Toronto Film Festival announces 2019 rising stars

Toronto International Film Ffestival (TIFF) Co-Heads Cameron Bailey and Joana Vicente have announced the new lineup of international TIFF Rising Stars. The list includes ​Chino Darín​, ​Geraldine Viswanathan​, ​Kelvin Harrison Jr.,​ and ​Josefine Frida​. Now in its ninth year, the programme showcases burgeoning young actors, who will join the previously announced Canadian TIFF Rising Stars, Kacey Rohl, Mikhaïl Ahooja, Nahéma Ricci, and Shamier Anderson.

“These four talents​ along with their Canadian counterparts​ are on the verge of making big waves on the international stage,” said Bailey, Artistic Director and Co-Head of TIFF.

“We can’t wait for Toronto audiences to witness their breakout performances at this year’s Festival.”The TIFF Rising Stars programme will provide the actors with an exclusive opportunity to experience and engage with the Festival. They will have access to professional development sessions, Industry events, red carpets, mentorship, and valuable networking opportunities.

All international Rising Stars are featured in films in TIFF 2019’s Official Selection. Chino Darin stars in Sebastian Borensztein’s Heroic Losers, about neighbours in rural Argentina, who are swindled out of their savings and join forces to take back what’s theirs. Geraldine Viswanathan is featured alongside Hugh Jackman, Allison Janney and Ray Romano in Cory Finley’s world Premiere Bad Education, a fact based dramedy about an infamous school-larceny scandal that rocked Long Island in the early 2000s. Vistwanathan also stars in Hala, about an American Muslim teenager balancing her relationship with her protective Pakistani immigration parents and her own independent desires. Kelvin Harrison Jr. appears in Trey Edwards Shult’s Waves, a coming-of-age drama that documents the crumbling façade as a champion dancer, who begins to falter, prompting her to search for radical solutions.