Acclaimed actress Konkona Sensharma’s debut feature A Death in the Gunj will be premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival, which runs from September 8-18. The festival has picked up several independent and mainstream titles from India in the past. “Filled with early awards contenders, returning filmmakers and favorites from other festivals from around the globe, it’s a meaty selection of offerings that firmly announces the imminent arrival of the cinematic bonanza otherwise known as the fall festival season,” said a preview on the Indiewire website.
Sensharma’s first full-length feature after her short film Naamkaran, is a murder mystery set in 1979 during a family vacation. The cast includes Vikrant Massey in a possible breakout role, Ranvir Shorey, Gulshan Devaiah, Tanuja, Jim Sarbh, Kalki Koechlin and Tilottama Shome. The English language movie has been produced by Macguffin Pictures, the company set up by Udta Punjab filmmaker Abhishek Chaubey and casting director Honey Trehan.
Also part of the non-competitive festival line-up is Mira Nair’s Queen of Katwe, a biopic of Ugandan chess prodigy Phiona Mutesi. Queen of Katwe will be released in India on September 23. American Indian filmmaker Vikram Gandhi’s Barry, about the young Barack Obama, is also in the mix.
The festival will open with Antoine Fuqua’s remake of The Magnificent Seven, starring Denzel Washington Chris Pratt, Ethan Hawke and Vincent D’Onofrio. The movie will be released in India on September 23. Among the red-hot titles is The Birth of a Nation, Nate Parker’s drama about a slave rebellion in 1831 in the American South, and Oliver Stone’s biography of Edward Snowden, titled Snowden and starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt. La La Land, a musical by Damien Chazelle (Whiplash) and starring Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling, has already stolen hearts with its trailer.
