I just love Autumn 🍂 and one of the main reasons is that October is when MN film fans can enjoy the Twin Cities Film Fest (TCFF)!! This past Friday, the festival unveiled its complete 2023 film catalog, revealing more than 140 movies (features and shorts) that will screen Oct. 19-28 in a hybrid format. Now in its 14th year, the festival returns to the Showplace ICON Theaters and Kitchen at The Shops at West End, programming over 90 screening opportunities to engage with the world of film today. More than 50 films will simultaneously debut online via the TCFF STREAMS platform at twincitiesfilmfest.org.
Widely known for balancing awards contenders and audience favorites from top festivals and movie studios with new breakthrough visions from Minnesota and National filmmakers, TCFF organizers said the nonprofit approached programming this year with a renewed focus on representation and inclusion. This year’s audiences will experience an eclectic and critically acclaimed mix of independent features, short films, and provocative documentaries, a majority of which align with special TCFF sidebars (“Empower,” “Black on Screen,” “LGBTQ+,” “Her”) showcasing diverse filmmakers, characters, and points of view.
“It’s been a decade now since we lost Roger Ebert, but he said it best — that ‘film is an empathy machine, empowering a viewer to walk in another’s shoes,’” said TCFF Executive Director Jatin Setia. “Our 2023 program was constructed explicitly with that empathy in mind, to showcase as many different kinds of characters, perspectives, worldviews, challenges, and realities as possible. To use the raw power of cinema to help audiences see, connect with, and relate to others who they might not otherwise fully understand.”
Focus Features’ comedy, The Holdovers, starring Paul Giamatti and directed by Alexander Payne, opens the festival on Thursday, Oct. 19, telling the story of a cantankerous prep schoolteacher who forges a bond with a troubled student who remains on campus during the Christmas break. The trailer promises something funny, quirky, and heartwarming, something one would expect from the director of Sideways and The Descendants.
This year’s closing night gala will be held on Saturday, Oct. 28, and will celebrate Sony Pictures’ Downtown Owl, a drama based on the 2008 Chuck Klosterman novel and partially filmed in St. Paul, directed by Lily Rabe and starring Ed Harris, Vanessa Hudgens, and Henry Golding telling the story of three citizens in a fictional North Dakota city as they navigate small-town life leading up to a massive blizzard.
Henry Golding (looking good in a Cowboy hat!) and Lily Rabe
Between those tentpoles, TCFF’s 2023 Centerpiece will be Amazon Studios’ Foe, a new science-fiction psychological thriller set to screen Oct. 23 that stars Saoirse Ronan and Paul Mescal and is directed by Garth Davis. Check out the trailer here.
Oscar nominee Terrence Howard will be the recipient of this year’s TCFF Indie Vision Legacy Award and will appear during the festival’s final weekend, with his new film Showdown at the Grand (Oct 27), as well as a special “In Conversation” spotlight event on Saturday, Oct. 28. The trailer of Howard’s action comedy was just released recently, watch below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RTg62SlGtEQ
Showdown at the Grand synopsis: A proud movie theater owner must defend his family business from corporate developers alongside a legendary action star as art imitates life in a showdown for the ages.
Other widely hailed entries in this year’s program: A Little Prayer (Oct. 24), All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt (Oct. 21), All of Us Strangers (Oct. 21), Fingernails (Oct. 20), The First Class (Oct. 21), Housekeeping For Beginners (Oct. 25), The Stones and Brian Jones (Oct. 22), Suitable Flesh (Oct. 21), The Taste of Things (Oct. 22), The Teachers’ Lounge (Oct. 23) and V/H/S 85 (Oct. 20).
Paul Mescal‘s career is really on fire right now, he’s got not one but two films screening at film festivals this year, FOE and All of Us Strangers, co-starring Andrew Scott and Claire Foy. Check out the trailer below, it looks beautiful and mysterious, and as an 80s kid, I LOVE the use of Pet Shop Boys’s Always On My Mind.
