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THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER 1

T O R O N T O

TORONTOWEATHER AND HIGH TEMPS

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SEPTEMBER 14, 2015THR.COM/TORONTO №4

Can Netflix and Amazon Rescue a Weak Market?By Tatiana Siegel and Scott Roxborough

W ith Toronto dealmaking off to a slow start, sellers

are looking for a digital savior.Amazon and Netflix are said

to be in the mix on a number of the most promising acquisi-tion titles, from Michael Moore’s Where to Invade Next to the controversial Aretha Franklin documentary Amazing Grace. Amazon also is circling the Amber Heard starrer London Fields. That’s a dramatic departure from last year’s TIFF incarnation when tra-ditional players reigned, with Paramount swooping in early to buy worldwide rights to Chris Rock’s Top Five.

But with the festival enter-ing its fifth day and interest remaining tepid for many of the finished films on display, Netflix and Amazon are seen as the most likely players to get the ball rolling. A source says Moore already has rejected a Netflix offer and is negoti-ating a deal with a theatrical distributor. Another source says Netflix was still in play as of press time.

“[Where to Invade Next] will be a difficult sell beyond the core Michael Moore fans, so it

C O N T I N U ED O N PA G E 2

From left: Nicholas Hoult, Kristen Stewart (in Chanel) and director Drake Doremus attend the premiere of the sci-fi romance Equals at the Princess of Wales Theatre on Sept. 13.

Equals Opportunity

Oscar Picture Gets a Bit Clearer

The first weekend of the 40th Toronto International Film Festival was jam- packed with Oscar hopefuls — in a year in

which no clear front-runner has emerged — some of which came away with their prospects more intact than others.

Among TIFF world premieres, Fox’s The Martian was a big winner. Ridley Scott’s space-set dramedy proved to be something of a cross between Guardians of the Galaxy and Gravity — not just a strong commercial bet, but also a return to form for the filmmaker. In addition to below-the-line noms, it could propel lead Matt Damon to his third acting nomination.

Also winning strong notices for performances were Truth, the Sony Pictures Classics drama

about Dan Rather-gate, which stars Cate Blanchett (a lead) and Robert Redford (supporting); Bleecker Street’s Trumbo, in which Bryan Cranston movingly portrays blacklisted screenwriter Dalton Trumbo; and Sony Classics’ The Lady in the Van, led by

two-time Oscar winner Maggie Smith as a home-less woman.

Eye in the Sky, a thriller about drone war-fare starring Oscar winner Helen Mirren, is still seeking U.S. distribution, as is Born to Be

Blue, featuring a strong performance by Ethan Hawke as jazz legend Chet Baker.Also seeking a buyer at press time was Oscar

winner Michael Moore’s doc Where to Invade Next, which argues that the American Dream is alive and

C O N T I N U ED O N PA G E 2

The Martian and Matt Damon score points, with Cate Blanchett, Johnny Depp and Idris Elba also drawing attention in the acting categories By Scott Feinberg

Beasts of No Nation

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Awards Buzz!

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theREPORT

well, just not in America. It would be a doc contender for whichever company scooped it up.

Less well-received: Sony Classics’ I Saw the Light, though lead actor Tom Hiddleston could be in play for his portrayal of famed country singer Hank Williams; and Warner Bros.’ Our Brand Is Crisis, a political dramedy starring Oscar winner Sandra Bullock that many see as purely commercial, if that.

Ironically, five of the biggest winners of the festival’s first few days came via other fests. From

Venice, Netflix’s Beasts of No Nation could be an awards vehicle for star Idris Elba; Johnny Depp and Joel Edgerton won strong notices for Scott Cooper’s Black Mass; Tom McCarthy’s Spotlight could contend in several categories; and Tom Hooper’s The Danish Girl propels lead Eddie Redmayne (seeking a second consecutive Oscar win) and supporting actress Alicia Vikander into the race. And via Cannes, Sicario, Denis Villeneuve’s intense drug war thriller, could deliver supporting actor Benicio Del Toro — who won an Oscar for the not-dissimilar Traffic — another nomination.

makes sense that Netflix would buy it,” said Rudiger Boss, head of acquisitions at German broadcasting group ProSiebenSat.1. “I just hope they overpay again and waste more money.”

Given the pre-festival hype surrounding the film, Where to Invade has become a tone-setter. But the fact that there’s no deal yet for Moore’s film has led to the perception that this is, in fact, a weak market.

One indie distributor said dealmaking fren-zies of past years failed to justify themselves at the box office, leading many to question how the current crop of acquisition titles can ever secure North American deals that prove profitable. Last year, Toronto produced splashy sales like Noah Baumbach’s While We’re Young, which sold to A24 for $4 million but earned just $7.5 million during its theatrical run.

“I’ve never seen it so quiet. There’s nothing to buy,” said another indie distributor. “It’s not just Toronto. Cannes was quiet too.”

That leaves Netflix, which has Beasts of No Nation playing the fest, and Amazon as Toronto’s sleeping giants. “It is the future, no doubt, but at the moment it is unbalanced because the U.S. market has developed in a way that is com-pletely different than the rest of the world,” says Lisa Wilson, co-founder and partner of sales and financing company The Solution.

That said, distributors expect deals to emerge this week or in the weeks leading to AFM, after the price for acquisition titles become more realistic.

Etan Vlessing and Rebecca Ford contributed to this report.

O pen Road is moving Oliver Stone’s Snowden from its Christmas Day release date to 2016.

The move bumps the film about Edward Snowden, the former government contractor who leaked classified information from the NSA, from this year’s Oscar race.

Sources say the film, which stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Shailene Woodley, isn’t finished yet. Open Road hasn’t yet determined the film’s new release date.

The move gives some breathing room to the Christmas Day frame, busy with five other wide releases — Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip, the Will Smith star-rer Concussion, the Will Ferrell-Mark Wahlberg comedy Daddy’s Home, the Jennifer Lawrence dramedy Joy and the remake Point Break — as well as juggernaut Star Wars VII: The Force Awakens, open-ing the previous week. Christmas Day also includes bows for Quentin Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight and the new Leonardo DiCaprio drama The Revenant from Oscar winner Alejandro G. Inarritu.

Stone’s film has been eagerly anticipated given that it is the first narrative feature to tackle the polarizing figure, considered a hero by some and a traitor by others. The Snowden documentary Citizenfour won this year’s best documentary Oscar. Kieran Fitzgerald and Stone wrote the screenplay.

Wild Bunch is selling international territories on Snowden here in Toronto.

Open Road Pushes Snowden to 2016 Release By Tatiana Siegel

The Martian with Matt Damon could be a strong contender in multiple categories, while Helen Mirren (left) in Eye in the Sky and Maggie Smith in The Lady in the Van may be in the best actress conversation.

HEAT INDEX

C AT E B L A N C H E T TAfter receiving glowing reviews in

Cannes for her performance in Carol, the actress is being lauded once

again for her work in Truth, which premiered in Toronto on Sept. 12.

know your dealmaker

C A M E R O N M C C R A C K E NMANAGING DIRECTOR, PATHE U.K.

