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TIFF 2016: From La La Land to Snowden, all the films getting the biggest buzz

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The Toronto International Film Festival has survived and thrived for the past 40 years with one core mission: To provide all things cinematic to all people simultaneously, as long as the quality of each film can be justified by at least one programmer.

That means that every one of TIFF’s 16 programs has something exciting to offer. We try to suss out what that might be in each series, while trying to plumb below the obvious. Here are the films that are generating some Buzz in the 41st edition of the festival, with at least one selection from each program.

GALAS

SNOWDEN: With a penchant for stirring up controversy but never backing down, Oliver Stone has made a career of writing and/or directing tough-minded films with political agendas and attitude. This real-life drama stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt as the explosive whistleblower Edward Snowden. He is the American computer geek who exposed the excesses of the U.S. National Security Agency by leaking its classified documents, igniting a firestorm over government intrusion into the privacy of individual citizens.

LBJ: I defy anyone to claim that this was predictable — that Woody Harrelson would mature so gloriously as an actor into his 50s. So much so that Rob Reiner could cast him as U.S. president Lyndon Baines Johnson, the gruff Texan who took over from John F. Kennedy after he was assassinated in 1963. Jennifer Jason Leigh appears as Lady Bird Johnson.

A UNITED KINGDOM: In a contemporary world fraught with racial tension, British filmmaker Amma Asante (of Belle fame) tackles a fascinating true story from the past: the biracial marriage of a white British office worker (Rosamund Pike) and a black African prince (David Oyelowo) in the late 1940s. Their “forbidden” romance is set against a political upheaval stretching from Britain to South Africa.

SPECIAL PRESENTATIONS

THE BIRTH OF A NATION: Few titles arrive at TIFF with the intensity, significance and emotional charge of Nate Parker’s directorial debut. Celebrated at Sundance, this historical drama is based on the true tragic story of Nat Turner’s slave rebellion in Virginia in 1831. Writer-director Parker, who also plays Turner, cleverly reclaims the title of his film from D.W. Griffith’s racist manifesto, the 1915 feature that celebrated the founding of the Ku Klux Klan. Armie Hammer (featured in three different TIFF films) co-stars as Turner’s plantation “master”.

LA LA LAND: Whiplash director Damien Chazelle risks all with a modern musical that plants its roots both in classic Hollywood cinema and bebop jazz. Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone co-star as romantic partners who sing and dance while exploring a relationship that has its own unique challenges.

MANCHESTER BY THE SEA: American filmmaker Kenneth Lonergan showcases Casey Affleck in an intimate family drama, getting the programmer fired up over Affleck’s “career-defining performance.”

VOYAGE OF TIME: Life’s Journey: If you recall The Tree of Life (2011), you will already know that maverick American director Terrence Malick is fascinated by planetary and animal evolution. In his first ever doc, Malick literally tackles the history of creation, a project that was years in development.

NOCTURNAL ANIMALS: Fashion designer and filmmaker Tom Ford casts Amy Adams with Jake Gyllenhaal as her ex and Armie Hammer as her second husband, plunging them all into a swirl of real and fictional drama as a story-with-a-story holds Adams in thrall.

IT’S ONLY THE END OF THE WORLD: At 27, Quebec filmmaker Xavier Dolan already has a body of work that would astound even if it was spread over decades. His latest opus, a Canada/France co-production, is a deeply felt family drama starring Marion Cotillard, Vincent Cassel, Lea Seydoux, Nathalie Baye and Gaspard Ulliel.

MASTERS:

ANATOMY OF VIOLENCE: Toronto filmmaker Deepa Mehta is fearless. Here she returns again to her homeland to tell the profoundly disturbing, true-life story of what happened when five male passengers and the driver on a private Delhi bus gang-raped and murdered a woman while beating up her friend, throwing both into the street after their heinous act.

JULIETA: Spainish panache with a Canadian twist — Pedro Almodovar adapts three of famed Canadian author Alice Munro’s short stories, giving him fresh inspiration for a time-jumping story about a woman of mystery in Madrid.

