Today came as a bit of a surprise for TIFF fans, as the festival unveiled twelve selections for its brand new programme Platform. For years, the Toronto International Film Festival has put its emphasis on audiences, as the fest’s major awards were based on votes by audience members. This year, for their 40th anniversary, TIFF has changed gears, introducing a new programme that will be overseen by a three-member jury. And for its first year, TIFF has started things off with a bang: the jury will comprise of filmmakers Claire Denis, Jia Zhang-Ke, and Agnieszka Holland. Piers Handling, director and CEO of TIFF, describes the 12 filmmakers selected for Platform as “the next generation of masters whose personal vision will captivate audiences, industry members and media from around the world.” And to make things more interesting, at the end of the festival the jury will give a $25,000 prize to the winning film.

Based on that description, and looking at the selection, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that some of these names might fly over the heads of some people (but hey, the purpose of this programme is to help establish these directors as the new generation of major filmmakers). But some big films did find their way into Platform, with the biggest of all being Ben Wheatley’s High-Rise, which has a huge cast including Tom Hiddleston, Jeremy Irons and Elisabeth Moss. Other notable films include new works by Argentinian director Pablo Trapero (Carancho, White Elephant) and Canadian documentarian Alan Zweig (Vinyl). We’ll obviously be looking forward to Wheatley’s latest effort here, as he’s an indie filmmaker we’ve all been quite fond of ever since his debut Down Terrace, but we’re looking forward to seeing what new and/or underappreciated talent TIFF showcases with this new programme.

Read on below for more information on the twelve films selected for Platform. The Toronto International Film Festival will run from September 10th to 20th in Toronto, Canada. And be sure to come back to Way Too Indie over the next few weeks leading up to and during the fest, as we have plenty of coverage coming your way.

Bang Gang (A Modern Love Story)
Eva Husson, France (World Premiere)
Biarritz. Sixteen-year-old George, a beautiful high-school student, falls in love with Alex. To get his attention, she initiates a group game with Alex, Nikita, Laetitia and Gabriel during which they will discover, test, and push the limits of their sexuality. Through scandals, love and the breakdown of their value systems, each of them manages this intense period in radically different ways. Starring Daisy Broom, Fred Hotier, Lorenzo Lefebvre, Marilyn Lima, and Finnegan Oldfield.

The Clan (El Clan)
Pablo Trapero, Argentina/Spain (North American Premiere)
Within a typical family home in the traditional neighbourhood of San Isidro, a sinister clan makes its living off kidnapping and murder. Arquímedes, the patriarch, heads and plans the operations. Alejandro, his eldest son, is a star rugby player who gives into his father’s will and identifies possible candidates for kidnapping. To a greater or lesser extent, the members of the family are accomplices in this dreadful venture as they live off the benefits yielded by the large ransoms paid by the families of their victims. Based on the true story of the Puccio family, this film full of suspense and intrigue takes place in the context of the final years of the Argentine military dictatorship and incipient return to democracy. Starring Guillermo Francella and Peter Lanzani.

French Blood (Un Français)
Diastème, France (International Premiere)
This is the story of a Frenchman, born in 1965 on the outskirts of Paris. The story of a skinhead, who hates Arabs, Jews, blacks, communists and gays. An anger that will take 30 years to die out. A bastard, who will take 30 years to become someone else. And he will never forgive himself for it. Starring Alban Lenoir, Paul Hamy, Samuel Jouy and Patrick Pineau.

Full Contact
David Verbeek, Netherlands/Croatia (World Premiere)
A contemporary tale of a man who accidentally bombed a school through a remotely operated drone plane. Modern warfare keeps Ivan safe and disconnected from his prey. But after this incident, this disconnectedness starts to apply to everything in his life. He is unable to process his overwhelming feelings of guilt, but needs to open up to his new love Cindy. Only by facing his victims can he rediscover his humanity and find a new purpose in life. Starring Grégoire Colin, Lizzie Brocheré and Slimane Dazi.

