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Toronto International Film Festival back with full lineup of films

The Toronto International Film Festival will return this September will a full lineup of films, including Darren Aronofsky's highly anticipated feature "The Whale." Photo courtesy of A24
1 of 5 | The Toronto International Film Festival will return this September will a full lineup of films, including Darren Aronofsky's highly anticipated feature "The Whale." Photo courtesy of A24

July 28 (UPI) -- The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) announced its full lineup of films on Thursday, revealing that the festival would return to its more normal proceedings this year after COVID-19 restrictions caused a more muted 2021 edition.

One of the largest and most well-attended film festivals in the world, TIFF 2022 will begin on Sept. 8 and run until Sept. 18.

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TIFF officials have revealed the full slate of films that will be headlining the festival, with many highly anticipated features on the list -- and many acclaimed directors looking to get a head start on the Academy Awards season.

One of the most talked about films is Darren Aronofsky's The Whale.

Starring Brendan Fraser as a 600-pound man who tries to reconnect with his teenage daughter, the film is already generating some Oscar buzz, and will have its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival just days before the start of TIFF.

Jennifer Lawrence and Brian Tyree Henry will star in Causeway, a military drama directed by Lila Neugebauer that is slated to be one of the most talked-about films of the group.

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Academy Award winners Jessica Chastain and Eddie Redmayne will team up in Tobias Lindholm's The Good Nurse.

Revolving around the hunt for a serial-killing nurse, the film will be distributed by Netflix and is likely to generate a similar buzz.

Another movie revealed on the premiere list is The Menu, the film directorial debut of Succession's Mark Mylod.

Starring Anya Taylor-Joy and Ralph Fiennes, The Menu is a dark comedy about a chef on a remote island who treats his guests to some surprising cuisine.

Other top films include Rian Johnson's Knives Out sequel, Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery and A Jazzman's Blues from Tyler Perry.

Based on the list of films, it appears that this year's TIFF will look more like normal than 2021's, when Canadian COVID-19 protocols allowed the festival to feature just 130 films.

TIFF 2022, though, contains a full schedule of 260 films, and will reportedly feature maskless theaters at full capacity.

Proof of COVID-19 vaccination will not be required.

"We're going to have the fan excitement, the big audiences, the big movies launching and the red carpets," TIFF CEO Cameron Bailey told Variety. "If that sounds like a familiar Toronto Film Festival, that's what we're going to have this year."

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Bailey additionally told Deadline that "we are expecting full houses."

"We know from the ticket packages that we had going for the last few weeks, some of them have already gone off sale, but there's a lot still available. There's enough appetite for what we've seen so far that we're expecting a big audience," he said.

The full lineup of the 2022 Toronto International Film Festival can be seen here.

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