[Source: Reuters]

A half-century after its inception, the Toronto International Film Festival seeks to act as a bridge between the film industry and the broader world, the Festival’s Director of Programming Robyn Citizen said.

The festival returns on Thursday with 292 films – not as big as in pre-pandemic days, Citizen said, but still delivering a star-studded lineup with both familiar faces and new names.

“Particularly in this moment, stories are how we make sense of the world and make sense of our place in it,” she said. “And it’s very important to have something like TIFF and other film festivals to provide a platform to filmmakers who want to tell these important stories that generate empathy for how others live.”

Stars expected on the red carpet include Daniel Craig, who stars in the latest feature in the Knives Out franchise, as well as Scarlett Johansson, Russell Crowe, Jodie Foster, Dwayne Johnson, Rami Malek, Ralph Fiennes and Ryan Reynolds.

Film can be both a mirror of society and an escape hatch, Citizen said.

“I think the best films can provide this alternate world, which you can immerse yourself into and escape. And other really great films also challenge you to really question what you think you know about the world.”

Some of the films deal with the most painful stories in the news today.

But including films wrestling with ecological concerns from the ocean’s depths, opens new tab to a dandelion’s-eye view,, opens new tabor authoritarianism in settings from Brazil, opens new tab to Serbia, opens new tab to Iraq, opens new tab, was not a deliberate choice, Citizen said; rather, it reflected something that emerged organically in submissions.

“Palestine 36,” which will have its world premiere at TIFF, transports the viewer to 1930s Palestine – a roiling time of change in the midst of the British Mandate.

“The Voice of Hind Rajab,” which combines actual recordings with scripted sequences to recreate the desperate 911 call of a six-year-old Palestinian girl trapped in a car under Israeli fire in Gaza, will have its North American premiere.

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