High-Rise
Ben Wheatley, United Kingdom (World Premiere)
1975. Two miles west of London, Dr. Laing moves into his new apartment seeking soulless anonymity, only to find that the building’s residents have no intention of leaving him alone. Resigned to the complex social dynamics unfolding around him, Laing bites the bullet and becomes neighbourly. As he struggles to establish his position, Laing’s good manners and sanity disintegrate along with the building. The lights go out and the elevators fail but the party goes on. People are the problem. Booze is the currency. Sex is the panacea. Starring Tom Hiddleston, Jeremy Irons, Sienna Miller, Luke Evans and Elisabeth Moss.

HURT
Alan Zweig, Canada (World Premiere)
Steve Fonyo is a one-legged cancer survivor who completed a cross-Canada run raising $13 million in 1985. The next 30 years were straight downhill: petty theft, larceny and drug addiction. The run has nothing to do with the life of this one-time hero, and everything to do with it. Starring Steve Fonyo.

Land of Mine (Under Sandet / Unter dem Sand)
Martin Zandvliet, Denmark/Germany (World Premiere)
A story never told before. WWII has ended. A group of German POWs captured by the Danish army, boys rather than men, are forced into a new kind of service under the command of a brusque Danish Sergeant. Risking life and limbs, the boys discover that the war is far from over. Starring Roland Møller, Louis Hofmann, Joel Basman, Emil Buschow, Oskar Buschow and Mikkel Boe Følsgaard.

Looking for Grace
Sue Brooks, Australia (North American Premiere)
Grace, 16, runs away from home. Her parents, Dan and Denise, head off on the road across the Western Australian wheat belt with a retired detective, Norris, to try and get her back. But life unravels faster than they can put it back together. Grace, Dan and Denise learn that life is confusing and arbitrary, but wonderful. Starring Richard Roxburgh, Radha Mitchell, Odessa Young and Terry Norris.

Neon Bull (Boi Neon)
Gabriel Mascaro, Brazil/Uruguay/Netherlands (North American Premiere)
Iremar and his makeshift family travel through Northeast Brazil taking care of bulls at the Vaquejadas, a Brazilian rodeo. But the region’s booming clothing industry has stirred new ambitions and filled Iremar’s mind with dreams of pattern-cutting and exquisite fabrics. Starring Juliano Cazarré, Aline Santana, Carlos Pessoa and Maeve Jinkings.

The Promised Land (Hui Dao Bei Ai De Mei Yi Tian)
He Ping, China (World Premiere)
Ai Ling, growing up in a small town, loses her fiancé Jiang He in Beijing. After returning to her hometown with a broken heart, she has to face all the complications life and love have in store for her. Starring Jiajia Wang, Yi Zhang, and Zhiwen Wang.

Sky
Fabienne Berthaud, France/Germany (World Premiere)
Romy is on holiday in the USA with her French husband, but the journey quickly turns into a settling of old scores for this worn out couple. After a huge argument, Romy decides to break free. She cuts her ties to a stable and secure life that has become alienating and escapes to the unknown. Drifting through a noisy Las Vegas to the wondrous high desert, she goes on with her solitary journey, abandoning herself to her sole intuitions and making it up as she goes. Liberated, she will cross paths with a charismatic and solitary man, with whom she’ll share an inconceivable but pure love. Starring Diane Kruger, Norman Reedus, Gilles Lellouche, Lena Dunham and Q’orianka Kilcher.

The White Knights (Les Chevaliers Blancs)
Joachim Lafosse, France/Belgium (World Premiere)
Critically acclaimed Joachim Lafosse brings to the screen the Zoe’s Ark controversy which made headlines in 2007: a story about the limits of the right of interference. Jacques Arnault, head of Sud Secours NGO, is planning a high impact operation: he and his team are going to exfiltrate 300 orphans, victims of Chadian civil war and bring them to French adoption applicants. Françoise Dubois, a journalist, is invited to come along with them and handle the media coverage for this operation. Completely immersed in the brutal reality of a country at war, the NGO members start losing their convictions and are faced with the limits of humanitarian intervention. Starring Vincent Lindon, Valérie Donzelli, Reda Kateb, Louise Bourgoin and Rougalta Bintou Saleh.