Update 9/25:
I’m excited to include in this post that American Fiction, which won TIFF’s People’s Choice Award recently has just been added to the lineup, woot!! I love Jeffrey Wright in anything and this premise sounds intriguing. The film is a directorial debut of Cord Jefferson who’s written for several major tv series such as HBO’s Watchmen and Station Eleven.
Author Thelonious “Monk” Ellison is peeved because his latest offering hasn’t caught fire with publishers, while a tome called We’s Lives in Da Ghetto by Sintara Golden hits the bestseller lists, leaving Monk seething.
Get your 2023 Twin Cities Film Fest Pass now! We are less than 30 days away and can’t wait for this year’s films and festivities! Members receive 25% OFF select passes.
Ticket sales will go live at the end of next week! Keep checking our website, socials, and newsletter for the official announcement! Check out the TCFF lineup and create a must-see TCFF movie list!
NOTE: We highly recommend purchasing your ticket in advance to secure your seat, certain films sell out fast!
So, which of the Fall movies are you looking forward to seeing most?
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FLIXCHATTER FILM BLOG 
The Holdovers, Teacher’s Lounge, Foe, All of Us Strangers… that’s a good line-up you guys are having. Congrats on your Twins winning the division. BTW, World Series this year. Re-match from 1991 World Series between the Twins and the Braves. It’s on!
Yeah, I’m lucky we’ve got two strong film festivals in town, maybe one day you can come visit me in the Fall or Springtime? 😉
Ahahaha, I didn’t even realize Twins is winning the division, Steven, clearly I don’t follow sports at all. Sometimes I get some tidbits about the Vikings from my hubby but not any other teams 😀
Wow, can’t believe it’s almost that time of the year already! Unfortunately, October has become the busiest month for me at work, so I probably won’t be able attend any of these showings.
Bummer! In the past 13 years since I cover TCFF I don’t think I’ve ever seen you at the Showplace ICON!
I don’t think I saw you at the event either but I reviewed a few movies on the first year you covered the TCFF. I remember you got me some free passes to see some movies in the later years but I either couldn’t make the show or I was a bit too harsh on my reviews of the movies that were shown there and you didn’t post them on here. Lol!
This is a great line up!
It is!! Maybe one of these years, you’d come and visit MN for TCFF?
Hi Ruth–
As you know, this is one of my favorite times of the year. TCFF in October brings us all the buzz from the bigger film festivals such as Toronto, Telluride and Venice and gives us the opportunity to preview some of these films locally. All of the studio films are also part of my most anticipated films list, but it’s also a rare situation that TCFF is able to offer three specular foreign language films:
1. The Taste of Things, selected as the French submissions for the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film. (Starring Juliette Binoche and Benoit Magimel, who share a romance in life and passion over the food they make.)
2. The Teachers’ Lounge, selected as the German submissions for the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film. (Lead actress Leonie Benesch shines as a teacher in crisis after her student is accused of stealing.)
3. Housekeeping For Beginners, selected as the North Macedonian submissions for the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film. (Director Goran Stolevski returns after success with previous hits You Won’t Be Alone and Of an Age to bring audiences a compelling story of a queer woman who never wanted to be a mother and finds herself forced to her to raise her girlfriend’s two rebellious daughters, creating an unlikely family that must fight to stay together.)
These three international films on top of my “MUST SEE” films of TCFF 2023.
Hey Vitali! Sorry for the tardy response, somehow I missed seeing your comment, which is always appreciated!
I agree with you that the Fall season is always exciting because the buzz-worthy films from the big festivals are starting to come out. I’m looking forward to all 3 you mentioned, especially The Taste of Things as I love Binoche and I always seem to see her films during film festivals (MSPIFF usually). I didn’t know that The Teachers’ Lounge was German’s submission for Oscars, very cool!
See ya at the fest!
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