Taika Waititi’s Next Goal Wins will have its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival this September.Hilary Bronwyn Gayle/Courtesy of Searchlight Pictures
A favourite son of the Toronto International Film Festival is coming home this September. On Wednesday, festival organizers announced this year’s first official selection for TIFF’s 48th annual edition: the world premiere of Taika Waititi’s Next Goal Wins.
The soccer comedy, starring Michael Fassbender, Will Arnett and Elisabeth Moss, marks Waititi’s return to TIFF after his satire Jojo Rabbit premiered at the festival in 2019, winning the coveted People’s Choice Award. Five years before that, the New Zealand filmmaker’s 2014 vampire comedy, What We Do in the Shadows, made its Canadian premiere at TIFF, charming the festival’s Midnight Madness audience.
TIFF 2019: Director Taika Waititi’s Jojo Rabbit wins People’s Choice Award
“We’re thrilled to welcome Taika back to the festival and share his audacious take on the most popular sport in the world,” Cameron Bailey, TIFF’s chief executive, said in a statement. “Next Goal Wins is perfect for TIFF fans of the beautiful game looking for their football fix until the World Cup arrives.”
The new film, which is inspired by the true story of a Dutch-American coach hired to turn around the luck of the American Samoa soccer team, will premiere in TIFF after enduring an unusually lengthy production process. Originally shot in November, 2019, and wrapping in 2020, the comedy later reshot material with Canadian actor Arnett, who was hired to replace Armie Hammer in the role of a football executive.
In 2021, a woman accused Hammer of sexually assaulting her in 2017, prompting the Los Angeles Police Department to open an investigation. Last month, Tiffiny Blacknell, a spokesperson for the L.A. district attorney’s office said that there was “insufficient evidence to charge Mr. Hammer with a crime.”
Next Goal Wins is scheduled by distributor Searchlight Pictures to open theatrically this fall, unlike the first film that TIFF announced for its 2022 festival this time last year: Netflix’s Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, one of many titles that came courtesy of streamers.
Last fall’s festival marked Bailey’s first as the organization’s solo leader – and the first fully in-person TIFF since the start of the pandemic – with highlights including Glass Onion, Steven Spielberg’s The Fabelmans, Darren Aronofsky’s The Whale and Sarah Polley’s Women Talking.
“I’m not good at milestone reflections, but I do feel a real sense of satisfaction in terms of having worked with everyone here to deliver a festival that was successful for filmmakers, audiences and Toronto,” Bailey told The Globe this past fall. “The city had a deeper, longer shutdown than many other places with a big festival, so it was important for us to stake our place on the map again.”
TIFF plans ‘rejuvenation’ of Bell Lightbox headquarters, inside and out
This year’s edition of TIFF, running Sept. 7 through 17, will again be fully in-person, with screenings at the Bell Lightbox, Roy Thomson Hall, the Princess of Wales Theatre, the Scotiabank Cineplex, the Royal Alexandra Theatre and, for the first time, the Glenn Gould Studio at the Canadian Broadcast Centre.
TIFF’s gala and special presentation programs will be announced July 19, with the full schedule released in August.
Barry Hertz