Toronto International Film Festival CEO Piers Handling, left, and artistic director Cameron Bailey take the stage to announce this year's movie line-up for TIFF at a press conference in Toronto on Tuesday, July 23, 2013. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Michelle Siu
July 23, 2013 - 8:03 AM
TORONTO - A dramatic thriller about controversial WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange will open this year's Toronto International Film Festival.
British actor Benedict Cumberbatch stars as the infamous Australian in "The Fifth Estate," the Bill Condon-directed film that will kick off the star-studded Toronto fest on Sept. 5.
Cumberbatch is also among the stars of director Steve McQueen's "12 Years a Slave," which tells the true story of a free black man who was kidnapped and sold into slavery in 1841 and features turns from Chiwetel Ejiofor, Michael Fassbender, Paul Dano and Paul Giamatti.
New films from directors Atom Egoyan, Alfonso Cuaron and Jason Reitman were also among the first batch of programming for this year's festival announced at a morning press conference.
Cuaron will bring his thriller "Gravity," which stars Sandra Bullock as a brainy medical engineer who embarks on her first shuttle mission with help from an astronaut played by George Clooney, while Reitman's "Labor Day" casts Kate Winslet, Josh Brolin and Tobey Maguire in a tale about a 13-year-old and his isolated mother unwittingly taking an escaped convict into their home.
The festival, which runs Sept. 5-15, will also mark the world premiere of celebrated Quebec filmmaker Denis Villeneuve's "Prisoners," which stars Hugh Jackman as a father pursuing his missing six-year-old daughter with help from a detective portrayed by Jake Gyllenhaal.
Egoyan, meanwhile, will debut "Devil's Knot," based on the true story of three teens dubiously convicted of killing three children in a small Arkansas town and starring Reese Witherspoon, Colin Firth and Kevin Durand.
Other potential highlights of the packed lineup include: Montreal director Jean-Marc Vallee's "Dallas Buyers Club," a fact-based drama about an HIV-afflicted Texas electrician starring Matthew McConaughey, Jennifer Garner and Jared Leto; "Third Person" from London, Ont.-born director Paul Haggis, which follows three couples in three cities and stars Liam Neeson, Mila Kunis and James Franco; and "You Are Here," the feature-film debut of "Mad Men" creator Matthew Weiner that stars Owen Wilson and Zach Galifianakis as childhood friends who struggle to handle a large inheritance.
The festival will also feature the directorial debuts of several well known-actors, including Joseph Gordon-Levitt's "Don Jon," Keanu Reeves' "Man of Tai Chi" and Jason Bateman's "Bad Words."
News from © The Canadian Press, 2013