The 2012 Toronto International Film Festival, which took place from 6 September through 16, presented 26 French films.
Twelve films were selected for Special Presentation screenings, including the highly appreciated Rust and Bone by Jacques Audiard, Foxfire by Laurent Cantet, and Thérèse Desqueyroux by Claude Miller, or were the subject of gala presentations (Free Angela and All Political Prisoners by Shola Lynch).
Amour, Something in the Air, and Gebo and the Shadow were presented in the Masters section, and The Patience Stone and Three Worlds in Contemporary World Cinema.
Artists presented their films and participated in Q&A sessions with the public. Among those who attended: Michael Haneke, Jacques Audiard, Marion Cotillard, Matthias Schoenarts, Olivier Assayas, Costa Gavras, Gad Elmaleh, François Ozon, Kristin Scott Thomas, Annie Miller, Audrey Tautou, Yvan Attal, Stéphane Brizé, Hélène Vincent, Laurent Cantet, Catherine Corsini, Raphael Personnaz, Atiq Rahimi, and Golshifteh Farahani.
Sales agents took advantage of the space reserved for them at the Hyatt Regency by uniFrance Films to conduct meetings. The cocktail organized Saturday September 8 to celebrate French films in Toronto brought together more than 300 sales agents and distributors from around the world, along with French producers and artists who were in Toronto at the time. The 2012 edition was very positive, and finished with the International Critics' Prize going to In the House by François Ozon, who declared: "Receiving a critics' prize for a film about the relationship between a student and his teacher amuses me a lot and thrills me, for I still consider myself a bad pupil... Thank you for this prize, which is an honor for me."
