"High Life" to be Screened at 34th Toronto International Film Festival

“HIGH LIFE” TO BE SCREENED AT 34TH TORONTO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL
Union Pictures and Triptych Media announce High Life’s North American Premiere

Toronto – Union Pictures, Triptych Media and Buffalo Gal Pictures are pleased to announce the screening of Gary Yates’ comedy High Life at the 34th Toronto International Film Festival. The cast includes Timothy Olyphant, Stephen Eric McIntyre, Joe Anderson and Rossif Sutherland.

Ticket Passes are now on sale. For more information, please visit www.tiff.net.

High Life premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival to strong audience and critical acclaim, followed by screenings at the Edinburgh International Film Festival and Shanghai International Film Festival. It will celebrate its North American Premiere at TIFF before it will be released across Canada starting January 15, 2010.

Based on the play by Lee MacDougall, High Life is a comedic heist directed by Gary Yates and produced by Yates and Robin Cass. Set in 1983 just after the birth of Automated Teller Machines (ATMs), High Life is a film about kinship, loyalty, and honor amongst thieves. Dick and his pals have been botching jobs and racking up prison time for years, but this time, Dick has the perfect plan for the perfect heist. Problem is his crew is so rife with fear and loathing that keeping them from killing each other is hard enough; getting to the door of the bank will take an absolute miracle.

Gary Yates, Director, Producer: “If you live in a dream world it will inevitably become a nightmare. Which at first might seem like an odd theme for a comedy, but I think a lot of great comedies share that theme. Sullivan’s Travels. The Ladykillers. Groundhog Day. Tootsie. Lost In America… If you have an opportunity to save yourself from that nightmare, to what ends are you willing to go to make yourself a better person?”

Robin Cass, Producer: “I hope the people walking into High Life the movie have the same experience that I had when I saw the play. You go for whatever reason, and you spend and hour and a half in a world full of criminals, which one might think is not so appealing. But that’s this movie’s great charm – it’s everything you don’t expect about that experience that really wins the day.”

Timothy Olyphant (Dick): “We shot a scene in a jail… and in Winnipeg, being in jail is better than being outside because it’s f***ing freezing outside. There are people in Winnipeg who are actually, like, ‘You know what? Arrest me, because it’s freezing out here.’ ”