Musician Neil Young, director Francis Ford Coppola, actors Christopher Plummer and Tilda Swinton and Sony Pictures Classics chiefs Michael Barker and Tom Bernard are among the newly-named "mavericks" who will take part in programs at the Toronto International Film Festival, TIFF organizers announced on Tuesday.
In another of the festival's weekly release of programming additions, the festival announced nine programs in its high-profile Mavericks series, including conversations with Coppola, Deepak Mehta and Salman Rushdie, Swinton and Plummer.
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In addition, Young (left) and Jonathan Demme will appear in conversation after a screening of Demme's new concert film on Young, "Neil Young Life"; Barker and Bernard will speak on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of Sony Classics, in a conversation moderated by Demme; the world premiere of the documentary "The Island President" will be followed by a live conversation with director Jon Shenk and the president of the Maldives, Mohamed Nasheed; legendary documentary filmmaker Albert Maysles will appear with his production team following a screening of his Paul McCartney doc "The Love We Make"; and two of the directors of "The good, the bad and the politician," a three-part documentary about the January uprising in Egypt, will speak about their film and their country.
In other TIFF announcements, 13 films have joined the Masters program, which is made up of "compelling cinematic works from influential filmmakers around the globe." The films include Chantal Akerman's "Almayer's Folly" ("La Folie Almayer"), Aki Kaurismaki's "Le Havre," the Dardenne brothers' "The Kid With a Bike," Nuri Bilge Ceylan's "Once Upon a Time in Anatolia," Gus Van Sant's "Restless" and Bela Tarr's "The Turin Horse."
More than two dozen films have been added to the Discovery program, with more than 25 different countries represented in a slate that includes Pablo Giorgelli's Camera D'Or winner "Las Acacias" and Ryan O'Nan's New York-based music feature "The Brooklyn Brothers Beat the Best."
The festival added five events to its lineup of free programming: screenings of Jafar Panahi's and Mojtaba Mirtahmasb's "This Is Not a Film," Mark Cousins' 15-hour documentary "The Story of Film: An Odyssey" and the winner of the Cadillac's People's Choice Award winner; a "City to City" panel with filmmakers from this year's featured city, Buenos Aires; and a special discussion to accompany the exhibition of "Memories of Idaho," an art installation from Gus Van Sant and James Franco.
TIFF also announced a partial list of guests expected to attend the festival, including filmmakers Alexander Payne, Bennett Miller, Sarah Polley, Luc Besson, Oren Moverman and Werner Herzog, and actors George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Clive Owen, Glenn Close, Jon Hamm, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Viggo Mortensen and Woody Harrelson.
Finally, the festival release a fact sheet on the festival: 258 features and 68 shorts selected from 3,461 submissions; 61 first features, 65 countries represented, and a total running time of 28,526 minutes of film.