McCracken scored a major deal when he sold upcoming opera biopic

Florence Foster Jenkins, starring Meryl Streep and Hugh Grant, to

Paramount for a rumored $8 million to $10 million. Pathe only showed seven

minutes of footage from the film.

S A N D R A B U L L O C KThe star of Our Brand Is Crisis is drawing

strong reviews for her performance, but the response to the film has

mostly been tepid, with THR’s Todd McCarthy saying it “feels halfway

between a studio film and an indie.”

• Tom Cruise’s Mission: Impossible — Rogue Nation debuted to $86 million in China after opening Sept, 8, pushing the film’s worldwide haul to $613 million.

• HBO won 29 trophies at the Creative Arts Emmys, led by Game of Thrones.

• A poll released Sept. 13 has Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders taking the lead among Democratic candidates in the 2016 presidential cam-paign in early primary states.

MEANWHILE, IN THE REAL WORLD …

AwardsCONTINUED FROM PAGE 1

NetflixCONTINUED FROM PAGE 1

Stone

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In a festival noteworthy for a pair of high-profile transgen-der-themed movies, an action

film with a gender-reassigned pro-tagonist quietly is being packaged and shopped to buyers.

Called Tomboy, the project, which The Solution is selling, has veteran action helmer Walter Hill (48 Hrs., Last Man Standing) attached to direct and Sigourney Weaver and Freida Pinto in various stages of negotiations to co-star. However, the project, being produced by Said Ben Said (Map to the Stars) of SBS Productions, still lacks a headliner who will play a male hitman who becomes a woman against his will. A search is underway for an actress to take on the role.

The script, written by Hill and Denis Hamill, centers on an ace assassin who is double-crossed by gangsters and falls into the hands of rogue surgeon known as “The Doctor,” who turns him into a woman. When he comes to, the hitman (now a hitwoman) sets out for revenge, aided by a nurse named Johnnie, who also has secrets.

If deals close, Weaver would play the surgeon and Pinto the nurse. The pro-ducers had zeroed in on Andrea Riseborough to portray the assassin, but a potential deal fell through because of scheduling issues with her role on the Netflix series Bloodline.

But as one of the festival’s movies has shown, having a gender-swapping protagonist only broadens the search field. Case in point: Tom Hooper’s drama The Danish Girl. Eddie Redmayne is

earning raves for playing the part of a man who becomes one of the first to have gender-reassign-ment surgery, but when the project was first com-ing together back in the early 2000s, it was Nicole

Kidman who was on board to play the character. However, the lead for About Ray — the other prom-inent transgender-themed movie playing in TIFF — was always meant to star a young woman, in this case Elle Fanning.

Solution Shops Thriller About Hitman Turned Hitwoman By Borys Kit and Tatiana Siegel

Baldwin, Hayek Ready to Tie One OnBy Rebecca Ford

Alec Baldwin and Salma Hayek are ready to get their drink on by starring in Drunk Parents, which The House Bunny helmer Fred Wolf will direct.

Hayek, whose Septembers of Shiraz is playing at the festival, and Baldwin will play the Teagartens, parents who have just dropped their daughter off at college. The next night, they proceed to get drunk, and their inebriated state leads to a bad decision, a kidnapping and a serious case of mistaken identity. Wolf and Peter Gaulke wrote the script.

Fortitude International’s Robert Ogden Barnum and

Bron Studios’ Aaron L. Gilbert will produce, and CW Media Finance’s Jason Cloth, Fortitude’s Nadine de Barros

and Daniel Wagner and Brillstein Entertainment’s Jai Khanna will executive produce.

“Alec and Salma are incredibly charismatic, hilar-ious talents,” says Barnum. “Audiences are going to love watching these two beautiful people take on all

odds in Drunk Parents,” said Barnum.Fortitude is handling foreign rights to the film and is pre-

senting it to buyers at TIFF. CAA and UTA Independent Film Group are co-repping North American rights.

Salma Hayekwill have one too many in a comedy that also stars Alec Baldwin.

Foster RZA

Hill

Momentum Takes Frears’ Program for North America

Entertainment One’s Momentum Pictures has acquired North American rights to the Lance Armstrong drama The Program, starring Ben Foster. Stephen Frears directs the StudioCanal film about the disgraced seven-time Tour de France champion. The biopic had its world premiere on Sept. 13 in Toronto.

Rapper RZA Will Call the Shots on the Thriller Breakout

Rapper-turned-director RZA has signed on to helm the thriller Breakout for Amasia Entertainment. The film centers on a young photographer falsely arrested in Bangladesh for drug trafficking. His prominent father enlists two old friends to help him break his son out of prison and uncover the truth.

Zurich Festival Head Launches Production Outfit SPK Pictures

Zurich Film Festival head Karl Spoerri has launched his own production shingle, SPK Pictures, with an eye to co-financing and producing eight English-language features over the next four years. SPK is backed by Falcon Private Bank, a subsidiary of Abu Dhabi’s sovereign wealth fund. The com-pany has raised slightly more

than $10 million in equity and says it will raise another $10 mil-lion within the next 12 months.

Golden Islands Filmworks Invests in Antigua Fund

Golden Islands Filmworks has set up a $125 million film fund with the government of Antigua to back five features, including the Bob Marley biopic Rebels and an espionage thriller based on the Nick Carter novels. The fund is the first to take advantage of Antigua’s citizenship-by-invest-ment program. Investors will receive Antiguan citizenship as well as the tax and travel advan-tages that conveys.

Baldwin

Pinto

TORONTODEALS KA-CHING!WHO’S INKING

ON THE DOTTED LINE AT THE FESTIVAL

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Landing a coveted Midnight Madness slot during TIFF for his horror film The Girl

in the Photographs was a dream come true for filmmaker Nick Simon. Not having Wes Craven by his side for the world premiere on Sept. 14 at 11:59 p.m. is, well, quite the opposite.

Craven, 76, who passed away on Aug. 30 after a battle with brain cancer, not only has an executive producer credit on Photographs, but he also served as a mentor to Simon for the past three years after they met through a WGA mentorship program.

“It’s awful,” Simon tells THR of the death of the horror mae-stro, famous for his A Nightmare on Elm Street and the Scream franchises. “Personally, I lost a friend. I have an email in which he says that he considered himself my godfather in film. I feel empty … like a piece is missing. Professionally, it’s sad that he never got to enjoy the hard work we did together.”

Simon remembers first spot-ting an email in his inbox from the WGA while walking through the Dallas airport in 2012 inform-ing him that Craven would be his mentor. “I could not believe what I was reading,” he said.

What followed is equally surprising: Craven invited Simon and his selection of five WGA mentees to his home for regular

dinners to discuss the craft of filmmaking. Craven would later ask Simon about his slate of projects, to which he offered up the spec script for Photographs, which he wrote with Robert Morast

and Osgood Perkins. Craven volunteered to help get it made.

“He was in the trenches with us,” Simon explained.

“As a filmmaker who has not done a lot, it’s the thing you daydream about — a legend who helps you make a movie.”

