CFC Celebrates the World Premiere of BEANS and Additional Alumni Talent at TIFF 2020

Twenty-six alumni attached to 13 projects screening at festival

Toronto, August 27, 2020 – The Canadian Film Centre (CFC) is proud to share that BEANS, the 25^th feature to be developed and financed for production with the support of CFC Features, will see its world premiere in the Discovery programme at the 45^th edition of the Toronto International Film Festival, taking place from September 10 to 19, 2020.

Based on true events, director Tracey Deer’s debut feature, co-written by executive producer and CFC alumna Meredith Vuchnich, chronicles the 78-day standoff between two Mohawk communities and government forces in 1990 in Quebec. BEANS was one of two projects that CFC Features, in partnership with Bell Media’s Crave, selected for development in 2018 in consultation with Women in View, to recruit promising projects by female directors.

Additionally, 24 CFC alumni are involved in 12 shorts and/or features in Official Selection at TIFF 2020, spanning a variety of TIFF programs, from Short Cuts to Galas; Primetime to Midnight Madness; Special Presentations to Discovery and TIFF Docs:

GALA PRESENTATIONS

• Eli Goree stars as Cassius Clay in One Night in Miami, Regina King’s feature directorial debut, which portrays a fictionalized account of a 1964 meeting between Malcolm X, Muhammad Ali, Sam Cooke and Jim Brown.

SPECIAL PRESENTATIONS

• Daniel Bekerman is a producer on Falling, the feature directorial debut from Viggo Mortensen, in which he stars as a gay man on a patience-testing mission to care for his ailing, solitary and homophobic father.

TIFF DOCS

• Katie Chipperfield edited Inconvenient Indian, Michelle Latimer’s affecting adaptation of Thomas King’s award-winning book, which explores the cultural colonization of Indigenous Peoples in North America.
• The long-awaited follow-up to The Corporation, The New Corporation: The Unfortunately Necessary Sequel, exposes how companies are desperately rebranding as socially responsible and how that threatens democratic freedoms, and counts Trish Dolman as a producer and Charles Officer as narrator.
• In No Ordinary Man, co-director/writer Aisling Chin-Yee explores the legacy of Billy Tipton, a 20th-century American jazz musician and trans icon.

PRIMETIME

• Trickster, a supernatural thriller that follows an Indigenous teen struggling to support his dysfunctional family as myth, magic, and monsters slowly infiltrate his life, features substantial alumni presence: writer/executive producer Tony Elliott, executive producer Jennifer Kawaja, producer Matt Code, co-producer Andrew Nicholas McCann Smith, composer Todor Kobakov, editors Kye Meechan and Katie Chipperfield and actor Joel Thomas Hynes.

PLANET AFRICA 25

• Director/co-writer Charles Officer’s Akilla’s Escape, a crime-noir about the urban child-soldier, is one of the special events and Official Selections as part of Planet Africa 25, co-written by Wendy Motion Brathwaite, starring Shomari Downer, with casting by Nicole Hilliard Forde.
• Officer will also participate in the panel Planet Africa 25: Black Film Now on September 16 at 3 p.m. EDT, alongside Dieudo Hamadi (Downstream to Kinshasa), Tommy Oliver (40 Years A Prisoner), and Dawn Porter (The Way I See It). 

MIDNIGHT MADNESS

• Violation, about a traumatic betrayal that drives a woman towards a vengeful extremity, features actor-alumni Anna Maguire and Jesse LaVercombe.

SHORT CUTS

• Jordan Canning wrote and co-directed 4 North A, a celebration of the fleeting joys of life and a bittersweet reminder that we don’t always get the closure we seek; part of Short Cuts Programme 01.
• Rules for Werewolves, the short film debut by director and editor Jeremy Schaulin-Rioux, follows the story of agroup of misfit teens who ransack a mansion, which leads one of them to recount how his past desperation changed him; executive produced by Peter Harvey, with music by Dillon Baldassero, plays as part of Short Cuts Programme 03.
• The Archivists, which follows three musicians who attempt to reimagine a song on a degraded vinyl album that they uncover in an abandoned home, features music by Casey MQ and plays as part of Short Cuts Programme 03.
• Xi Feng edited the short doc Sing Me a Lullaby, which weaves a tender, personal story about unexpected familial healing and connection; plays as part of Short Cuts Programme 05.

CFC alumni are also featured prominently in several other initiatives running as part of the festival, including:

• Tracey Deer will be honoured with the Emerging Talent Award, which celebrates a woman who is an emerging talent making groundbreaking strides in the industry.

• Molly McGlynn is the recipient of the Micki Moore Residency for 2020, a 10-week screenwriting residency, which includes mentorship from a script consultant, Industry accreditation for the Festival, and $3,000 towards developing her screenwriting project.

• Two CFC alumna were selected for the second annual TIFF Talent Accelerator, a customized, year-long development experience for six promising Canadian creators who are women: producer Lindsay Blair Goeldner and writer Adrianna DiLonardo, both of whom are also Netflix Talent Accelerator Fellows for 2020.

• Alumna Stella Meghie is a guest for Dialogues, part of the 2020 Industry Conference, where she will share her expertise on writing and directing.

CFC warmly congratulates all of its alumni participating in this year’s festival.

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About CFC
The Canadian Film Centre (CFC) is a registered charity and a leading cultural organization for the development and advancement of Canadian creative and entrepreneurial talent in the screen-based industries. CFC’s programs and initiatives span film and television, screen acting, composing and songwriting for the screen, and digital and immersive media. These uniquely designed programs support and empower Canadian artists, creators and entrepreneurs, and generate world-class talent, content, products and companies for the global marketplace. For more information, visit cfccreates.com.

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For media inquiries, please contact:

Cory Angeletti-Szasz
Manager, Communications
647.273.2795
cangeletti@cfccreates.com

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