First 26 films and new City to City Program

Two press releases were posted this morning:

The Toronto International Film Festival Brings Home The Best Of The Festival Circuit
Announcing the first 26 titles, all of which will be having their North American premieres at TIFF. Filmmakers of note include: Hong Sang-soo, Corneliu Porumboiu, Elia Suleiman, Manoel de Oliveira, Alain Resnais, Hirokazu Kore-eda, Tsai Ming-liang, Raya Martin, and Pen-Ek Ratanaruang.

New City To City Programme To Explore Urban Experience Through Screenings And Debate

The Toronto International Film Festival is pleased to announce the launch of City to City, a new annual Festival programme that will explore the evolving urban experience while presenting the best films from and about a selected city. City to City's inaugural spotlight lands on Tel Aviv. The programme will also include a public forum that will bring leading filmmakers and thinkers from Tel Aviv and Toronto into debate. Films selected for this programme will be announced later this summer.

"Cities are, almost by definition, cinematic," says Cameron Bailey, Festival Co-Director. "Films about cities show us what cities have been and what they can become. They show us how to live as urban citizens while also reflecting our fantasies and fears. Last year, the world's urban population hit 50 percent of the planet. By 2025, two-thirds of us will lead urban lives. We need to take a moment to think about what it means to live in these large and growing communities, with increasingly diverse and multicultural populations, and to consider how a city's identity is perpetually in flux. The City to City programme will screen great films set in great cities, allowing us to discover foreign urban environments while also enabling us to think more about our own."