No matter what your opinion is on Claire Denis‘ films (full disclosure: I’m not the biggest fan of her work myself), it’s impossible to deny her skills at making one hell of an image. The opening moments of Bastards merely continue to show how strong Denis, and her regular DP Agnès Godard, are at pulling people in. On a rainy night, a man (Laurent Grévill) is seen standing near an open window. Somewhere else, also at night but without any rain (one of many instances of screwing around with chronology in the film), a young woman (Lola Créton) is walking around the streets completely naked save for the high heels she’s wearing. The next scene, which shows paramedics covering up a body on the street, implies that the man in the first scene jumped to his death. How these two events link together is where Bastards starts.

The naked girl turns out to be the daughter of the man who killed himself. Marco (Vincent Lindon), the man’s brother-in-law, leaves his job and life on the seas as a captain to help deal with the situation. Marco’s sister (Julie Bataille) places the blame squarely on Edouard Laporte (Michel Subor), a wealthy financial figure who might have had a hand in the failure of the dead man’s business. Marco moves into an empty apartment below Laporte, presumably on some sort of mission for vengeance, and begins an affair with Laporte’s wife (Chiara Mastroianni). As Marco’s affair intensifies, and he investigates further into the relationship between Laporte and his brother-in-law, he starts discovering some dark and disturbing information.

Questions will run through the minds of anyone watching Bastards. Does Marco have real feelings for Laporte’s spouse, or is it just part of his plan? What exactly was the business relationship between Laporte and Marco’s family? What exactly happened to Marco’s niece? Bastards exists in a world where everything seems to be undefined or barely explained, leaving viewers to fill in the majority of the blanks. My assumption that Mastroianni is Laporte’s wife is only because they live together and have a child. It could be a long term relationship, or she could be a mistress of Laporte for all I know. Knowledge is hard to really obtain in Bastards, but it’s seemingly for the best. Every time something is suggested or divulged it implies a darker, more hideous truth barely lying underneath.

That feeling of dread and darkness permeates throughout, and Denis’ ability to evoke these emotions are masterful at times. Shortly after Marco helps Laporte’s son with his broken bicycle, there’s a random cutaway while Marco lies in bed: A distraught Mastroianni, walking around a forest with police until she comes upon her son’s bike. Could it be a flash forward, a hint of what’s to come, or just a fleeting thought in Marco’s mind? The scene is never touched upon again, but it certainly helps set a mood of pure discomfort. Plenty of moments in Bastards play out like this. An innocuous moment, like Laporte sitting with his son in a car, is shot by Denis in a way that suggests something far worse is going on. The fact that almost all of these scenes are never mentioned again only makes their implications far more disturbing.

As much as I enjoy Denis’ style in Bastards, it doesn’t work entirely. A subplot involving Créton and two other characters (Denis regulars Grégoire Colin and Florence Loiret Caille) gets obscure to the point of frustration. While other people thoroughly enjoy Denis’ elliptical approach, I’ve found that it can sometimes muddle an apparently simple piece of narrative information. The film’s conclusion also feels abrupt to the point of sucking out all of the dramatic weight from it. A major decision by one character is done in such a rushed, hasty manner that it loses much of its impact. That hastiness is thankfully made up for with the film’s final shocking scene (which, in a touch of some pitch black humour, is set to Tindersticks singing “Put your love in me”). Unlike the other Denis films I’ve seen, my issues with the narrative were thankfully much smaller than usual. On mood and atmosphere alone, Bastards is highly impressive and one of Denis’ strongest works.

