Book adaptations at TIFF

Book lovers have cause to celebrate, as this year’s Toronto International Film Festival is buzzing with numerous book-to-movie adaptations. To celebrate these cinematic adaptations, here’s a look at a selection of books we can’t wait to read and/or see on the big screen.

Several movies opening this year have been adapted from gripping memoirs that date back a few decades, or even go back to the 19th century. Solomon Northup’s Twelve Years a Slave, first published in 1853, tells the story of a free black man from Upstate New York who was kidnapped and sold into slavery in 1841, then finally freed in 1853. The film, directed by Steve McQueen and produced by Brad Pitt, is a serious Oscar contender. TIFF’s opening film, The Fifth Estate, is a thriller based on WikiLeaks’ founder Julian Assange and his quest to expose governmental corruption and the abuse of power.

While Nelson Mandela’s autobiography Long Walk to Freedom chronicles his life journey from childhood to his inaugural election as president of South Africa, Mara Leveritt’s Devil’s Knot: The True Story of the West Memphis Three (pictured at left, starring Reese Witherspoon) tells the tale of the 1993 murders of three eight-year-old boys. The Railway Man by Eric Lomax is a bestselling memoir that chronicles his time at a Japanese concentration camp during World War II, where he was tortured as a prisoner of war. This year’s festival also has a selection of highly anticipated films based on novels, including Joyce Maynard’s Labor Day, the late Larry Brown’s Joe and The Switch by Elmore Leonard (the latter released under the title Life of Crime). Take a look below at the books that hit the screen this year at TIFF. ~Marriska Fernandes

TIFF BOOK-TO-MOVIE ADAPTATIONS

Inside WikiLeaks: My Time With Julian Assange at the World’s Most Dangerous Website by Daniel Domscheit-Berg and WikiLeaks: Inside Julian Assange's War on Secrecy (The Fifth Estate)
Long Walk To Freedom: The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela (Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom)
Devil's Knot: The True Story of the West Memphis Three by Mara Leveritt
Twelve Years a Slave by Solomon Northup
The Railway Man by Eric Lomax
The Switch by Elmore Leonard (Life of Crime)
Labor Day by Joyce Maynard
Joe by Larry Brown