TORONTO -- Canadian filmmaker Sarah Polley's movie about women dealing with the aftermath of sexual assaults in a religious colony will screen at the Toronto International Film Festival.
Polley's take on Miriam Toews' "Women Talking," which was inspired by real-life case of rapes committed in a Mennonite community in Bolivia, is among the 45 special presentations announced by the festival Thursday morning.
But despite being directed by Polley and based on a Canadian novel, the film will get its world premiere south of the border, likely at Telluride, the California film festival that keeps its lineup secret until it begins on Sept. 2.
After weeks of announcing one film at a time ahead of the festival on Sept. 8, TIFF also released a list of 18 galas, which include world premieres of Tyler Perry's "A Jazzman's Blues" and the Canadian-set thriller "Alice, Darling," which stars Anna Kendrick.
TIFF is presenting this year's festival as a return to form after two years of pandemic-altered programming.
"Cinema is alive. Red carpets are back. And the best audience in the world awaits them in Toronto," TIFF CEO Cameron Bailey said in a statement announcing the lineup.
Hubert Davis's documentary "Black Ice," which traces the journey of Black hockey players from The Colored Hockey League of the Maritimes in the 1800s to their role in the present-day NHL, is also among the gala presentations.
Davis's 2005 short documentary "Hardwood" was nominated for an Academy Award.
"The Wonder," a British/Irish co-production based on the Giller-shortlisted novel by Irish-Canadian writer Emma Donoghue, will have its Canadian premiere at TIFF.
The 19th-century set story follows a nurse sent to observe a young girl who claims to have survived without food for months.
"The Whale," a Darren Aronofsky film starring American-Canadian actor Brendan Fraser who plays a 600-pound man struggling to reconnect with his daughter, will screen in North America for the first time in Toronto.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 28, 2022.
