The television series “Mrs. Fletcher,” “Briarpatch” and “Limetown” have been added to the lineup at the 2019 Toronto International Film Festival, which will screen two or three episodes of each series followed by extended Q&As with the creators and cast.
Those three U.S. series will be part of TIFF’s Primetime section, which will also showcase the international series “Black Bitch” (Australia), “Savages” (France) and “The Sleepers” (the Czech Republic).
“Mrs. Fletcher” is an upcoming series from HBO and Crave, based on the Tom Perotta novel and starring Kathryn Hahn as an empty-nest mother. “Briarpatch,” from USA Network, stars Rosario Dawson as a political fixer investigating the death of her sister. And Facebook Watch’s podcast-based “Limetown” follows a public radio journalist (Jessica Biel) looking into the disappearance of 300 people at a research facility.
Toronto organizers also announced the lineup for its five-day TIFF Industry Conference, which will launch on September 6 with a conversation with director Ron Howard and producer Brian Grazer, whose collaborations include the TIFF opening-night documentary “Once Were Brothers: Robbie Robertson and the Band.”
The conference will also include master classes with Brazilian director Fernando Meirelles and Chinese-born director Lulu Wang; a conversation about gender equality led by Swedish Film Institute CEO Anna Serner; and guest speakers including Edward Burns, Barbara Kopple, Franklin Leonard and Alan Berliner.
The TIFF Doc Conference, curated by Thom Powers and Denae Peters, will include talks and panels featuring Kopple, Berliner, Kickstarter’s Elise McCave, Showtime’s Vinnie Malhotra, the International Documentary Association’s Claire Aguilar and the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s Ashley Clark, among others.
Finally, TIFF named four young actors – Argentina’s Chino Darin, Norway’s Josefine Frida, the United States’ Kelvin Harrison Jr. and Australia’s Geraldine Viswanathan – to its Rising Stars program. The four join a quartet of previously announced Canadian Rising Stars, Mikhail Ahooja, Shamier Anderson, Kacey Rohl and Nahema Ricci.
Darin will appear at TIFF in “Heroic Losers,” Frida in “Disco,” Harrison in “Waves” and Viswanathan in “Bad Education.”
The 44th Toronto International Film Festival will kick off on September 5 with a screening of the documentary “Once Were Brothers: Robbie Robertson and the Band,” and conclude on September 15.
Additional information on the programming is available at www.tiff.net.