Christopher Nolan joins us for an exclusive screening of his harrowing war epic, presented in IMAX at Ontario Place's historic Cinesphere.
Free tickets available September 4 at 10am (available to TIFF Members on September 2 from 10am to 4pm).
Already acclaimed as one of the finest films of the year, Dunkirk represents cinema at its most affecting and ambitious. Christopher Nolan's dazzling, immersive war epic will be presented in a special event at the Festival in its highest-resolution format, 70mm IMAX film, followed by an onstage conversation with Nolan himself. In a remarkable convergence of art and setting, we will present Dunkirk at the world's first permanent IMAX cinema, the Ontario Place Cinesphere, which opened in 1971 and has just been fully restored.
Set in the early months of the Second World War, Dunkirk tells the story of British and Allied troops being pushed from France into the English Channel by advancing German forces. In a brilliant stroke that draws on his trademark play with chronology, Nolan weaves the tale together over the course of one week on land, one day at sea and one hour in the air. Working for the first time with a story based on real events, and with stakes as high as the nearly half a million lives on the line, Nolan delivers his most emotional film yet. Mark Rylance gives an especially indelible performance as a civilian sailor pulled into the effort to bring troops back across the Channel in what are essentially leisure boats.
Nolan has a long history with Toronto. His debut feature, Following, made its world premiere at the 1998 Toronto International Film Festival, in our Discovery programme. We stand in awe of all he has achieved since then, from the perfect puzzles of Memento, The Prestige, Inception, and Interstellar, through his reinvention of the superhero genre with the Dark Knight films. He has become an increasingly passionate advocate for celluloid film, and also for the possibilities opened up by IMAX's large-format technology. IMAX was born in Canada and the Cinesphere was the first permanent cinema built to display it. We are proud to bring Nolan's singular achievement back to the format's original home.
CAMERON BAILEY