TORONTO—Movies from Western Canada and first-time filmmakers will take a chunk of the spotlight as the Canadian lineup unfolds at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival.
Programmers say those are two of the big trends for the homegrown slate of the festival, which runs Sept. 7 to 17.
“We have ... I think six features and/or feature-length documentaries from out West, which is a very high number,” said Steve Gravestock, Canadian and international programmer for TIFF.
“There’s a great nucleus of filmmaking talent out West but we don’t always get to show that many films from there, for various reasons.... A lot of them (are) first or second features from out West.”
Among those debut features from Western Canada is “Never Steady, Never Still” by writer-director Kathleen Hepburn. Set on the shores of Stuart Lake, B.C., it stars Shirley Henderson as a mother with advanced Parkinson’s disease, Theodore Pellerin as her son, and Nicholas Campbell as her husband.
“A really beautiful drama, very touching, very powerful,” said Gravestock. “One of the strongest films we saw.”