Simon describes his film as a “throwback to ’80s horror films, which I’ve always loved.” The plot centers on a small-town checkout girl who becomes a victim in a serial killer’s game when she starts receiving pho-tos of murdered women. A Los

The horror master played a pivotal role in the making of first-time director Nick Simon’s Midnight Madness title The Girl in the Photographs By Chris Gardner

Angeles-based fashion photog-rapher, played by Kal Penn, reads about the twisted mystery and heads back to his hometown to investigate.

Simon said Craven left behind some valuable advice. “He told me to quit apologizing so much in meetings,” recalls Simon, who lists Craven’s The Serpent and the Rainbow and Elm Street as his personal faves. “He said, ‘You’re a nice guy, but don’t say you’re sorry all the time.’

“He also said that if things aren’t going the way they should, be prepared to walk away.”

Audiences won’t walk away from Photographs without seeing a touching tribute to Craven. Simon tells THR that once the film fades to black, two words follow the title credit: “For Wes.” THR

“He was a very active producer,” says Simon.

“He gave notes and sat in the editing room. We

moved from mentor and mentee to collaborators.”

Here, a scene from The Girl in the Photographs.

Wes Craven’s Spirit Lives OnHidden

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THR Toasts Team Trumbo in Toronto

Chatter about film history, creative freedom and the awards race permeated THR’s intimate dinner (presented by American Airlines) for Jay Roach’s Trumbo, a Bleeker Street release about the blacklisted scribe.1 Trumbo star Bryan Cranston (right) chats with THR executive editor Matthew Belloni at Cibo Wine Bar.2 Elle Fanning, who plays Trumbo’s daughter, Nikola, who was there as well.3 From left: Bleeker Street’s Andrew Karpen and eOne’s Darren Throop and Steve Bertram.

Craven

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2 3

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CONTACT: UNITED STATES | Debra Fink | [email protected] | Alison Smith | [email protected] • Tommaso Campione | [email protected] ASIA | Ivy Lam | [email protected] • AUSTRALIA/NEW ZEALAND | Lisa Cruse | [email protected]

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W I T H

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Q&A


DIRECTOR

THEO

KIN

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How tough was it to get the movie financed?We were extremely lucky. The initial optioning took place at Focus Features at the same time as Focus was optioning my first screenplay, Sin Nombre. I happened to have [Iweala’s] book — I had no plans to pitch it — it was just in my hand because I was reading it, and the executive at Focus said, “I love that book, I want to adapt it into a movie.” So we ended up making a deal not only for my first screenplay but also for that book. We hit some initial struggles when Focus decided we weren’t going to make it after I wrote the screen-play. Johnny Mad Dog [a 2008 film set in Africa] had just come out in Cannes and got a limited release. Beasts got put on the shelf . I was amazed when [producer] Red Crown came aboard to make it; It seemed like an inherently unsellable film.

What struggles did you have during the shoot?There were just so, so many. I really

pushed to shoot in West Africa, which meant we’d be in a place that didn’t have any sort of infra-structure for a movie. The kind of things that were happening were things you wouldn’t imagine were happening on a real film set. There were constant renegotia-tions with people like the drivers, who figured out that we needed them to deliver equipment and we wouldn’t be able to hire others, so they kept asking for more money. One of our producers was the nephew of the president of Ghana, so we thought we would get the military and other things for almost nothing, but in the end, they upped the price and held onto equipment until the last second so we’d pay them more. It was a lot of negotiations every day.

Was this the toughest shoot of your career?Without a doubt. I mean, True Detective was hard because of the pace, but Beasts of No Nation was the most difficult thing I’ve ever done. And I wasn’t the only one who got sick. Actors got sick, our prop

master got dysentery. Even our accountant who was in an office the whole time got malaria. How did you decide to cast Idris Elba?Idris is one of those guys who’d I’d had my eye on for many years now, through The Wire. And given his chameleon-like adaptability and his African heritage — his mother is from Ghana, his father is from Sierra Leone — he was the only guy I went out to.

And how did you find Abraham Attah?We found him through street casting. It was sort of the same way we approached Sin Nombre. Our casting director went to every school, playground and orphanage [in Ghana].

Is he going to pursue acting?We’ve had a lot of conversations about that. The main thing is managing expectations. I want him to enjoy this experience, but I also don’t want him to be traumatized if the attention he’s getting right now disappears. So education is the first thing. We put him and a couple of the other kids in the film who were actually homeless into boarding schools.

Did you struggle with how much violence to keep in the film?I wouldn’t say struggle. In a way, you’re conducting or moderating your audience’s ability to take in what’s going on versus turning away from it. It’s about riding that line. And there may be one

or two scenes that may push too much and make people turn it off or walk away, that’s possible. But even then the violence in the film is so minimal compared to how gruesome real war is. And it’s not about gratuitous violence, it’s about the context of the violence that makes it disturbing. Our empathy is different in a drama. Is there any frustration for you that the film won’t play in the bigger the-ater chains due to the Netflix deal?It was never going to be shown there. If Sony Pictures Classics or Fox Searchlight had picked up the film, it would still be in the Landmark or the smaller cinemas. That was just a lot of posturing by the larger theater chains. I com-pletely understand their position, but the world is changing — you can’t be a rock in a river.

What are you working on next?I have things that I’m pushing along, including some more per-sonal projects that I’ve had for a long time. But nothing is ready to go right now. So all of my atten-tion is going to Beasts and getting it out into the world.

There’s been lots of talk about you leaving It, but do you ever see yourself doing a big Hollywood studio movie, or even a tentpole?The older I get, the more I realize how short life is. I just want to make sure if I’m going to commit a couple years to something, it’s something I really care about.

“I still want movies like [Beasts] to

screen in cinemas,” says Fukunaga.

Cary FukunagaThe Beasts of No Nation auteur on the film’s grueling

shoot in Africa, moderating violence on the big screen and the reality of the Netflix deal By Rebecca Ford

TO DESCRIBE THE SEVEN-WEEK SHOOT FOR CARY FUKUNAGA’S

Beasts of No Nation as brutal would be an understatement. Fukunaga, the acclaimed helmer of Sin Nombre, Jane Eyre and the first season of True Detective (for which he won an Emmy), fought

to have the film shot in Ghana, and, as a result, struggled with the challenges of shooting in a place with no film professionals or infra-structure. Actors disappeared, local crewmembers demanded more money when they realized they had the upper hand and, during the shoot, Fukunaga had to rewrite the third act to make it more man-ageable and budget-friendly. Plus, the director got malaria and lost a significant amount of weight during the shoot. But it seems to have all been worth it for Fukunaga, with Beasts premiering to critical acclaim at Telluride and Venice ahead of its screening at TIFF. An adaptation of Uzodinma Iweala’s 2005 novel about a young boy (Abraham Attah) who joins of a group of mercenaries in his war-torn West African nation, Beasts also marks a major gamble for Netflix as the company’s first big foray into film. (It’ll be released on streaming and in select theaters through Bleecker Street on Oct. 16.) Fukunaga, 38, spoke to THR about the challenges of shooting in Ghana, what he thinks of the Netflix release model and if he’ll ever do a big studio movie.

