TIFF selects Canadian director Patricia Rozema to head this year’s Platform jury

TORONTO –

Canadian filmmaker Patricia Rozema has been named as jury chair for this year’s competitive Platform program at the Toronto International Film Festival.

The “I’ve Heard the Mermaids Singing” director will head the three-member panel that selects the best film award winner, an honour that carries a $20,000 prize.

Rozema will be joined by Norwegian-Pakistani filmmaker Iram Haq, whose 2017 film “What Will People Say” played the festival, and Mumbai-based director Chaitanya Tamhane whose 2020 film “The Disciple” won a screenplay award at the Venice Film Festival.

TIFF takes place from Sept. 8 to 18 in Toronto.

Introduced in 2015, this year’s Platform program lineup features 10 films, including two Canadian titles, “Riceboy Sleeps” and “Viking.”

Other titles in the competition are Emily Bronte biopic “Emily,” “Carvúo,” “La Gravite,” “Hawa,” “How to Blow Up a Pipeline, “Tafrigh,” “Foudre” and “Tora’s Husband.”

Past films that showed in the program include Barry Jenkins’ “Moonlight,” which won the best picture Oscar, “The Death of Stalin,” “Jackie” and “Sound of Metal.”

Last year’s Platform prize went to “Yuni,” the story of an Indonesian teenager determined to forge her own path instead of following her community’s expectations.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 18, 2022.