South Korea’s Lee Chang-dong is a filmmaker and a novelist.
Taking advantage of the glitz of the opening week at the Cannes Film Festival – when all eyes, or at least all of the film world’s eyes, are on global cinema and international auteurs – the Toronto International Film Festival on Thursday unveiled the jury members for its 2018 Platform program.
The fourth edition of the competitive Platform slate, a sort of film festival within a film festival, will be judged this September in Toronto by directors Lee Chang-dong, Bela Tarr and Margarethe von Trotta – three visionaries whose filmographies are as renowned as they are dissimilar from one another.
Hungarian director Tarr, whose films The Man from London and Szenvedely previously played Cannes, is known for both his fascination with existentialism and his mastery of the long take. South Korea’s Lee is a filmmaker and a novelist, whose latest feature, Burning, is set to make its world premiere in Cannes’ competition in a few days. Von Trotta is an icon of German cinema, whose personal cinematic essay Searching for Ingmar Bergman will also debut on the Croisette this week.
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Margarethe von Trotta is an icon of German cinema.
The three-member jury will view up to a dozen features that TIFF describes as possessing “high artistic merit that also demonstrate a strong directorial vision,” with the winning film earning $25,000. Previous Platform winners include the 2015 Canadian documentary Hurt, the 2016 American biopic Jackie starring Natalie Portman, and last year’s Australian drama Sweet Country, which last month opened locally at TIFF’s Bell Lightbox theatre.
Hungarian director Bela Tarr is known for both his fascination with existentialism and his mastery of the long take.
This year’s Platform slate will be announced Aug. 7.
“We are privileged to have a Platform jury that so perfectly embodies the program’s essence,” said Piers Handling, director and CEO of TIFF, who plans to leave the organization after this fall’s festival. “Our 2018 jurors’ bold and daringly uncompromising artistic visions have not only influenced, but helped mould the next generation of filmmakers. The wealth of experience, passion, and knowledge that they will bring to this year’s edition will be priceless.”
The 2018 edition of the Toronto International Film Festival runs Sept. 6 to 16.