Films by Branagh, Moore, Reitman announced for TIFF

The Toronto International Film Festival on Wednesday revealed the missing pieces of its programming lineup for the event’s 32nd annual edition, which will showcase 349 films from 55 countries.

Newly announced features rounding out the red-carpet Gala Presentations at Roy Thomson Hall include: the U.S. thriller Cleaner, starring Samuel L. Jackson and Ed Harris; the U.K./Canada copro Closing the Ring, from veteran filmmaker Richard Attenborough; The Jane Austen Book Club, starring Kathy Baker; the mystery Sleuth from U.K. thesp Kenneth Branagh; and the Paul Schrader drama The Walker.

David Cronenberg’s buzzed-about thriller Eastern Promises, starring Viggo Mortensen and Naomi Watts, will screen as a Gala in the fest’s plum first Saturday (Sept. 8) night slot at 6:30 p.m., followed by Alain Corneau’s French thriller Le deuxième soufflé. Denys Arcand’s L’Age des ténèbres will make its North American premiere as a Gala on Wednesday, Sept. 12, while Paolo Barzman’s Emotional Arithmetic, a Canadian copro drama with a Holocaust theme, starring Christopher Plummer, Susan Sarandon, Gabriel Byrne and Roy Dupuis, closes the fest on Saturday, Sept. 15.

Titles by name filmmakers including Sidney Lumet, Michael Moore, Jason Reitman and Brian De Palma join a list of previously announced films screening in the Special Presentation section. De Palma’s Iraq war drama Redacted, with producers including Canadians Jennifer Weiss and Simone Urdl, will play alongside François Girard’s Silk, the Coen Brothers’ No Country for Old Men, and Paul Haggis’ In the Valley of Elah. The dates and times for Special Presentations have not been announced.

Filmmaker Wayne Wang returns to TIFF to screen the dramas A Thousand Years of Good Prayers and The Princess of Nebraska in the Masters program, which is comprised of 20 films from established directors.

Other highlights include the Mavericks presentations, in which guests share stories and discuss their next projects. Participating this year are former U.S. President Jimmy Carter — subject of the Jonathan Demme documentary Man from Plains — and wife Rosalynn Carter, as well as Bill Maher and Larry Charles, who are collaborating on a satire on religion.

Previously announced, Jeremy Podeswa’s Fugitive Pieces kicks off the festivities on Thursday, Sept. 6 at 8 p.m. Tickets for TIFF go on sale Sept. 5.