Making difficult decisions simply goes hand-in-hand with film festivals, and Cannes is certainly no exception. Deciding upon which film to see when inevitably two play at the same time is just the start. Because there are approximately 4,500 press in attendance, most films require you to wait in line for about an hour a before the film is scheduled to begin. And that still does not guarantee access, especially for films that are in high demand. The real difficult decisions come when you must decide upon waiting in line to better your chances for a spot, or to eat a proper meal. However, in Cannes there is one simple rule that everyone abides by; films always receive the highest of priorities.

Yachts that surround Cannes

Sarah Prefers To Run

As you probably guessed, Sarah Prefers To Run is about a 20-year-old woman who cares little about anything other than running. Her talent in the sport lands her an opportunity to be a part of a university program in Montreal. The only problem is that Sarah does not have much money saved up to cover the costs of moving and living expenses for there. In addition, she has no support from her mother because of a not so great relationship between the two. Her mother has told her before that running will not put money on the table for her in the future, but there is a hint of something else causing their riff.

But Sarah is unwilling to let money issues prevent her from achieving her dreams as a runner. So she visits her friend Antoine, I’ll give you one guess how she got there, to ask if he will be a roommate of hers. He agrees and the two share an apartment together in Montreal. Because Sarah has no time for a job with school and running taking up most of her time, she is not even able to half of the rent. So Antoine comes up with an idea that only a twenty-year-old would think is a good solution; to get married so they can collect money from the government. At first Sarah is very reluctant about Antoine’s plan as she only sees him as a friend not a lover. But with no other options in sight, she agrees on the notion it is purely for financial reasons. The shot of her agreeing with the arrangement is shown as a blurry reflection from a window that perfectly fits the decision at hand.

Sarah’s shyness, haste for the government, and estranged relationship with her mother may all stem from a detail that the director Chloé Robichaud only faintly chooses to expose, much like the personality of the main character herself. At one point her character is asked if she believes in destiny to which she replies, “No.” Perhaps Sarah prefers to make her own destiny by controlling the things that she can. One thing is for sure, Sarah does prefer to run.

RATING: 8.1

The Bastards

Claire Denis’ latest film The Bastards serves up a heavy dose of drama in the form of sexual exploitation that at times is gruesome enough to make you cringe. You will certainly never look at corn on the cob in the same way. Denis hits all the right notes from a technical standpoint; fantastic camera work, solid cast, and a good old-fashion revenge story. But despite all of that, in the end The Bastards does not fulfill. The largest offender for the unsatisfying results is a story structure that is far more complicated than it really needs to be. There is no happy ending when all the characters are bastards.

One of the better sequences found in the film is at the very beginning when jump-cut footage of a woman wearing nothing but high heels walks down the street in complete shock. Police lights fill the streets of Paris at night at the site of an apparent suicide. It is not until much later that the film reveals who it was. The woman has obvious signs of abuse which results in the family to investigate and seek revenge on everyone involved.

RATING: 6.4

We Are What We Are

The much buzzed about film from Sundance named We Are What We Are played tonight here in Cannes as part of the Directors Fortnight section. This is a remake of the 2010 Mexican horror film that shares the same name about a creepy family who maintains disturbing family traditions. Preparation of one such tradition requires the family to fast for a few days leading up to this event. The youngest family member is starving and his two older sisters remind him that no food can be consumed. And they take this very seriously.People from the town they live in seem to be disappearing – which also might have something to do with the tradition.

We Are What We Are paces itself all the way until the very end, but even the climax is muted. The little amount of suspense that the film does generate eventually dissolves and is unrewarding. Almost all of the characters are dumber than they should be, examples; a doctor ends up committing one of horrors most offending rules, a young cop who is completely unconvincing, and one of the sisters that wants to make an escape but never tries very hard to do so. In the screening I attended, the film received more laughs than thrills and the only gasps were because of some of the gore that was shown on screen. Maybe that was what the film was going for, but even if that is the case it still did not satisfy.

RATING: 5.5