The Toronto International Film Festival is quickly approaching and already, the annual event has bolstered its lineup with a host of marquee features – from The Magnificent Seven to Peter Berg’s blockbuster Deepwater Horizon, you’ll struggle to find any notable awards contenders that have missed the cut.
But beyond Oscar season, TIFF 2016 will lend studios an opportunity to parade their embryonic projects to buyers in the hope they’ll land distribution rights before entering production in earnest. The latest film to jostle for a place in that lineup is Untogether, the directorial debut of best-selling author Emma Forrest that has, according to The Hollywood Reporter, recruited Fifty Shades star Jamie Dornan, Ben Mendelsohn and the Kirke sisters, Jemima (Girls) and Lola (Mozart in the Jungle).
Directing from her own screenplay, Forrest’s passion project marks the first time that Jemima and Lola Kirke have shared the screen together, with the official pitch revealing a story that orbits around “a former teen prodigy turned heroin addict who is trying to be a writer now that she’s sober, and Nick (Dornan), a writer who’s found success with his memoir of war time bravery, which sees him showered in wealth and women. Meanwhile, Andrea’s little sister Tara (Lola Kirke) finds her solid relationship with her older boyfriend Martin (Mendelsohn) shaken when she is drawn to a charismatic Rabbi with an even larger age gap.”
Untogether is being readied for a production start on October 17, aligning Forrest’s directing debut for release at some point in 2017. Before reprising the buzzworthy role of Christian Grey, Dornan stars opposite Cillian Murphy in Anthropoid, while Ben Mendelsohn will soon jet off to the stars for Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. As for the Kirkes, Jemima Kirke continues to play an instrumental part of HBO’s Girls as it nears its curtain call, while Lola Kirke will return for the third season of Amazon’s Mozart in the Jungle.
