Toronto Film Fest Adds Wang Bing, Roberto Minervini, Miguel Gomes Films to Wavelengths

The Toronto Film Festival has unveiled its Wavelengths program for artist-driven experimental work that includes films by avant garde directors Wang Bing, Roberto Minervini and Miguel Gomes.

With 11 features on offer, the Wavelengths section includes a 14-hour documentary, exergue – on documenta 14, from director Dimitris Athiridi set to be presented over three screenings.

The section will also feature North American premieres for the remaining chapters of Wang Bing’s Youth trilogy: Youth (Hard Times) and Youth (Homecoming); Miguel Gomes’ Grand Tour, which won best director at Cannes; The Damned by Roberto Minervini, an American Civil War drama that won best director in the Un Certain Regard section in Cannes; and Pepe, by director Nelson Carlo de los Santos Arias, about the life and death reflections of a hippo with connections to Pablo Escobar.

Wavelengths last year in Toronto screened Wang’s Youth (Spring), the Cannes competition title about Chinese garment workers.

Other North American premieres for the 2024 edition of Wavelengths include Jessica Sarah Rinland’s Collective Monologue, set in a community of zoos and animal rescue centers across Argentina; the queer romancer Viêt and Nam by filmmaker Trương Minh Quý, which bowed in Cannes; and Lázaro at Night by filmmaker Nicolás Pereda, a drama about a love triangle in Mexico City.

The Wavelengths strand also booked North American bows for the Venice title Perfumed With Mint, from director Muhammed Hamdy, about a doctor treating a patient with mint plants sprouting from his body; and The Ballad of Suzanne Césaire, a biopic by Madeleine Hunt-Ehrlich about an anti-colonialist writer and Afro-surrealist pioneer.

There’s also a Wavelengths special presentation for Drama 1882, Wael Shawky’s opera for the Egyptian pavilion at the Venice Biennale 2024.

Short film highlights for TIFF‘s Wavelengths selection include world premieres of Archipelago of Earthen Bones — To Bunya, by Malena Szlam; A Black Screen Too, by director Rhayne Vermette; and the North American premiere of Lawrence Abu Hamdan’s The Diary of a Sky.

Toronto also announced Thursday that the TIFF Classics strand will feature restored 4K movies like Shahid Sohrab Saless’ Time of Maturity, Lino Brocka’s Bona, Atom Egoyan’s The Sweet Hereafter and Raj Kapoor’s Awāra, which he also starred in.

The Toronto Film Festival is set to run from Sept. 5 to 15.