3Number of features directed

101Years between the first Jane Eyre film and his 2011 version

450Number of pages in the

script for the first season of HBO’s True Detective

BY THE NUMBERS

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Contact: UNITED STATES | Debra Fink | [email protected] | Alison Smith | [email protected] // Tommaso Campione | [email protected] ASIA | Ivy Lam | [email protected] // AUSTRALIA/NEW ZEALAND | Lisa Cruse | [email protected]

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By Chris Gardner

About TownRAMBLING REPORTER

Clint’s Daughter Booted From Bash“It’s like being at a hot party in college where all the cool kids hang out in the kitchen,” mused one attendee at the always starry InStyle/HFPA bash presented by Max Mara, pointing to a packed VIP alcove where Eddie Redmayne, Tom Hiddleston, Dakota Johnson, Rachel Weisz, Alicia Vikander, Brie Larson, Michael Shannon and Geoffrey Rush converged like sardines to the beats of celeb DJ Michelle Pesce. Elsewhere at the Windsor Arms Hotel party, Naomi Watts, Benicio Del Toro, Susan Sarandon and Idris Elba worked the room. Other dish: Clint Eastwood’s daughter, Francesca Eastwood, appeared to be so inebriated, she had to be escorted out. “She was embarrassing herself,” says one reveler.

Ladies Night Out With Drew and ToniThe dearth of female directors in Hollywood has been a hot-button issue, and the women behind Miss You Already — director Catherine Hardwicke and stars Drew Barrymore and Toni Collette — countered the statistics by celebrating their strengths Sept. 12 at a Grey Goose-sponsored party at the hotspot Soho House. “Having my second daughter minutes before making this movie, I fell in love with the idea of being in the company of women in a film about women,” Barrymore tells THR.

How Lana Helped Eddie on Danish GirlIn the end credits of Tom Hooper’s The Danish Girl, starring Eddie Redmayne as trans pioneer Lili Elbe, Hooper and Redmayne offer up a long list of thank-yous that includes filmmaker Lana Wachowski. When Redmayne began researching the part, he was working on Wachowski’s 2015 sci-fi movie Jupiter Ascending, and, as he explains it, Lana helped him kickstart the process. “She really pointed me to where to start reading — to Jan Morris’ book Conundrum, to Kate Bornstein’s Gender Outlaws and to the book about Lili, Man Into Woman. And I think she actually owns works by Gerda [Wegener],” says Redmayne, adding, “I absolutely adore Lana; she’s such a generous human being.”

Trends always take time to travel north from faddy cities like L.A. or New York, and now Toronto is flooded with the juice craze.

“Every corner has a juice bar — it’s definitely a competitive marketplace,” says Hana James, co-owner and one of seven partners at hotspot Greenhouse Juice Co., which maintains five locations in Toronto, including a TIFF-adjacent pop-up shop inside The Detox Market at 367 King St. West. (Sources have spotted Rachel McAdams and Lenny Kravitz picking up juice at Greenhouse). “It’s very satisfying to see how that shift toward healthier options is spreading through the city.”

As for what is most popu-lar, James offers that green juices are hot, especially during the festival, when frantic and exhausted industry types need a quick meal replacement. Says James: “The city is abuzz from the festival, so it’s a really fun time for us.”

THE L.A. JUICE CRAZE HITS TORONTO

HAHA!

Canadian Joke of the Day

A Canadian carrying a case of beer is asked by his friend, Doug, “Hey Bob! Whatcha got the beer for?” “I got it for my wife, eh,” answers

Bob. “Oh!” exclaims Doug, “Good trade.”

PATRICIA ROZEMAInto the Forest, Mansfield Park

Best local dive to throw down a shot with former mayor Rob FordI wouldn’t be caught dead in the same place as that tragic buffoon.

Your worst Toronto nightmare story When my first film (1987’s I’ve Heard the Mermaids Singing) opened the festival, it was fantastic, but I got

lost in the crush at the party and couldn’t find anyone I knew, and my feet hurt from my stupid new shoes. I took them off and put them down somewhere, and then I couldn’t find them or anyone familiar, so I left. I walked home in bare feet. Still happy. Guess that was a happy nightmare. Your “Only in Toronto” moment I overheard some people arguing over a map in French, so I offered, in my

best though lame French, to help. When they heard my English accent, they switched to English. Then I heard their Dutch accent, so we switched to Dutch.

Most Canadian thing about TorontoOur international- ophilia — we are very open to the rest of the world’s films, food & ideas.

What you have lost during the fest My shoes.

THE WRITER-DIRECTORtoronto according to ...

SEPT. 14 Kate Winslet is expected at the Piper-Heidsieck bash for The Dressmaker at Byblos. Party with Susan Sarandon,

Rose Byrne and Sony Pictures Classics execs at The Meddler bash sponsored by Grey Goose at Soho House. Rand Luxury invites guests

for an Anomalisa reception at the Luxury Lounge at Windsor Arms.

• TORONTO PARTY PREVIEW •

SCENE+HEAR D Ellen Page graciously invited Stacie Andree — the woman she plays in TIFF selection Freeheld — to attend the premiere and afterparty of her other festival selection, Into the Forest. … Tom Hardy took a break in front of the sink in the men’s restroom at Soho House during his Legend bash to focus on his text messages. … In a marked reversal of Sony’s previous regime, studio chairman Tom Rothman worked the room at Sony Pictures Classics’ annual press dinner at Creme Brasserie. … Also at the dinner, noted Scientology critic and blogger Roger Friedman was chatting amicably with Scientologist Elisabeth Moss. … At THR’s video lounge, actor Ed Skrein met Nicholas Hoult and told him he’d recently been mistaken by a fan as him. … Matt Weiner strode through the lobby at the Ritz-Carlton. … CAA’s John Campisi rolled calls in the Fairmont Royal York.

Time to get juiced!

Page

Eastwood

Larson and Hiddleston shared a laugh Sept. 12 at the

Windsor Arms.

Redmayne

d4_toronto_rambling_J.indd 10 9/13/15 6:34 PM

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EntertainmentNews

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F R OM L E F T

Scott McNairy, producer Grant Heslov, Sandra Bullock, Zoe Kazan and director David Gordon Green of Our Brand Is Crisis S E P T. 1 1 , 1 1 :3 0A M“They removed the penis. And the testicles.” — Bullock, on the only changes made to her character, a role originally written for George Clooney

Kiernan Shipka of FebruaryS E P T. 1 2 , NO ON

Darila Charusha of Hardcore

S E P T. 1 2 , 2 : 0 9P M

To hear talent come clean about their first gigs, their thoughts

on the political climate and the inside scoop on their films, go to

THR.com

F R OM L E F T

Alicia Vikander, director Tom Hooper and Eddie Redmayne of The Danish GirlS E P T. 1 3 , 1 1 A M

d4_toronto_portfolio_I.indd 12 9/13/15 4:41 PM

Toronto Diary 2015THR turns its lens on Hollywood A-listers (Sandra Bullock!) and awards-season hopefuls (Tom Hooper’s breakout The Danish Girl) at the Toronto International Film Festival, where icons and upstarts toasted 40 years of cinema

by Stacey Wilson Hunt and Gregg Kilday // Photographed by Austin Hargrave at Brassaii in TorontoProduced by Jennifer Laski and Jenny Sargent

Jessica Chastain of The MartianS E P T. 1 1 , 10 :4 6A M“My very first meeting, I said, ‘If I do this movie, does it mean that I can go to space camp?’ ”

David Oyelowo of Five Nights in Maine

S E P T. 1 3 , 10 : 2 6A M“I loved the quiet and stillness of the story, even though it’s

about deep grief.”



