-order plastic dome are exploited by a selfish band of young rock ’n’ rollers (including a 25-year-old Sam Waterston) in order to secure their own stairway to stardom. The film won a special award at the 1966 Cannes Film Festival.

Boosie Fade Film Club
February 3, 2022 (quarterly series)
TIFF’s ongoing series of cult classics that have made a huge impact on hip-hop and R&B culture is back with a 35mm print of Romeo Must Die (2000). The film stars R&B singer Aaliyah as Trish O’Day, daughter of a US crime boss (Delroy Lindo), who falls in love with ex-cop Han Sing (Li), who himself happens to be the scion of a rival crime family in Hong Kong. Romeo Must Die marked the directorial debut of veteran cinematographer Andrzej Bartkowiak (Prince of the City, Speed).

See the North
February 24, 2022 (monthly series)
The latest installment in our free series of Canadian cinematic treasures is presented in celebration of the publication of Moments of Perception: Experimental Film in Canada, a wide-ranging and essential look at innovative cinema in the 20th and 21st centuries written by Stephen Broomer, Jim Shedden, Barbara Sternberg, and Michael Zryd, published by Goose Lane Editions, and distributed through University of Toronto Press. The authors will be present for the screening, and the book will be available for purchase. Films in this programme include Very Nice, Very Nice, Water Sark, Hybrid, Girl from Moush, Caribou in the Archive, Membrana Mortis (Dead Film), Lines Horizontal, Lines Postfixal, Plein Air Etude, Ransom Notes, and Black Rectangle.


SPECIAL EVENTS

Bell Let's Talk Day: Screening & Talk
January 26, 2022
TIFF celebrates the power of film to give voice to mental health experiences and to promote well-being by bringing people together. Audiences are invited for a free screening and conversation about mental health, community, and self-expression. Details to be announced January 12.

Canada’s Top Ten 2021 Shorts
January 22, 2022
This year‘s shorts lineup includes powerful new works by two of Canada‘s most revered directors in Zacharias Kunuk and Alanis Obomsawin, recipient of the Jeff Skoll Award in Impact Media supported by Participant Media at this year's TIFF Tribute Awards. Kunuk‘s first-ever animated film in his five-decade career, Angakusajaujuq - The Shaman‘s Apprentice won the IMDbPro Short Cuts Award for Best Canadian Film at TIFF 2021, as well as awards for Best Canadian Short and Best Narrative Short at the Ottawa International Film Festival. The list also includes striking new shorts by returning filmmakers Terril Calder and Albert Shin, who recently won Best Canadian Short Film for his film Together at the 2021 Vancouver International Film Festival.

Canada’s Top Ten 2021 Features
March 2022
TIFF is marking the 20th anniversary of Canada’s Top Ten list with screenings of feature films at TIFF Bell Lightbox throughout March. The 2021 features list boasts one of the most varied lineups yet, with the literary adaptations All My Puny Sorrows from Michael McGowan, Sébastien Pilote‘s Maria Chapdelaine, and Shasha Nakhai and Rich Williamson‘s celebrated Scarborough, TIFF 2021 People's Choice Award First Runner-up and recipient of the Shawn Mendes Foundation Changemaker Award; Charlotte, a beautiful animated biography of a young Jewish artist whose life is cut short in the Holocaust, from filmmakers Eric Warin and Tahir Rana; a powerful and visually striking analysis of globalization in Ivan Grbovic‘s Drunken Birds, Canada‘s official Oscar submission for Best International Feature; a stylish exploration of the contemporary jazz scene in Thyrone Tommy‘s Learn To Swim; a powerful allegory for the forced removal of Indigenous children in dystopian thriller Night Raiders from Danis Goulet, recipient of the 2021 TIFF Tribute Emerging Talent Award presented by L’Oréal Paris and supported by MGM; an insightful documentary about the stereotypes projected onto Black women in Jennifer Holness‘s Subjects of Desire; a poignant drama about the plight of teens facing a bleak future in contemporary Sarajevo from Igor Drljača in The White Fortress; and Rhayne Vermette‘s deeply personal debut feature, Ste. Anne, a moving drama about family and winner of the Amplify Voices Award for Best Canadian Feature Film presented by Canada Goose at TIFF 2021.


FESTIVALS

TIFF Next Wave Film Festival
February 18 to 20, 2022
Engaging the next generation of film lovers and creators, TIFF Next Wave is a dynamic film festival that celebrates new voices in cinema. The Festival showcases the best international feature films for young audiences with stories of self-discovery, community, and finding one’s place in the world. Curated by the TIFF Next Wave Committee - a group of 12 socially-engaged high-school students from across Toronto - the festival highlights the power in young people seeing themselves and their communities represented on screen.

Tickets for TIFF Next Wave Official Selection films are available for free to anyone under 25. Complete festival details will be announced on January 26, 2022.

The TIFF Next Wave Film Festival is supported by The Shawn Mendes Foundation.


NEW RELEASES

Playing at TIFF Bell Lightbox

Opens January 7
Hive, Zeitgeist Films
Blerta Basholli | Kosovo, Switzerland, Macedonia, Albania | 2021 | 84 mins.

Hive is based on the true story of a woman who has battled grief and financial struggle since her husband went missing during the war in Kosovo. In hope of providing for her family, she launches a business selling hot pepper preserves, a controversial act of independence that scandalizes her patriarchal village. Amid doubts of her husband’s return, she struggles not only to keep her family afloat but also against a hostile community who seeks to violently undermine the independence and sisterhood she is determined to gain.

Opens January 21
Jockey, Mongrel Media
Clint Bentley | USA | 2021 | 94 mins.
Contemporary World Cinema, 2021 Toronto International Film Festival

Aging jockey Jackson Silva (Clifton Collins Jr.) is forced to come to terms with the limitations of his body, deteriorating after years of working through injuries, in order to train for the final championship of his career. As Jackson reconnects with fellow jockeys who have made similar sacrifices — physically and emotionally — to become elite athletes in their insular sport, a rookie rider arrives claiming to be his son.

Opens January 28
Scarborough, levelFilm
Shasha Nakhai, Rich Williamson | Canada | 2021 | 136 mins.
Discovery, 2021 Toronto International Film Festival

Adapted from the critically acclaimed novel by Catherine Hernandez, Scarborough is an unflinching portrait of three low-income families struggling to endure within a system that’s set them up for failure. It shows the love and perseverance communities can foster, lifting up families to overcome the obstacles placed in their way.


Rent on digital TIFF Bell Lightbox

Opens January 18
Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn, Mongrel Media
Radu Jude | Romania, Luxembourg, Croatia, Czech Republic | 2021 |106 mins.

A school teacher, finds her career and reputation under threat after a personal sex tape is leaked on the internet. Forced to meet the parents demanding her dismissal, she refuses to surrender to their pressure. Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn was selected as the Romanian entry for Best International Feature at the 94th Academy Awards

TIFF’s digital offerings will continue to be available for film enthusiasts across the country from the comfort of their homes via digital TIFF Bell Lightbox.

COVID-19 health and safety precautions continue at TIFF Bell Lightbox. Full details on health and safety protocols are available at tiff.net/covid-19.