This coming-of-age American drama checks a lot of interesting boxes, chiefly, that it’s based on Cheryl Della Pietra’s semi-autobiographical novel chronicling her time as personal assistant to gonzo journalist and well-documented nutter, Hunter S. Thompson, here conjured by the reliably excellent Willem Dafoe, 68. What’s more, Gonzo Girl marks the directorial debut of acclaimed actor Patricia Arquette, 55, who presumably knows a thing or two about working alongside difficult men in an industry that traditionally overlooked bad behaviour.

Mark Ruffalo, 55, and Hugh Laurie, 64, star in this limited series that will head to to Netflix in November (playing in TIFF’s Prime program). Based on Anthony Doerr’s Pulitzer Prize-winning 2014 novel, the story follows two teenagers, one a blind French girl, the other, a German soldier, both determined to defy the Nazis. Canadian Shawn Levy, 55 (Stranger Things, Night at the Museum), directs and the trailer – set to Claude Debussy’s goosebump-raising masterwork, “Clair de lune” – looks dazzling.

Thúy’s 2009 Governor General’s Award-winning debut novel sumptuously chronicles a wealthy family fleeing Vietnam and landing in Quebec via a Malaysian refugee camp. Canadian Charles-Olivier Michaud directs this era-spanning drama, presented in French and Vietnamese.

Cord Jefferson directs the redoubtable Jeffrey Wright, 57, in American Fiction, an adaptation of Percival Everett’s 2001 satire, Erasure, about an author facing publishing indifference until he angrily crafts a story based on unsettling stereotypes. It becomes a surprise smash, putting the author and his credibility in the crosshairs.

Making its Canadian premiere in the always daring and provocative Wavelengths programme, Orlando: My Political Biography finds theorist, critic and curator Paul B. Preciado “taking Virginia Woolf’s classic novel as a starting point for a bold, joyous reflection on the nature of contemporary trans life and a celebration of queerness,” according to the TIFF summary.

If you’ve ever popped a bottle of Veuve Clicquot French champagne, you’ve found yourself staring at the amused mug of a fancily bedecked, elderly lady at the top of the wire cage (called a muselet) holding the cork firm. That would be Barbe-Nicole Ponsardin, known far and wide as Veuve Clicquot, the “Grande Dame of Champagne,” whose bold experiments with bottling techniques not only gave us the fabulous sparkling wine we still covet today, but saved her from destitution when her wine-making husband died suddenly, leaving Ponsardin indebted and a single mother at 27. The Widow Clicquot: The Story of a Champagne Empire and the Woman Who Ruled It, author Tilar J. Mazzeo’s bestseller from 2009, provides the foundation for Widow Clicquot, a true-life tale of a spitfire winemaker struggling beneath the weight of the misogynistic Napoleonic Code. Haley Bennett stars.

One of the best things about a film festival is the opportunity to witness storytelling from countries that might not otherwise be available. Such is the case with I Do Not Come to You By Chance, director Ishaya Bako’s adaptation of Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani’s award-winning 2009 debut novel, about a young Nigerian who can’t seem to make headway playing by the rules, and so reluctantly joins his uncle’s fraudulent email racket. Both the source material and the director’s track record (see 2017’s The Royal Hibiscus Hotel) suggest this should be a winner.

An all-star cast, including Emily Blunt, Chris Evans, Andy Garcia, 67, and Canada’s own Catherine O’Hara, 69, star in director David Yates’ drama, Pain Hustlers, about pharmaceutical drug reps who inadvertently trigger the opioid epidemic as they chase financial success in the early 2000s. The film, making its world premiere at TIFF, is based on investigative journalist Evan Hughes’ 2002 non-fiction hardcover, The Hard Sell: Crime and Punishment at an Opioid Startup.

Inspired by the 2017 book the American author, professor and historian  – a National Book Award winner subtitled “The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America” – 60-year-old Oscar-winning filmmaker Roger Ross Williams’ documentary “explores the history of anti-Black ideas in a way that helps us grapple with present-day racism,” says the TIFF website.

For Woodland, her emotionally intense film about a woman retreating to her rural childhood home to heal from trauma, writer-director Elisabeth Scharang relied on two sources: her own experience witnessing a 2020 terrorist attack in Vienna, which killed four and injured 23, and Wald, the 2015 novel by  bestselling author Doris Knecht. Acclaimed cinematographer Jörg Widmer captures it all with brilliant, eerie panache.