F R OM L E F T

Josh Brolin, Emily Blunt and Benicio Del Toro

of SicarioS E P T. 1 1 , 1 : 1 2 P M

Geoffrey Rush of Daughter

S E P T. 1 2 , 1 2 :2 7P M

Elle Fanning (L E F T)

& Naomi Watts of About Ray

S E P T. 1 1 , 4 : 52 P MFanning on talking with

transgender boys about their experience:

“It was incredible how much they did tell me and

the details that they went into, because I was just a

stranger to them.”

F R OM L E F T

Alia Shawkat, Imogen Poots, director Jeremy Saulnier, Patrick Stewart and Anton Yelchin of Green Room

S E P T. 1 1 , 1 1 : 5 3 A M

THR PHOTO LOUNGE TEAM Jessica Lawson, Orion Zuyder Hoff-Gray, Mori Arany, Rebecca LeachTHR VIDEO LOUNGE TEAM Stephanie Fischette, Victoria McKillop, Ryan Heraly, Caleb Seppala, Joakim Tjenell, Alexander Wessel, Nico Mazet, Jose Cortez, Pablo Teyssier-Verger, Tess Gomet, Phil Yang, Nasim Ali, Ben Dundas, Callie Brown



Evan Rachel Wood of Into the Forest

S E P T. 1 1 , 5 : 1 2 P M“Unlike other apocalyptic

films, where it’s more fantastical and there’s

zombies or robots or this or that, [this is] a more

realistic portrayal of what it would be like if every

luxury you had was taken away from you. No

electricity, no power, no parents, no food.”

F R OM L E F T

Ellen Page, Julianne Moore and Michael Shannon of FreeheldS E P T. 1 1 , 1 1 : 0 9A M“I was excited about the complexity that we could offer in a film,” says Page, “particularly about a gay relationship, the complexity to be closeted … what it means to compromise your love.”

Rossif Sutherland of River

S E P T. 1 2 , 1 :3 3P M

F R OM L E F T

Harvey Keitel, Madalina Ghenea, Paul Dano, Rachel Weisz and Michael Caine of YouthS E P T. 1 3 , 1 1 :4 0A M



TODAY (SEPT. 14)8:30 A.M. Five Nights in Maine , Scotiabank Theatre , Scotiabank 13 , Press & Industry , Discovery Lolo , Scotiabank Theatre , Scotiabank 3 , Press & Industry , Gala Presentations As I Open My Eyes , Scotiabank Theatre , Scotiabank 10 , Press & Industry , Contemporary World Cinema The Program , Scotiabank Theatre , Scotiabank 2 , Press & Industry , Gala Presentations

8:45 A.M. One Floor Below , AGO , Jackman Hall , Public , Contemporary World Cinema Women He’s Undressed , Scotiabank Theatre , Scotiabank 9 , Press & Industry , TIFF Docs Beeba Boys , Scotiabank Theatre , Scotiabank 4 , Press & Industry , Gala Presentations Ivy , TIFF Bell Lightbox , Cinema 4 — Paul & Leah Atkinson Family Cinema , Public , Contemporary World Cinema Guilty , Scotiabank Theatre , Scotiabank 7 , Press & Industry , Special Presentations

9:00 A.M. Montanha , TIFF Bell Lightbox , Cinema 6 — Stanislaw Shibinsky Cinema , Private Beast , Scotiabank Theatre , Scotiabank 11 , Press & Industry , Discovery Short Cuts Programme 5 , Scotiabank Theatre , Scotiabank 5 , Press & Industry , Short Cuts Born to Be Blue , The Bloor Hot Docs Cinema , The Bloor Hot Docs Cinema , Public , Special Presentations Land of Mine , Scotiabank Theatre , Scotiabank 14 , Press & Industry , Platform My Mother , TIFF Bell Lightbox , Cinema 2 , Public , Special Presentations Colonia , Scotiabank Theatre , Scotiabank 1 , Press & Industry , Special Presentations Spotlight , Princess of Wales , Press &

Industry , Special Presentations

9:15 A.M. The Missing Girl , Scotiabank Theatre , Scotiabank 8 , Press & Industry , Vanguard Magallanes , Scotiabank Theatre , Scotiabank 6 , Press & Industry , Contemporary World Cinema Sunset Song , TIFF Bell Lightbox , Cinema 3 , Public , Special Presentations

9:30 A.M. Viva La Sposa (Long Live the Bride), TIFF Bell Lightbox , Cinema 7 , Private Remember , TIFF Bell Lightbox , Cinema 1 , Public , Gala Presentations

10:00 A.M. Fireworks (Archives) , AGO , Contemporary Galleries , Public , Wavelengths Bring Me the Head of Tim Horton , TIFF Bell Lightbox , TIFF Bell Lightbox , Public , Wavelengths The Forbidden Room — A Living Poster , TIFF Bell Lightbox , TIFF Bell Lightbox , Public , Wavelengths

10:30 A.M. Born to Be Blue , Scotiabank Theatre , Scotiabank 13 , Press & Industry , Special Presentations

10:45 A.M. The Devil’s Candy , Scotiabank Theatre , Scotiabank 10 , Press & Industry , Midnight Madness Families , Scotiabank Theatre , Scotiabank 3 , Press & Industry , Special Presentations Freeheld , Scotiabank Theatre , Scotiabank 2 , Press & Industry , Gala Presentations Brooklyn , Elgin/Winter Garden Theatres , Winter Garden Theatre , Public , Special Presentations

11:15 A.M. Hong Kong Trilogy: Preschooled Preoccupied Preposterous , AGO , Jackman Hall , Public , Contemporary World Cinema The Music of Strangers: Yo-Yo Ma and

the Silk Road Ensemble , Scotiabank Theatre , Scotiabank 9 , Press & Industry , TIFF Docs Price of Love , Scotiabank Theatre , Scotiabank 5 , Press & Industry , Contemporary World Cinema Summertime , Scotiabank Theatre , Scotiabank 14 , Press & Industry , Special Presentations The Wave , Scotiabank Theatre , Scotiabank 4 , Press & Industry , Special Presentations Last Cab to Darwin , Scotiabank Theatre , Scotiabank 11 , Press & Industry , Contemporary World Cinema

