“The Life of Chuck,” a feel-good apocalyptic story starring Tom Hiddleston and directed by Mike Flanagan, took home the Toronto International Film Festival’s people’s choice award. This prize has historically been a reliable predictors of eventual Oscar success. In past years, winners such as “Green Book” and “Nomadland” went on to capture the best picture … Read more
The Oscars race is wide open this year, and so is the question of which film will win the coveted TIFF Audience Award. With A-listers like Selena Gomez and Angelina Jolie and breakout stars like Mikey Madison and Gabriel LaBelle, the 49th annual Toronto International Film Festival concludes on Sunday after screening 278 films over … Read more
Two Nigerian tech savants and their legal counsel are thrust into a labyrinth of state restriction, brutality and corruption in director Afolabi Olalekan’s debut feature “Freedom Way,” which heads to TIFF for its international premiere, screening as part of the fest’s Discovery line-up which highlights bold global cinema. The film was chosen among Variety’s profiles of 16 … Read more
The Toronto Film Festival premiere of Ron Howard‘s “Eden,” a survival thriller starring Sydney Sweeney, Ana de Armas, Vanessa Kirby, Jude Law and Daniel Brühl, was briefly halted due to a “medical emergency as an attendee was carried out of Roy Thomson Hall on a stretcher. The 5:45 p.m. screening was interrupted around 7 p.m. … Read more
“All of You,” a sales title premiering in Toronto Sept. 7, features a test many viewers might shy away from taking. In the story, set in the near-future, science has devised a method to determine one’s true soulmate — if one is willing to take the test. An unexpected answer comes between Simon (Brett Goldstein) … Read more
The Toronto International Film Festival kicked off its 49th edition with the world premiere of “Nutcrackers,” a crowd-pleasing fish-out-of-water comedy from director David Gordon Green and Ben Stiller in his first film role in seven years. Stiller’s big screen homecoming wasn’t the only major return to TIFF. Star power is back, baby! Last year’s festival … Read more
In “They Will Be Dust,” Carlos Marqués-Marcet, the Goya-winning director of “10,000 KM,” heads into a genre-bending exploration of life, love, and death. World Premiering at this year’s stacked Toronto International Film Festival’s Platform strand, the film is far from a conventional musical. It fuses contemporary dance and musical elements with the stark realities of … Read more
Park Hoon-jung, an in-demand director of action-noir films, will begin production this month on “Tristes Tropiques.” The picture will be launched to distributors on the sidelines of the Toronto International Film Festival by Finecut, which is to handle sales rights. The film follows a group of young assassins affiliated with the Tristes Tropiques organization, which … Read more
Paris- and Berlin-based sales house Salaud Morisset has picked up international sales for “Under the Volcano,” which is set to world premiere in the Centrepiece section at Toronto Film Festival next month. “Under the Volcano,” Polish director Damian Kocur’s second feature, tells the story of a Ukrainian family spending the last day of their holiday … Read more
International documentary sales firm Cinephil has acquired “The Wolves Always Come at Night” from writer-director Gabrielle Brady, which will world premiere at Toronto Film Festival in Platform Competition. Variety is debuting the first-look clip. Cinephil has worldwide rights excluding the U.K. (BBC Storyville), Australia and New Zealand (Madman Entertainment), Germany and France (SWR/Arte), and Mongolia … Read more