Bell Media Proudly Supports Wide Range of Exciting Canadian Films at TIFF

It’s a great day for Canadian creativity and innovation, as Bell Media is proud to support the biggest-buzz Canadian films chosen for the 2019 Toronto International Film Festival.

TIFF announced the full slate of Canadian features at today’s media conference in Toronto. Among the 26 Canadian films, titles supported by Bell Media include: American Woman; And The Birds Rained Down; Antigone; Blood Quantum; Castle In The Ground; Guest Of Honour; Kuessipan; The Rest Of Us; Tammy’s Always Dying; and White Lie.

Those films join previously announced marquee Bell Media titles for TIFF: the opening-night gala ONCE WERE BROTHERS: ROBBIE ROBERTSON AND THE BAND; DAVID FOSTER: OFF THE RECORD; and The Song Of Names.

The 44th Toronto International Film Festival runs Sept. 5–15.

Here’s a closer look at the groundbreaking Canadian films for TIFF that have been supported by Bell Media:

American Woman

https://www.tiff.net/events/american-woman-chellas

A political activist (Hong Chau) helps take care of a group of America’s most wanted fugitives — including a well-known, recently radicalized heiress — in this fictionalized reimagining of the Patty Hearst affair.

And The Birds Rained Down (Il Pleuvait Des Oiseaux)

https://www.tiff.net/events/and-the-birds-rained-down

Acclaimed director Louise Archambault’s elegaic and charming new film depicts three aging hermits in the Québec countryside whose defiant need to live independently is increasingly endangered by nature, old age, and infirmity.

 

Antigone

https://www.tiff.net/events/antigone

Critically acclaimed Québécois filmmaker Sophie Deraspe’s provocative and timely adaptation of the classic Greek tragedy of the same name reimagines the story of a woman’s quest for justice as a commentary on the immigrant experience in contemporary Montréal.

Blood Quantum

https://www.tiff.net/events/blood-quantum

Jeff Barnaby’s astutely titled second feature is equal parts horror and pointed cultural critique. Zombies are devouring the world, yet an isolated Mi’gmaq community is immune to the plague. Do they offer refuge to the denizens outside their reserve or not?

 

Castle In The Ground

https://www.tiff.net/events/castle-in-the-ground

Two lost souls — one kicking her habit, one developing his own — befriend each other and grapple with the hard truths of addiction, in Joey Klein’s exploration of the opioid crisis in Canada.

 

Guest Of Honour

https://www.tiff.net/events/guest-of-honour

A father (David Thewlis) and daughter (Laysla De Oliveira) attempt to work through their complicated relationship, secret histories, and personal demons, in Atom Egoyan’s latest exploration of unresolved personal trauma and its unintended consequences.

Kuessipan

https://www.tiff.net/events/kuessipan

Based on Naomi Fontaine’s acclaimed novel, two childhood friends from the same Québec Innu community begin to realize that they face very different futures, in Myriam Verreault’s bittersweet portrait of the ties that bind people, places, and possibilities.

The Rest Of Us

https://www.tiff.net/events/the-rest-of-us

A single-mother welcomes her ex-partner’s wife and daughter into her life, leading to a new, sometimes tense, family dynamic and an unlikely female friendship, in Aisling Chin-Yee’s humorous and heartbreaking debut.

 

Tammy’s Always Dying

https://www.tiff.net/events/tammys-always-dying

Actor-turned-director Amy Jo Johnson’s heart-wrenching second feature, starring Felicity Huffman and Anastasia Phillips, depicts a daughter’s attempt to care for her ornery, ailing mother.

 

White Lie

https://www.tiff.net/events/white-lie

Having become a campus celebrity after a (fictional) cancer diagnosis, a young woman (Kacey Rohl) struggles to maintain her fabrication in this fearless and emotionally affecting new feature by Calvin Thomas and Yonah Lewis (Amy George, The Oxbow Cure, Spice It Up).

 

ONCE WERE BROTHERS: ROBBIE ROBERTSON AND THE BAND

https://www.tiff.net/events/once-were-brothers-robbie-robertson-and-the-band

Directed by Daniel Roher (Ghosts of Our Forest) and executive produced by Martin Scorsese, Brian Grazer, and Ron Howard, the feature documentary follows Robertson from his early life in Toronto and on the Six Nations of the Grand River reserve, in Southern Ontario, to the creation of legendary roots-rock group The Band.

 

DAVID FOSTER: OFF THE RECORD

https://www.tiff.net/events/david-foster-off-the-record

A revealing and personal profile of GRAMMY® award–winning composer and producer David Foster, with interviews from the artists who know the music legend best, including Céline Dion, Barbra Streisand, Lionel Richie, Quincy Jones, and Michael Bublé.

 

The Song Of Names

https://www.tiff.net/events/the-song-of-names

Tim Roth and Clive Owen star in François Girard’s (Hochelaga, Land of Souls) latest sweeping historical drama, about a man searching for his childhood best friend — a Polish violin prodigy orphaned in the Holocaust — who vanished decades before on the night of his first public performance.