Kill Me Three Times, Cut Snake, Charlie’s Country and a French-Australian short will screen at the Toronto International Film Festival next month.
That boosts Australia’s representation at the festival to five as Mark Hartley’s Electric Boogaloo: The Wild, Untold Story of Cannon Films will feature in the Midnight Madness section.
The Contemporary World Cinema program will be the launch pad for Kriv Stenders’ Kill Me Three Times (world premiere), Tony Ayres’ Cut Snake (international premiere) and Rolf de Heer’s Charlie’s Country (North American premiere).
Writer/director Sotiris Dounoukos’ A Single Body will have its international premiere in the inaugural Short Cuts International section. The drama revolves around David and Wani, best friends and skilled abattoir workers who are saving to open their own butchery and whose bond is tested by the arrival of a new worker. The producers are François-Pierre Clavel and Alexandre Perrier.
Stenders told IF, “The whole KM3X team and I are thrilled at finally finding a berth at TIFF. It's the perfect venue and stage for what will be our world premiere and the first time I've attended the festival. So I am a very happy little director."
Ayres said, “I'm thrilled that Cut Snake has been invited to have its international premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival. It is a great accolade for the cast and crew and everyone who worked on the film and follows on from the amazing response we had at our MIFF premiere last Saturday night.“
Kill Me Three Times stars Simon Pegg as a mercurial assassin who gets mixed up in murder, mayhem, blackmail and revenge. The ensemble cast consists of Sullivan Stapleton, Alice Braga, Teresa Palmer, Callan Mulvey, Luke Hemsworth and Bryan Brown. The dark comedic thriller was written by James McFarland and produced by Tania Chambers, Laurence Malkin and Share Stallings.
Cut Snake, Ayres’ third feature, stars Sullivan Stapleton, Jessica de Gouw and Alex Russell in the chronicle of a man who tries to leave his secret prison past behind with his new fiancée, but discovers that his past is a door that is never closed when his newly released cell mate turns up. The true-crime thriller was written by Blake Ayshford and produced by Michael Mahon and Trevor Blainey.
EOne will release both films in Australia in early 2015. Umbrella, the distributor of Electric Boogaloo: The Wild, Untold Story of Cannon Films, has not set a release date yet.
Screen Australia’s head of marketing Kathleen Drumm said, “Selection for what is one of the world’s most influential film festivals is an accolade for the incredible creative talent behind these new movies. We are thrilled that five Australian films have been invited to Toronto, which serves as a major platform into the North American marketplace. It is great to see established filmmakers being recognised along with emerging talent.”
Among more than 300 selections, the fest will feature the world premieres of Tom McCarthy’s The Cobbler, which stars Adam Sandler as a shoe repairman who begins seeing the world in a new way when he realises he can literally step into the shoes of customers; Gina Prince-Bythewood’s Beyond the Lights, which looks at the relationship between a young musician and a young cop; Johnnie To’s Hong Kong crime thriller Don’t Go Breaking My Heart 2 ; Maggie, a zombie movie starring Arnold Schwarzenegger and Abigail Breslin; and Kristen Wiig's borderline-personality dramedy Welcome to Me, which co-stars Tim Robbins.
Also Philip Martin’s The Forger, an art-heist movie starring John Travolta and Christopher Walken, and Boychoir, Francois Girard’s drama about the relationship between a musical prodigy and his tough-minded teacher, starring Dustin Hoffman.
The Toronto International Film Festival will take place September 4-14.
http://tiff.net/thefestival