Palestinian director Hany Abu Assad and Saudi Arabian director Haifaa Al Mansour will make their Hollywood film debuts at Toronto International Film Festival (Tiff) in September.
Abu Assad, known for Arabic films such as Omar, Paradise Now and The Idol, will premiere The Mountain Between Us at Tiff, an action thriller starring Kate Winslet, Idris Elba and Dermot Mulroney. Ben (Elba) and Alex (Winslet) are strangers stranded in remote, mountainous terrain after a plane crash, who must band together to survive the wilderness.
Al Mansour — the first ever female Saudi director, whose film Wadjda was the first Saudi entry selected for Best Foreign Language Film at the Oscars — will premiere her English-language film Mary Shelley. Previously titled A Storm in the Stars, it follows writer Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, who, at 18, fell in love with poet Percy Shelley and began writing her magnum opus Frankenstein. The film stars Elle Fanning, Douglas Booth and Maisie Williams.
Tiff runs between September 7-17 in Toronto; a schedule of when the films will premiere will launch on August 22.
The Mountain Between Us and Mary Shelley are tentatively slated for a 2017 cinematic release.
