Andy Lau, Lee Byung-hun, Park Seo-jun to Will Keynote At Toronto Film Festival
Lee Byung-Hun, Andy Lau, and Lee Park soe-jun - Han Myung-Gu / VCG
The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) has appointed Spanish auteur Pedro Almodóvar, Hong Kong multihyphenate Andy Lau, and Korean superstars Lee Byung-hun and Park Seo-jun to appear on its In Conversation With… series next month.
Since his 1988 tragic drama Woman on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, Almodóvar has been among the most successful European directors, winning two Oscars for All About My Mother in 1999 and Talk to Her in 2002. Before this announcement, he was also set to receive the Jeff Skoll Award in Impact Media from Participant at TIFF. Lau is a renowned pop performer and actor in Chinese movies. He will also attend the Toronto premiere of Ning Hao's The Movie Emperor, in which he portrays a movie star trying to stay relevant by taking on an art-house role that will appeal to film festivals. Co-stars of the catastrophe epic Concrete Utopia Lee Byung-hun and Park Seo-jun will also be in Toronto to talk about their work in Korean film and television.
Anita Lee, TIFF's chief programming officer, said in a statement, “TIFF’s 2023 In Conversation With… series exemplifies our belief that film can ignite perspectives and fuel transformation. We are delighted to welcome a powerhouse lineup of international iconoclasts from Spain, South Korea, and Hong Kong for film lovers of all genres.”
The choices of international film icons for TIFF appear to be an attempt of the festival to get around the uncertainty cast by the ongoing Hollywood actors’ strike. SAG-AFTRA restrictions require actors not to promote any film from a member of the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPAS), meaning any streamer, major legacy studio, or specialty division.
The Toronto Film Festival, set to run September 7-17, 2023, earlier announced it would open its 2023 edition with Japanese anime legend Hayao Miyazaki’s much anticipated final film, The Boy and the Heron.