TIFF 2023: Emily Blunt, Kate Winslet and Seth Rogen movies lead lineup, but Hollywood strikes throw wrench in red-carpet plans

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Films starring Emily Blunt, Jamie Foxx, Kate Winslet, Seth Rogen, Scarlett Johansson, Paul Giamatti and Al Pacino are heading to this year’s Toronto International Film Festival. But whether those stars will be walking the red carpets is an entirely separate drama that is more intense than any movie premiering in the city.

On Monday, festival organizers revealed 60 films in their gala and special presentations programs set to screen at TIFF’s 48th annual festival, which runs Sept. 7-17. Highlights include the medical thriller Pain Hustlers starring Blunt, the legal drama The Burial with Foxx, the biographical drama Lee with Winslet, the finance-world comedy Dumb Money starring Rogen, the family drama North Star with Johansson, the Giamatti-led comedy The Holdovers and the hitman drama Knox Goes Away starring Pacino.

But the announcement of TIFF’s splashiest programming block, originally scheduled to be revealed last week, arrives in the thick of the largest labour unrest modern Hollywood has ever seen. With members of the Writers Guild of America (WGA) and the Screen Actors Guild and American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) on strike – and union rules prohibiting actors from engaging in promotional work, including festival and media appearances – this year’s TIFF may be missing the high-wattage celebrities organizers have increasingly relied upon to build buzz and drive ticket sales.

“We got so used to dealing with the crisis of the pandemic that we were really itching for another one,” Cameron Bailey, TIFF’s chief executive officer, said with a laugh in an interview. “But we’re very happy with the lineup – it’s a great mix of big films from the major distributors and streamers in the U.S., but also a lot of independent films that are coming here without distribution that have major talent.”

Those independent titles – including the dark drama Memory starring Jessica Chastain, the comedy Ezra with Robert De Niro and the Holocaust drama One Life starring Anthony Hopkins – could help bulk up TIFF’s celebrity quotient. That is because SAG-AFTRA is currently issuing interim waivers to independent productions – films financed by producers who are not part of the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP), the group of studios and streamers that is at odds with the unions – which would allow actors to attend festivals to promote those titles.

Still, the situation remains extremely fluid, and there is the question of public-relations optics for performers who, even if they receive SAG-AFTRA’s blessing to keep working, might choose to stand in solidarity with striking colleagues and decline festival invitations.

Then there is the issue of whether studios belonging to the AMPTP might pull their movies from the fall festival circuit entirely if they lack the stars available to promote them. Last week, MGM and Amazon Studios bumped their Zendaya-starring tennis drama Challengers from its September release date, and in doing so quashed the movie’s previously announced slot as the Venice Film Festival’s opening-night selection.

“We’re meeting every day to work out the details and nuances. But the films that we invited are coming,” Bailey said. “The first thing we did was check in with the owners of the films, and they’ve all confirmed. Not a single film has dropped out because of the labour action.”

Bailey emphasizes that 70 per cent of TIFF’s 2023 lineup is made of international productions not subject to SAG-AFTRA’s strike, including Jonathan Glazer’s Holocaust drama The Zone of Interest and Justine Triet’s thriller Anatomy of a Fall, both of which won over audiences at this past spring’s Cannes Film Festival.

There are also a large number of films in this year’s slate from directors who are big enough names on their own to draw crowds – including Viggo Mortensen (The Dead Don’t Hurt), Chris Pine (Poolman), Ethan Hawke (Wildcat), Anna Kendrick (Woman of the Hour), Michael Keaton (Knox Goes Away) and Kristin Scott Thomas (North Star) – and who would be able to attend TIFF thanks to the Directors Guild of America having reached a new three-year agreement with the AMPTP last month.

Add in a number of high-profile music documentaries– including In Restless Dreams: The Music of Paul Simon and Hate to Love: Nickelback – and the festival’s star factor could be surprisingly strong.

“Our stakeholders love not just the films but the excitement of people who come to town – we get that and we embrace it,” Bailey said, noting that the festival still aims to program upward of 225 films this year, as originally planned. “If the strike does continue, there will still be plenty to get excited about.”

Even if the strike were to end this week, though, countless wrenches have already been thrown into the grinding TIFF machinery – and only one year after it left behind the pandemic-era hybrid mode and got back to full-scale, in-person business.

“The job here has been to turn a crisis into a challenge into just the work of this week,” Bailey said. “We know we have great movies. The challenge is who can attend, but we’re tackling that on a film-to-film, carpet-by-carpet basis.”

Setting aside the strike, things have been busier inside TIFF’s Lightbox headquarters than usual. One of the top priorities after 2022′s edition has been improving the festival’s online ticketing system, which last year widely frustrated both members of the public and industry.

“We’ve made the process much less complicated by reducing the number of membership levels and ticketing types that exist in every venue,” said Bailey, noting that TIFF previously had north of 60 different ticket options in some screenings.

Meanwhile, the Lightbox is set to unveil an “elegant reimagining” of its third-floor space by September. Overseen by the Toronto-based DesignAgency, the renovation involves the installation of a large new public-facing digital screen featuring commissioned work by Canadian artists, new seating outside Cinemas 4 and 5 to encourage lounging and a new cafe-bar space.

TIFF will continue to unveil its 2023 festival programming over the summer – including the opening-night selection, set to be revealed July 27 – with the full schedule announced toward the middle of August.