11:30 A.M. Starve Your Dog , TIFF Bell Lightbox , Cinema 4 — Paul & Leah Atkinson Family Cinema , Public , Contemporary World Cinema Jack , Scotiabank Theatre , Scotiabank 7 , Press & Industry , Contemporary World Cinema Northern Soul , Scotiabank Theatre , Scotiabank 8 , Press & Industry , City to City Colonia , Elgin/Winter Garden Theatres , Visa Screening Room (Elgin) , Public , Special Presentations High-Rise , Scotiabank Theatre , Scotiabank 1 , Press & Industry , Platform

11:45 A.M. The Reflektor Tapes , The Bloor Hot Docs Cinema , Public , TIFF Docs Heart of a Dog , TIFF Bell Lightbox , Cinema 2 , Public , TIFF Docs

12:00 P.M. 88:88 preceded by May We Sleep Soundly , Scotiabank Theatre , Scotiabank 6 , Press & Industry , Wavelengths Desierto , Scotiabank Theatre , Scotiabank 12 , Press & Industry , Special Presentations The Lady in the Car With Glasses and a Gun , TIFF Bell Lightbox , Cinema 5 — NBCUniversal Cinema , Private Freeheld , Ryerson Theatre , Public , Gala Presentations Room , Princess of Wales , Press & Industry , Special Presentations Beasts of No Nation , Roy Thomson Hall , Public , Special Presentations Fallen Objects , Scrap Metal Gallery , Scrap Metal Gallery , Public , Wavelengths

12:15 P.M. The White Knights , TIFF Bell Lightbox , Cinema 1 , Public , Platform

12:30 P.M. La Giubba , Clint Roenisch Gallery , Public , Wavelengths Viva , TIFF Bell Lightbox , Cinema 7 , Private Office , TIFF Bell Lightbox , Cinema 3 , Public , Special Presentations

12:45 P.M. Bang Gang (A Modern Love Story) , Scotiabank Theatre , Scotiabank 13 , Press & Industry , Platform A Tale of Three Cities , Scotiabank Theatre , Scotiabank 10 , Press & Industry , Special Presentations

1:15 P.M. The Wait , Scotiabank Theatre , Scotiabank 3 , Press & Industry , Discovery The Man Who Knew Infinity , Scotiabank Theatre , Scotiabank 2 , Press & Industry , Gala Presentations

1:45 P.M. The Fear , AGO , Jackman Hall , Public , Contemporary World Cinema SHERPA , Scotiabank Theatre , Scotiabank 7 , Press & Industry , TIFF Docs Short Cuts Programme 6 , Scotiabank

FESTIVAL SCREENING GUIDE

Theatre , Scotiabank 5 , Press & Industry , Short Cuts Bleak Street , Scotiabank Theatre , Scotiabank 9 , Press & Industry , Masters Equals , Scotiabank Theatre , Scotiabank 4 , Press & Industry , Special Presentations

2:00 P.M. Thru You Princess , The Bloor Hot Docs Cinema , Public , TIFF Docs Ninth Floor , TIFF Bell Lightbox , Cinema 4 — Paul & Leah Atkinson Family Cinema , Public , TIFF Docs Endorphine , Scotiabank Theatre , Scotiabank 14 , Press & Industry , Vanguard Desierto , Elgin/Winter Garden Theatres , Winter Garden Theatre , Public , Special Presentations Angry Indian Goddesses , Scotiabank Theatre , Scotiabank 11 , Press & Industry , Special Presentations

2:15 P.M. Koza , Scotiabank Theatre , Scotiabank 8 , Press & Industry , Contemporary World Cinema The Other Side , Scotiabank Theatre , Scotiabank 6 , Press & Industry , Wavelengths Into the Forest , TIFF Bell Lightbox , Cinema 2 , Public , Special Presentations

2:30 P.M. La Giubba , Clint Roenisch

d4_toronto_screeningguide_C.indd 16 9/13/15 10:57 AM


Gallery , Public , Wavelengths Forsaken , Scotiabank Theatre , Scotiabank 12 , Press & Industry , Gala Presentations Beeba Boys , Scotiabank Theatre , Scotiabank 1 , Public , Gala Presentations

3:00 P.M. The Meddler , Princess of Wales , Public , Special Presentations Neon Bull , TIFF Bell Lightbox , Cinema 5 — NBCUniversal Cinema , Private High-Rise , Ryerson Theatre , Public , Platform Parisienne , Scotiabank Theatre , Scotiabank 13 , Public , Contemporary World Cinema

3:15 P.M. The Promised Land , Elgin/

Combined , Platform Guilty , Ryerson , Ryerson Theatre , Public , Special Presentations

6:30 P.M. The Here After , Scotiabank Theatre , Scotiabank 13 , Public , Discovery Les Cowboys , Scotiabank Theatre , Scotiabank 2 , Public , Discovery The Returned , TIFF Bell Lightbox , Cinema 1 , Public , Primetime A Perfect Day, TIFF Bell Lightbox , Cinema 7 , Private The Dressmaker , Roy Thomson Hall , Public , Gala Presentations Imbisibol , Scotiabank Theatre , Scotiabank 10 , Public , Contemporary World Cinema

6:45 P.M. The Ardennes , Scotiabank Theatre , Scotiabank 4 , Public , Discovery February , Scotiabank Theatre , Scotiabank 9 , Public , Vanguard Short Cuts Programme 7 , TIFF Bell Lightbox , Cinema 3 , Public , Short Cuts

7:00 P.M. The Hard Stop , Scotiabank Theatre , Scotiabank 3 , Public , City to City Fire Song , Scotiabank Theatre , Scotiabank 5 , Press & Industry , Discovery Bolshoi Babylon , Scotiabank Theatre , Scotiabank 14 , Public , TIFF Docs

7:15 P.M. Wavelengths 4: Psychic Driving , AGO , Jackman Hall , Combined , Wavelengths Song of Songs , Scotiabank Theatre , Scotiabank 8 , Public , Contemporary World Cinema Girls Lost , The Bloor Hot Docs Cinema , Public , Contemporary World Cinema Arabian Nights: Volume 3, The Enchanted One , Scotiabank Theatre , Scotiabank 6 , Press & Industry , Wavelengths

7:45 P.M. Guantanamo’s Child: Omar Khadr , Isabel Bader Theatre , Public , TIFF Docs 11 Minutes , TIFF Bell Lightbox , Cinema 2 , Public , Masters Dégradé , Scotiabank Theatre , Scotiabank 11 , Public , Discovery

8:00 P.M. Being Charlie , Elgin/Winter Garden Theatres , Winter Garden Theatre , Public , Special Presentations The Lady in the Van , Scotiabank Theatre , Scotiabank 12 , Public , Special Presentations

9:00 P.M. Men & Chicken , Scotiabank Theatre , Scotiabank 1 , Public , Vanguard Black Mass , Elgin/Winter Garden Theatres , Visa Screening Room (Elgin) , Public , Special Presentations

