Frontmezzjunkies reports: The TIFF51schedule is finally here, and Andrew Scott and Hudson Williams may finally get me into an In Conversation With…
I have my press pass firmly in hand, a TIFF schedule finally staring back at me, and suddenly September 10 is more alive than ever. After weeks of announcements about films I want to see and with barely enough time to process the expanse of it all, the full schedule for the 51st Toronto International Film Festival has finally gone live. And with it comes that familiar moment when TIFF stops being an idea and becomes a calendar full of decisions. Where will I be at 8 in the morning? How quickly can I get from one screening to another? Which films will become the ones I absolutely have to see? Which discoveries will come completely out of nowhere?
The full Official Selection now stands at 293 titles, with 11 more films announced alongside the schedule. There are World Premieres, Canadian Premieres, North American Premieres and an International Premiere spread across Special Presentations, Gala and Centrepiece. Among the new additions are Werner Herzog’s “Bucking Fastard“, Nanni Moretti’s “It Will Happen Tonight“, Guy Nattiv’s “The Liberation“, Peter Ho-Sun Chan’s “The Road Not Taken” and “Neil Peart: No One’s Disciple“, the new Canadian documentary from Scot McFadyen and Sam Dunn. There is also “Wild Horse Nine“, Martin McDonagh’s latest, while Cody Fern’s “Closing Night” arrives as a World Premiere. And then there is “Trees are Watching” from Bahman Ghobadi, a World Premiere joining the Centrepiece programme.
That is enough to make the schedule reveal feel like an event all on its own, but TIFF has managed to add another temptation to the day. Alongside the full schedule comes the announcement of this year’s In Conversation With… programming, bringing Lee Min-ho, Rachel Morrison, Chris Rock, Andrew Scott and Hudson Williams to the Festival for live conversations about their careers, creative journeys and craft. I have to admit that I have never actually attended one of these talks. Somehow, amid the constant scramble of screenings, I have always treated them as something happening elsewhere in the Festival. But now I have a press pass, and Andrew Scott is sitting on that list. That might be enough to change my habits.
Scott arrives at TIFF ’26 with “Elsinore“, where he stars as actor Ian Charleson in a story centred on Charleson’s final years and his determination to perform Hamlet at London’s National Theatre while living with AIDS. TIFF notes that Scott has been part of the Festival before, first appearing in 2014 with “Pride” and returning in 2025 with “Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery” and Richard Linklater’s “Blue Moon“. His screen work has travelled through “Fleabag“, “Sherlock“, “All of Us Strangers” and “Ripley“, and this conversation promises an opportunity to hear directly from an actor whose career has moved through wildly different corners of film and television.
Then there is Hudson Williams, whose presence on the schedule feels particularly timely for a Festival audience that watched ‘Heated Rivalry‘ explode into the cultural conversation. Williams will take part in Making Waves With… Hudson Williams, part of TIFF Next Wave’s programming centred on under-25 creators and audiences. He will discuss his work in YAGA and ‘Heated Rivalry‘, as well as the upcoming independent feature “Apparatus“, while looking back at the short films, collaborations and creative community that helped shape his career. There is something especially appealing about that idea of hearing from a performer while his career is still taking shape, rather than waiting for the retrospective conversation years down the road.
The other conversations have their own reasons to make room in a TIFF itinerary. Lee Min-ho arrives in Toronto for the World Premiere of “The Assassin(s)“, bringing nearly two decades of Korean popular culture with him and making his first North American onstage appearance in more than a decade. Rachel Morrison returns following her TIFF ’24 debut with “The Fire Inside” for the World Premiere of “Love of Your Life“, while Chris Rock brings “Misty Green” to the Festival and joins the series for a conversation about his work as a director, writer, actor, producer and comedian.
And now comes the part I always find both thrilling and slightly terrifying. The schedule is no longer an abstract collection of dreams. It is a map of possibilities, with early morning press screenings, impossible transitions, films I already know I need to see and discoveries I haven’t even imagined yet. TIFF Members begin buying tickets by level on August 21, with single tickets going on sale to the public August 31, and I’ll be trying to snag a few for me and my buddy while penciling in as many press screenings as I can manage. Suddenly, the Festival that has been building through announcements all summer is something I can actually plan, and perhaps this is finally the year I stop walking past In Conversation With… on my way to the next screening. Andrew Scott may have already made that decision for me. Now I just have to figure out how much TIFF I can possibly fit into eleven days.