“People say “You’re the so-and-so character” and I’m like, ‘I don’t know who that is'”.
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Then there are the political biopics which bring to mind the current USA presidential election. Natalie Portman is generating early buzz for her role as former US first lady Jacqueline Kennedy in Jackie, while Oliver Stone’s Snowden is getting attention for his hot-button take on NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden.
Speaking with JIS News prior to her departure, Miss Robinson said the mission will advertise Jamaica as a film-producing destination and serve as an avenue to make valuable connections in the worldwide film industry. “But it feels like this year, filmmakers are going a little deeper in terms of exploring the volatility of what’s happening around us right now”.
“Maybe if people see this film and understand the beginnings of where people come from, and they see how actions mean consequences in life that maybe change will come, and we can all look at each other as human beings”.
Similarly, true stories Loving, about an interracial couple’s long struggle for marriage equality, and A United Kingdom, about an African royal who marries an Englishwoman, offer insights into race relations.
In fact, it’s mostly why I became a season-ticket holder to two sports teams in the city. I don’t think there will ever be a time where I walk into a building and see Denzel Washington or Mark Wahlberg and not feel like a child when he or she sees Santa.
Also relevant to the times is Oliver Stone’s “Snowden”.
Leonardo DiCaprio will attend the festival on Friday with his environmental documentary Before The Flood, while Ewan McGregor will appear at the premiere of his directorial debut American Pastoral.
There is also likely to be intense interest around the screening of slave revolt drama drama The Birth of a Nation amid the ongoing controversy over director Nate Parker’s rape trial 15 years ago, in which he was acquitted. The first year that I was accredited as press at TIFF was in 2001, and I was 26 years old-today I’m 41.
Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone’s performances as a jazz musician and an aspiring actress who fall in love in the bewitching musical “La La Land”, which opened the Venice film festival before coming to Toronto, has also stirred up a frenzy. Quebec director Denis Villeneuve delves into sci-fi with the aliens drama “Arrival”.
In a survey of teachers attending a year ago, 83 per cent said the festival made them more likely to use film or cinema visits to support the curriculum.
Nearly 140 of the films are world premieres while most have already made their debuts at other fests.
They said that the film is about “a woman seeking an audience with the Primate of Poland, the country’s top Catholic cardinal”. “As our official digital projection partner, Christie enables us to be on the cutting edge of technology, seamlessly presenting films onscreen with precision and brilliance, faithfully reproducing for our audiences exactly what the filmmaker saw in the final stages of completing their film”.
That thought kind of takes me back a few years.
“‘Strictly Ballroom” was discovered at Cannes but it was discovered by America at the Toronto film festival”, he says. It was a great way to see the films and be part of the festival experience.
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Winning the TIFF People’s Choice Award also gets distributors “very excited”, he adds.
