Toronto film festival to offer $25K prize to international filmmakers

TORONTO – Foreign-language films are often overshadowed at the star-studded Toronto International Film Festival, but a new competitive program will try rectify that, says festival boss Piers Handling.

The long-running film showcase is setting up a new sidebar called Platform, which will highlight high-quality international cinema and give the next generation of filmmakers a chance to increase their global profile.

A three-person international jury will award a $25,000 prize to the best of the bunch.

“Platform is a real serious attempt on our part to elevate some of the most important international auteurs, people who are probably in mid-career — who made two, three films, are well-known perhaps amongst the festival circuit in Europe, Latin America, Asia — but haven’t quite arrived in North America in the same way,” Handling said Thursday when reached by phone at the Cannes Film Festival.

The juried program will be comprised of up to 12 films by international filmmakers.

That means the program will likely focus on foreign-language films, said Handling. If any English-language features make the cut they’d likely be drawn from small independent cinema rather than the Oscar-baiting fare of TIFF’s higher-profile gala and special presentations sections, he said.

The addition is part of a bid to refresh the TIFF lineup as it marks its 40th anniversary this September.

Last month, organizers announced that a new TV program called Primetime will feature international television content. The lineup will include public screenings and Q&A sessions with show creators.

Handling said he and his team of festival programmers will spend much of the coming months on the hunt for potential festival breakouts.

“We’ve got the next two months to really shape this program. We’re going to be doing a lot of travelling … right after Cannes to see the new films, the films that are not here that were not ready for Cannes, films that are ready for us in the fall,” he said.

He had no predictions for what could be featured in the Platform section.

“At this stage in the game we haven’t invited one film into the program. We’ll see what’s out there and I think we’ll probably announce this program fairly late. It won’t happen until late July or early August.”

The 40th Toronto International Film Festival runs Sept. 10 to Sept. 20.