PLATFORM:

JACKIE: While the Gala film LBJ tells the tragedy of the Kennedy assassination from the perspective of Johnson, this British-made film covers the same era through the eyes of the First Lady, Jackie Kennedy. Natalie Portman plays the title character, with Chilean Pablo Larrain directing.

IN CONVERSATION WITH …

Mark Wahlberg: Well past his early life as a punk and petty criminal, Wahlberg is now a solid citizen who operates as an action star and an accomplished dramatic actor while producing films and TV series. He combines his action-drama skills in Deepwater Horizon, a TIFF Gala. Expect him to talk openly about that film and his 22-year film career.

CONTEMPORARY WORLD CINEMA

PYROMANIAC: This new Norwegian thriller about an arsonist comes from the same director, Erik Skjoldbjaerg, who gave us the mesmerizing Insomnia in 1997. That film was remade into an equally effective English-language version by Christopher Nolan in 2002. So we are pumped for what Skjoldbjaerg has done this time (and maybe Nolan is too).

TIFF DOCS

THE TURNING POINT: Working with Fisher Stevens on this documentary, Leonardo DiCaprio literally is on a mission to raise worldwide awareness about climate change.

GIANTS OF AFRICA: Canadian filmmaker Hubert Davis profiles Raptors president general manager Masai Ujiri, delving into Ujiri’s efforts to bring basketball and character-building opportunities to the youth of African nations.

DISCOVERY

ARQ: Toronto filmmaker Tony Elliott casts Robbie Amell (of The Flash) as his protagonist in a dystopian sci-fi thriller.

PRIMETIME

BLACK MIRROR: TIFF presents two episodes from Charlie Brooker’s TV series, hailing the show as “a Twilight Zone for our technological age.” Gugu Mbatha-Raw and Bryce Dallas Howard headline.

TRANSPARENT:: Jeffrey Tambor stars in three episodes from season three, as Jill Soloway’s series explores the transgender world through family drama and sly comedy.

TIFF KIDS:

MY LIFE AS A COURGETTE: Swiss filmmaker Claude Barras reminds us that uplifting animation for kids can still deal with an extraordinary suite of dark, tough, real-life issues.

TIFF CINEMATHEQUE:

THE BATTLE OF ALGIERS: Italian director Gillo Pontecorvo dazzled and disturbed audiences in 1966 with his classic about the Algerian war of independence in the 1950s. It feels timely to revive this classic.

CITY TO CITY: LAGOS:

TAXI DRIVER: With a dash of Martin Scorsese, Nigerian director Oko Ashewo scored a hit in his homeland with a drama set on the mean streets of Lagos.

WAVELENGTHS:

THE DEATH OF LOUIS XIV: Spanish filmmaker Albert Serra chronicles the death throes of the Sun King in what the programmer calls a “painstakingly detailed and strangely transcendent” manner.

VANGUARD:

MESSAGE FROM THE KING: Belgian filmmaker Fabrice Du Welz brings his fourth feature to TIFF, a revenge thriller set in Los Angeles.

SHORT CUTS:

LATE NIGHT DRAMA (DRAME DE FIN DE SOIREE): Among many promising treasures, Patrice Laliberte’s latest short drama attracts attention because his 2015 film, Overpass, won the Short Cuts Award a year ago.

MIDNIGHT MADNESS

DOG EAT DOG: Teaming up Nicolas Cage and Willem Dafoe in a crime story sounds like madness for director Paul Schrader, especially with all the pill-popping and cocaine-snorting scenes. But sending them on a mission to kidnap the baby of a Cleveland mobster sounds like extreme insanity — which is why this wildly anarchistic film is part of Midnight Madness, TIFF’s fun fringe series.

The Toronto International Film Festival runs from Sept. 8-18. For tickets and info, visit tiff.net.

Twitter: @Bruce_Kirkland

BKirkland@postmedia.com

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