Incident Light , AGO , Jackman Hall , Public , Contemporary World Cinema CUCKOLD , Scotiabank Theatre , Scotiabank 8 , Public , Contemporary World Cinema Honor Thy Father , The Bloor Hot Docs Cinema , Public , Contemporary World Cinema

4:30 P.M. La Giubba , Clint Roenisch Gallery , Clint Roenisch Gallery , Public , Wavelengths No Home Movie , Scotiabank Theatre , Scotiabank 6 , Press & Industry , Wavelengths Murmur of the Hearts , TIFF Bell Lightbox , Cinema 4 — Paul & Leah Atkinson Family Cinema , Public ,

9:15 P.M. It All Started at the End , Scotiabank Theatre , Scotiabank 5 , Press & Industry , TIFF Docs Beast , TIFF Bell Lightbox , Cinema 3 , Public , Discovery Being AP , Scotiabank Theatre , Scotiabank 4 , Public , TIFF Docs

9:30 P.M. Evolution , Ryerson Theatre , Public , Vanguard The Memory of Water, TIFF Bell Lightbox , Cinema 7 , Private The Rainbow Kid , Scotiabank Theatre , Scotiabank 8 , Public , Discovery Desde Allá , Scotiabank Theatre , Scotiabank 13 , Public , Discovery Schneider vs. Bax , Scotiabank Theatre , Scotiabank 2 , Public , Contemporary World Cinema Kilo Two Bravo , TIFF Bell Lightbox , Cinema 1 , Public , City to City Hyena Road , Roy Thomson Hall , Public , Gala Presentations Mountains May Depart , Princess of Wales , Public , Special Presentations

9:45 P.M. River of Grass , TIFF Bell Lightbox , Cinema 4 — Paul & Leah Atkinson Family Cinema , Combined , TIFF Cinematheque Our Last Tango , Scotiabank Theatre , Scotiabank 9 , Public , TIFF Docs P.S. Jerusalem , Scotiabank Theatre , Scotiabank 14 , Public , TIFF Docs Short Cuts Programme 8 , AGO , Jackman Hall , Public , Short Cuts 3000 Nights , Scotiabank Theatre , Scotiabank 10 , Public , Contemporary World Cinema Janis: Little Girl Blue , Scotiabank Theatre , Scotiabank 7 , Press & Industry , TIFF Docs Frenzy , Scotiabank Theatre , Scotiabank 3 , Public , Contemporary World Cinema

10:00 P.M. The Ones Below , Scotiabank Theatre , Scotiabank 6 , Press & Industry , City to City Body , The Bloor Hot Docs Cinema , Public , Special Presentations The Whispering Star , Isabel Bader Theatre , Public , Contemporary World Cinema Les etres chers , TIFF Bell Lightbox , Cinema 2 , Public , Contemporary World Cinema

10:15 P.M. The Steps , Scotiabank Theatre , Scotiabank 11 , Public , Contemporary World Cinema

11:59 P.M. The Girl in the Photographs , Ryerson Theatre , Public , Midnight Madness

Winter Garden Theatres , Visa Screening Room (Elgin) , Combined , Platform

3:30 P.M. The Yellow Affair, TIFF Bell Lightbox , Cinema 7 , Private Equals , TIFF Bell Lightbox , Cinema 1 , Public , Special Presentations A Heavy Heart , Scotiabank Theatre , Scotiabank 10 , Public , Contemporary World Cinema One Breath , TIFF Bell Lightbox , Cinema 3 , Public , Contemporary World Cinema

3:45 P.M. Ville-Marie , Scotiabank Theatre , Scotiabank 2 , Public , Special Presentations Embrace of the Serpent , Scotiabank Theatre , Scotiabank 3 , Public , Contemporary World Cinema

4:00 P.M. Chevalier , Scotiabank Theatre , Scotiabank 9 , Public , Contemporary World Cinema The Memory of Justice , Scotiabank Theatre , Scotiabank 7 , Press & Industry , TIFF Cinematheque

4:15 P.M. Eva Doesn’t Sleep , Scotiabank Theatre , Scotiabank 4 , Public , Wavelengths Hardcore , Scotiabank Theatre , Scotiabank 14 , Public , Midnight Madness

Contemporary World Cinema

4:45 P.M. No Men Beyond This Point , Scotiabank Theatre , Scotiabank 5 , Press & Industry , Vanguard An , Isabel Bader , Isabel Bader Theatre , Public , Contemporary World Cinema Urban Hymn , Scotiabank Theatre , Scotiabank 11 , Public , City to City

5:00 P.M. The Program , Scotiabank Theatre , Scotiabank 12 , Public , Gala Presentations The Family Fang , Elgin/Winter Garden Theatres , Winter Garden Theatre , Public , Special Presentations

5:15 P.M. 25 April , TIFF Bell Lightbox , Cinema 2 , Public , Contemporary World Cinema

6:00 P.M. Collective Invention , Scotiabank Theatre , Scotiabank 1 , Public , Vanguard Film Factory Entertainment , TIFF Bell Lightbox , Cinema 6 — Stanislaw Shibinsky Cinema , Private Spotlight , Princess of Wales , Public , Special Presentations

6:15 P.M. HURT , Elgin/Winter Garden Theatres , Visa Screening Room (Elgin) ,

The Fear

d4_toronto_screeningguide_C.indd 17 9/13/15 10:58 AM


R E V I E W S

D ISGR ACED CYCLIST

Lance Armstrong’s rise and fall are ploddingly

chronicled in The Program, Stephen Frears’ latest foray into docudrama after his successes with Philomena and The Queen. But where those modestly middlebrow films had likable little ladies for protagonists played by charismatic actors (Judi Dench and Helen Mirren, respectively), The Program is centered around the less appeal-ing figure of Armstrong, an egomaniacal, Lycra-clad cheat played with a tiresome lack of

I T MAY BE YESTERDAY’S NEWS, BUT there’s still plenty of juice left in Truth, a crackerjack journalism yarn in which big-name actors play big-name real-life characters who became embroiled in a

controversy that still raises partisan hackles.While this account of CBS News’ 2004

reporting of former President George W. Bush’s questionable career in the Air National Guard clearly takes the view of the reporter protagonists, the story is nonetheless so thick with political motives on both sides — as well as evidence that remains murky to this day — that the film should first and foremost be appreciated as a first-rate account of the pres-surized world of high-end TV news reporting. Cate Blanchett and Robert Redford lead a strong cast in an engrossing drama that should translate into solid specialized-release box office for Sony Pictures Classics.

“Of course” a film based on former CBS News producer Mary Mapes’ own book will tend to back her view of events, and “of course” a film co-starring Redford as long-time CBS Evening News anchor Dan Rather will have what is always called liberal bias. But what seems to most consume writer and

first-time director James Vanderbilt, author of the extraordinarily probing screenplay for David Fincher’s Zodiac, is going deep into the nitty-gritty of sourcing, reporting and connecting the dots in a mysterious story — something Mapes did not do flawlessly enough to avoid being fired by the network and drag Rather down with her.

