Stephen Gyllenhaal’s comedy stars Jason Biggs and will bookend the festival with the previously announced opening night screening of Lynn Shelton’s Your Sister’s Sister (pictured). The festival is set to run from May 17-Jun 10.

The North American premiere of The Chef is the centerpiece gala and Pixar’s summer release Brave is among the special presentations. All in all 273 features and 187 shorts will screen and the roster includes a record 24 feature world premieres.

World premieres include Ned Thorne’s 419, Jeff Kaufman’s America, Alan Brennan’s Earthbound, Tom Wright’s The Long Ride Home and Rob Whitehair’s True Wolf.

The festival line-up includes the upcoming DreamWorks family drama People Like Us with Chris Pine and Elizabeth Banks, Ken Scott’s Quebecois hit Starbuck, Alex de la Iglesia’s As Luck Would Have It, Daryl Wein’s Lola Versus and Jake Schreier’s Robot And Frank.

Among the New Directors Competition entries are Roberto Pérez Toledo’s 6 Points About Emma (Spain), Sergey Loban’s Chapiteau-Show (Russia), Nicolas Provost’s The Invader (Belgium) and Jung-ho Yang’s Mirage (South Korea).

The line-up includes the New American Cinema, the Catalyst programme celebrating independent production, a documentary strand and FutureWave & Films4Families. As previously announced, Sissy Spacek and William Friedkin will receive career tributes.

“There are so many things to be excited about this year with the opening of our flagship SIFF Film Center headquarters and the acquisition of the historic Uptown Cinemas,” artistic director Carl Spence said. “This is the first time in [the festival’s] history that we will have the opportunity to show films on multiple screens in a single location allowing us to present the most wide-ranging and diverse selection of films possible.”

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