Here's what to look for at this year's Toronto International Film Festival

TORONTO (AP) — The spotlight at the 51st edition of the Toronto International Film Festival will belong to Rocky Balboa, KPop superstar Lisa, late disability rights pioneer Judy Heumann and many more when North America’s largest film festival gets underway Thursday.

TIFF is so large and covers such a wide spectrum of movies that the chance to command attention can be fleeting. The majority of this fall’s awards contenders will be vying to stand out alongside movies hoping to catch a distributor’s eye.

Coming quickly on the heels of festivals in Venice and Telluride, TIFF will screen many of the films that have just premiered at those events, too. Toronto funnels a large percentage of the top fall movies into a 10-day traffic jam of premieres.

That includes starry debuts, midnight screenings and a lot of would-be Oscar contenders. Here are some of the storylines heading into this year’s TIFF.

In all likelihood, there is not a $1 million production waiting to be acquired and turned into a $512 million blockbuster. But that’s exactly what happened at last year’s TIFF, where Curry Barker’s indie horror film premiered with modest fanfare and sold to Focus Features for $15 million.

The hit that “Obsession” became will, no doubt, be a tantalizing possibility for distributors shopping for the next hit at TIFF. Festival organizers have in recent years reoriented TIFF as a top movie market, with both finished films and packaged productions up for sale. More than 6,000 market delegates are expected this year, up from 1,000 last year.

Some of the top sales premieres at TIFF this year include Tim Blake Nelson’s “The Life and Deaths of Wilson Shedd,” a prison drama with Amanda Seyfried; Susanne White’s “Prima Facie,” with Cynthia Erivo as a barrister defending a man accused of sexual assault; and, from the midnight section, “Rogue Trooper,” an animated science fiction by “Moon” director Duncan Jones. But there are many more, including a late-addition wildcard: “The Last Photograph” from “Man of Steel” filmmaker Zack Snyder.

TIFF starts things off with its opening night premiere: “Being Heumann.” Siân Heder’s follow-up to her best picture-winning “CODA.” The film stars Ruth Madeley as Judy Heumann, the disability rights activist who died in 2023.

Chris Rock will debut “Misty Green,” which he wrote and directed. A character study about a hard-headed actor in Hollywood (Rosalind Eleazar), it's poised to propel Eleazar (“Slow Horses”) into the Oscar race.

Other top titles include “Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother,” starring Mahershala Ali as a religious hitman; Rachel Morrison's “Love of Your Life,” a romantic drama led by Margaret Qualley; and Peter Farrelly's “I Play Rocky,” starring Anthony Ippolito as a young Sylvester Stallone while making “Rocky.” Farrelly's “Green Book” first launched at TIFF in 2018 before going on to win best picture at the Academy Awards.

Other festivals have prestigious awards like the Golden Lion (Venice) or the Palme d'Or (Cannes). Toronto's top award isn't a juried selection, like those prizes, but the audience-voted People's Choice Award. It's an unusually good Oscar oracle, too. Since 2012, every winner but one has eventually been nominated for best picture at the Oscars. Last year, “Hamnet” won it.

That's partly because aside from hosting its own world premieres, many of the standouts from Cannes (“Minotaur,” “Fatherland,” “Club Kid,” “All of a Sudden,” “La Bola Negra,” “Fjord”), Venice (“Wild Horse Nine,” “Possible Love,” “Ink”) and Telluride (“Elsinore,” “The Debut,” “Tender Loving Care,” “A Long Winter”) will stop at TIFF, too. Whatever TIFF attendees like the most will have a major edge in the Oscar race.

The flashiest music documentary heading to Toronto is, without a doubt, “Always Lalisa,” chronicling the solo turn of Lisa Manobal, the K-pop superstar of the group Blackpink.

But a wide range of music will be blaring off of TIFF screens. “Pretenders” profiles Chrissie Hynde and the seminal rock band she founded in 1978. In “Darlene Love: I Know Where I've Been” the great vocalist of “He's a Rebel” and “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)” looks back on her legendarily up-and-down career. “Bleeding Hearts” documents the rise of country newcomers Chaparelle. And “Neil Peart: No One's Disciple” pays tribute to the Rush drummer.

FILE - A sign for the Toronto International Film Festival appears on the opening night of the festival in Toronto on Sept. 5, 2024. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello, File)

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — A federal judge has allowed Missouri’s top court to proceed with a contempt hearing Thursday against Republican Secretary of State Denny Hoskins in a tense and twisting legal battle over whether new congressional districts supported by President Donald Trump can be used in the November election.

Missouri’s battle over its congressional districts has spanned more than a year and spawned confusion over which districts will be in place for voters.

The state’s top court previously ordered Hoskins not to use a Trump-backed map in the general election and instead use districts passed after the last census. But U.S. District Judge Stephen Clark on Tuesday barred Hoskins from using anything other than the new map Trump supports.

The state Supreme Court then ordered Hoskins to appear for a contempt hearing Thursday for not following its orders and instructing local election authorities to use the Trump-backed districts.

State attorneys representing Hoskins had asked Clark to halt the contempt hearing. But Clark declined to do so.

The contempt hearing for Hoskins is scheduled to occur as the U.S. Supreme Court simultaneously considers a request from redistricting opponents to halt Clark's order favoring the Trump-backed congressional map.

Missouri was the second Republican-led state, after Texas, to enact new districts after Trump urged Republicans last year to redraw House districts to their advantage ahead of the midterm elections.

The revised Missouri districts target a Kansas City-based seat held by Democratic Rep. Emanuel Cleaver by shedding parts into neighboring districts and stretching the remainder into rural Republican areas. The goal is to help Republicans win seven of the state’s eight House seats in the midterm elections — a gain of one seat.

Redistricting opponents collected hundreds of thousands of petition signatures seeking to force a statewide vote on the new districts. They submitted the signatures in December. But Hoskins waited until August — on the same day as Missouri’s primary — to reject the petition. Hoskins asserted that a referendum petition could not be used for congressional redistricting.

The delay allowed Missouri to use the new districts in its August primary. Republican state officials have argued it would violate voters' federal rights to switch districts before the general election.

But the Missouri Supreme Court last week ordered Hoskins to put the redistricting referendum on the November ballot, which he did. It also ruled that the new districts never became law and instead were suspended retroactively to the December petition submission.

The court barred Hoskins from using the new map and said the old map — passed by Republican lawmakers in 2022 after the last census — must be used in the November election. The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday declined to hear an appeal of that decision. But Clark issued his conflicting order moments later.

FILE - Missouri Secretary of State Denny Hoskins talks to reporters Tuesday, Aug. 4, 2026, at his office in the state Capitol in Jefferson City, Mo. (AP Photo/David A. Lieb, File)

In this photo taken with a smartphone, people opposed to a congressional redistricting plan rally outside the Missouri Capitol in Jefferson City, Mo., Wednesday, Sept. 2, 2026. (AP Photo/David A. Lieb)