Shia LaBeouf’s Borg/McEnroe will open the 42nd Toronto International Film Festival on September 7, the festival announced on Monday.
The film is directed by Janus Metz and written by Ronnie Sandahl and it stars LaBeouf, Sverrir Gudnason and Stellan Skarsgard. It portrays the story of the epic rivalry between Swedish tennis legend Björn Borg (Gudnason) and the American John McEnroe (LaBeouf), which came head-to-head during the 1980 Wimbledon Championships.
“‘Borg/McEnroe’ has a powerful tension about it that is on par with the electric energy of Toronto on Opening Night,” said Piers Handling, Director and CEO of TIFF. He added: “The story of this nail-biter matchup changed the sport of tennis forever, and the outstanding performances from LaBeouf and Gudnason will be a spectacular way for Festival-goers to kick things off”.
Metz added, “I am extremely honored by TIFF’s selection of ‘Borg/McEnroe’ as the opening film. It is a great celebration and recognition of everyone in the cast and crew who worked so hard to make this film what it is. We had very high ambitions for this project and have come such a long way together. I’m very excited that we can finally let the film out into the world, and I couldn’t dream of a better way of doing this”.
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