The Twin Cities Film Fest has announced its lineup for 2015 festival, which will be held Oct. 21-31 at the Kerasotes ShowPlace IOCN at The Shops at West End in St. Louis Park.

The 11-day festival features top films from celebrated national and international filmmakers as well as new faces and Minnesota talent, as well as live musical performances, Red Carpet galas, cocktail mixers, panel discussions and special events.

The mission of this year’s festival is to support Homeless Youth. In keeping with that mission, TCFF will open with the adventure documentary, “A New High,” which received critical acclaim from the Los Angeles Film Festival. The film features a group of men and women who come together to climb out of homelessness and drug addiction through a recovering program that uses mountain climbing as a means of rehabilitation.

The festival will also feature “Too Late” as the official Centerpiece Film welcoming Minnesota native and Oscar nominee John Hawkes to the festival to accept the Northstar Award for Excellence. To commemorate his illustrious career, the festival will include a retrospective of his previous films including “Winter’s Bone,” “Me and You and Everyone We Know” and an encore showing of “Too Late.”

Closing the festival will be “Thank You for Playing,” a family documentary, dubbed by critics as the “most important film ever made about video games.” A graphic designer turns to creating a new video game when his 1-year-old is diagnosed with a brain tumor, creating a one-of-a-kind immersive experience that aims to bring players into his family’s experience with grief and fear.

TCFF is also excited to include “Room” in this year’s programming, having recently won the Audience Award at Toronto International Film Festival. The film, based on the best-selling novel “Emma Donoghue,” features breakout performances from Brie Larson and 8-year-old Jacob Tremblay as a mother and son who plan a heroic escape from captivity.

Other highly anticipated special features include “The 33,” a biopic starring Antonio Banderas and Juliette Binoche about the Chilean miners who were trapped under ground for two months; Charlie Kaufman’s new stop-motion film “Anomalisa,” which can credit its success in part to the 100,000+ people who crowdfunded the movie; and “Brooklyn,” a historical drama starring Saorise Ronan as a woman who jumps between 1950s Ireland and New York forced to choose between two different men, two different countries and two very different ways of life.

Additional films include “The Adderall Diaries,” a biopic and drama starring James Franco; “Touched With Fire,” a romantic drama starring Katie Holmes; “Remember,” a historical thriller starring Christopher Plummer; and “Youth,” an arthouse drama starring Michael Caine.

TCFF members receive additional benefits, including access to members-only screenings and events, discounts on TCFF Merchandise, Early-Bird ticket purchasing, and more. Details on tickets and TCFF membership can be found on TCFF Membership page.

For a full list of films playing at this year’s festival please visitwww.twincitiesfilmfest.org.

Sun Media is the official print sponsor of the Twin Cities Film Fest.