TIFF 2023 MIDNIGHT & DISCOVERY LINEUPS: New Films From Harmony Korine, Patricia Arquette, & Finn Wolfhard

The Toronto International Film Festival has announced the lineups for both its Midnight Madness and Discovery sections for its 2023 edition. Billed as “the infamous,” this year’s Midnight Madness lineup features 10 titles, seven of which are world premieres. The Discovery lineup, which primarily includes world and international premieres, includes 26 titles.

“Midnight Madness and Discovery provide a cornucopia of original and unexpected work,” said TIFF in a statement. “Midnight Madness is a fan favorite, iconoclastic program highlighting the weird and the wicked, while the Discovery program offers a window to contemporary international cinema and introduces the public to first and second feature films from gifted new filmmakers.”

The Opening Night film in the Midnight Madness section is the upcoming raunchy A24 musical Dicks: The Musical from director Larry Charles (Borat). Closing the section will be Weston Razooli’s Riddle of Fire, which centers on a group of children on a bizzare woodland odyssey. Another exiting title in this section is Harmony Korine’s Aggro Dr1ft, featuring Travis Scott and Jordi Mollà, which per TIFF is “a hallucinatory portrait of a haunted assassin in this sensuous experimental elegy.”

Opening up the Platform section is Patricia Arquette’s feature directorial debut Gonzo Girl, which stars Willem Dafoe and Camila Morrone as a Hunter S. Thompson-like novelist and the struggling young writer he takes under his wing. It also includes new films from Kim Taeyang, Meredith Hama-Brown, Billy Luther, and Molly Manning Walker’s Cannes Un Certain Regard-winning How To Have Sex.

The festival will run from September 7-17.

Here are the full lineups:

MIDNIGHT MADNESS:

Aggro Dr1ft | Harmony Korine | USA
North American Premiere

Boy Kills World | Moritz Mohr | Germany/South Africa/USA
World Premiere

Opening Night
Dicks: The Musical | Larry Charles | USA
World Premiere

Hell of a Summer | Finn Wolfhard, Billy Bryk | USA/Canada
World Premiere

Kill | Nikhil Nagesh Bhat | India
World Premiere

Naga | Meshal Aljaser | Saudi Arabia
World Premiere

Closing Film
Riddle of Fire | Weston Razooli | USA
North American Premiere

Sleep | Jason Yu | South Korea
North American Premiere

When Evil Lurks | Demián Rugna | Argentina
World Premiere

Working Class Goes to Hell | Mladen Đorđević | Serbia
World Premiere

DISCOVERY:

Achilles | Farhad Delaram | Iran/Germany/France
World Premiere

After the Fire | Mehdi Fikri | France
World Premiere

A Match (Sthal) | Jayant Digambar Somalkar | India
World Premiere

Andragogy | Wregas Bhanuteja | Indonesia/Singapore
World Premiere

An Endless Sunday | Alain Parroni | Italy/Germany/Ireland
International Premiere

Arthur&Diana | Sara Summa | Germany
World Premiere

Backspot | D.W. Waterson | Canada
World Premiere

Frybread Face and Me | Billy Luther | USA
International Premiere

Opening Film
Gonzo Girl | Patricia Arquette | USA
World Premiere

Hajjan | Abu Bakr Shawky | Saudi Arabia/Egypt/Jordan
World Premiere

How to Have Sex | Molly Manning Walker | United Kingdom
North American Premiere

I Don’t Know Who You Are | M. H. Murray | Canada
World Premiere

La Suprema | Felipe Holguín Caro | Colombia
World Premiere

Mandoob | Ali Kalthami | Saudi Arabia
World Premiere

Mimang | Kim Taeyang | South Korea
World Premiere

Seagrass | Meredith Hama-Brown | Canada
World Premiere

Solitude | Ninna Pálmadóttir | Iceland/Slovakia/France
World Premiere

Tautuktavuk (What We See) | Carol Kunnuk, Lucy Tulugarjuk | Canada
World Premiere

The Teacher | Farah Nabulsi | United Kingdom/Palestine/Qatar
World Premiere

The Tundra Within Me (Eallugierdi) | Sara Margrethe Oskal | Norway
World Premiere

The Queen of My Dreams | Fawzia Mirza | Canada
World Premiere

Valentina or the Serenity (Valentina o la serenidad) | Ángeles Cruz | Mexico
World Premiere