The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) announced this morning that Rian Johnson’s time-travel thriller Looper will be the opening gala at TIFF 2012.
Set in a future where time travel is illegal and only available on the black market, the film follows Joe, an assassin (or ‘looper’) who goes back in time to take people out for the mob. When the mob decides his time is up, he must go back to assassinate himself. The film stars Bruce Willis, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and Emily Blunt.
“Rian Johnson is a film auteur known for combining different genres to give his projects an original spin,” said Piers Handling, Director and CEO of TIFF, in a press release sent out. “We’re thrilled to have Looper open the Festival.”
After Brick, his critically-acclaimed breakthrough in 2005, Johnson followed it up with the The Brothers Bloom, which premiered at TIFF in 2008 to a lukewarm response. Looper is his return to the big screen and his most ambitious project to date.
The 2012 Toronto International Film Festival runs September 6 – 16. Follow all of our coverage of the festival at criticizethis.ca/tiff.
Check out the trailer for Looper below.
Top image: Joseph Gordon-Levitt in a scene from Looper. Courtesy Alliance Films.
Pingback: Galas and Special Presentations for TIFF 2012 announced