As an account of a relatively recent journal-istic enterprise, Truth is superior in every way to the more mundane Spotlight, a look at The Boston Globe’s exposé of the Catholic Church’s longtime policy of covering up the clergy’s sex-ual abuse of youngsters. For starters, Truth is blessed with another galvanizing performance by Blanchett as Mapes, a high-powered news-woman seemingly at the top of her game.

In the summer during the ramp-up to the 2004 presidential contest, discontent over the Iraq War is making Bush’s prospects for re-election look questionable. His nonservice in Vietnam and what was sometimes alleged as special treatment in the National Guard before heading off to Harvard Business School were always touchy subjects, but now word comes Mapes’ way that Bush may even have shirked duty and not fulfilled the terms of his service. This hot stuff provokes Mapes to put together a small team, including a former Marine (Dennis Quaid), a professor (Elisabeth Moss) and a researcher (Topher Grace).

Almost everyone with Bush family connec-tions refuses to talk, of course, but one key figure, the elderly Retired Lt. Col. Bill Burkett (Stacy Keach), provides Mapes with incrimi-nating information and a couple of documents

to back it up. It’s enough to get CBS on board with her and Rather determined to report it.

Still, it’s an election year, and any evidence CBS offers up against Bush is guaranteed to meet with withering opposition from all the president’s men. The general word is that any genuinely compromising documents about Bush’s National Guard days have long since been pulled out of the records, but the network feels confident enough in the Mapes team’s reporting and the authenticity of the documents that it goes with the story. After Rather delivers it on the air, the whole team basks in the afterglow of a job brilliantly done.

But the administration’s response catches everyone off-guard. The key documents, the Bush team says, were printed in a typograph-ical format only available on Microsoft Word; as all documents in the late 1960s were written with manual typewriters, the documents are fake. Burkett then tries to recant, and the wind that for a time was filling the news crew’s sails is now whipping them in the face.

Both sides lawyer up and, when it’s clear where the momentum now lies, CBS begins distancing itself from its longtime star pro-ducer and, ultimately, its veteran news anchor. Vanderbilt includes just enough about Mapes’ personal life for the viewer to have a sense of how her husband and son accept taking second place to her professional life, and he’s smart not to take gratuitous swipes at the Bush team; there’s an understanding that this is the way the big boys play, no matter which team you’re on.

Still, there’s got to be a fall guy, or in this

TruthRobert Redford and a superb

Cate Blanchett star as Dan Rather and Mary Mapes in James Vanderbilt’s first-rate

newsroom drama by todd mccarthy

The ProgramBen Foster stars as Lance Armstrong and Chris O’Dowd

as the journalist who helped uncover his lies in Stephen Frears’ dreary and disappointing drama by leslie felperin

nuance by Ben Foster.Unable or unwilling to probe

Armstrong’s psychology in any depth, The Program becomes a glib rehash of old news. Ultimately, the core issues that make Armstrong’s story so compelling — drugging in sports, institutional corruption, the destructive nature of competitive-ness, the debasing influence of celebrity — are only superficially explored, making this a disap-pointment on nearly every level.

Eschewing an opportunity to explore Armstrong’s early life, the story picks up in 1993 for

Foster’s portrayal of Armstrong lacks subtlety.

d4_toronto_rev_truth+program_F.indd 18 9/13/15 3:29 PM


case the gal at the center of it, one who near the end must face a virtual murderer’s row of hostile lawyers and administration gunsling-ers; under the circumstances, Mapes acquits herself honorably.

Blanchett gives this dynamo of intelligence and doggedness a real human dimension that allows the propulsive drama to breathe; it’s another stellar performance that rates among her best. Redford doesn’t closely conform to Rather’s looks, but he nonetheless inhabits the

role credibly, his very familiarity merging with that of the real man he’s playing. Redford’s Rather is often seen with a cocktail, and sev-eral of the other characters, including Mapes, clearly enjoy their booze as well, a testament to the habits of generations of journalists past. Supporting roles are all well filled, notably by Keach as the ambivalent and ailing key source and Bruce Greenwood as the increasingly per-turbed head of CBS News, Andrew Heyward.

You’d never guess the film was shot almost

entirely in Australia. First-rate production values are led by Mandy Walker’s smooth cin-ematography and production designer Fiona Crombie’s attractive interior settings.

Special Presentation Cast Cate Blanchett, Robert Redford, Topher Grace, Elisabeth Moss, Bruce Greenwood, Stacy Keach, John Benjamin Hickey, Dermot Mulroney Director James Vanderbilt // 121 minutes

As embattled CBS journalists, Blanchett

and Redford come under fire after their

report about Bush.

Armstrong’s first Tour de France and interview with Sunday Times sports journalist David Walsh (Chris O’Dowd), whose book, Seven Deadly Sins: My Pursuit of Lance Armstrong, inspired John Hodge’s screenplay.

Eventually, the story becomes one long downhill slide into infamy. Step by step, the script revisits the known facts of the story: how Armstrong battled cancer, how he discussed his use of performance-enhancing drugs with his doctor, which teammate Frankie Andreu’s wife Betsy (Elaine Cassidy) overheard and later revealed to Walsh, and how once he went into remission he became an unstoppable cycling machine with the help of shady Dr. Ferrari (Guillaume Canet). Enabled by team manager Johan

Bruyneel (Denis Menochet), agent Bill Stapleton (Lee Pace) and cycling authorities, Armstrong would become the ruthless enforcer of a code of silence, repeating his mantra that he “has never tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs.”

What the film does best is to get across the banality of cheat-ing in the sport, with drug use so endemic that evading getting caught becomes part of the game. At one point, the whole team in their tour bus is shown as they are hooked up to blood bags so they can recycle clean blood extracted earlier before they’re tested. It’s vivid moments like that when the film is at its best — likewise in scenes where it’s demonstrated how Armstrong exploited his charity work as a shield to make

him invulnerable to criticism. Unfortunately, the film shies

away from showing just how much of a celebrity he was at the time. There’s nothing here on his relationship with Sheryl Crow or his other famous friends, for example, and even his marriage to Kristin Richard (Chloe Hayward) is glossed over with just two quick scenes. Instead of showing the real commercials Armstrong shot for the many companies that sponsored him, Frears creates a montage of fake advertisements to score some cheap laughs, for instance, when Armstrong spits out a bad-tasting energy drink the moment a take is finished.

The broadness of that gag encapsulates everything that’s wrong with this film. It’s so pre-occupied with hammering home

the point that Armstrong was a liar and a cheat that it can’t risk giving him any credit for having charisma to spare, or at least enough cunning to know how to manipulate our fantasies about heroic sportsmen.

At least the cycling sequences are dynamically shot by director of photography Danny Cohen, while soundtrack choices under-score the period and add a bit of bounce, especially tunes like “Blitzkrieg Bop” by The Ramones and “Mr. Pharmacist” by The Fall.

Gala Presentation Cast Ben Foster, Chris O’Dowd, Jesse Plemons, Guillaume Canet, Lee Pace, Dustin Hoffman, Elaine Cassidy, Laura Donnelly Director Stephen Frears 103 minutes

d4_toronto_rev_truth+program_F.indd 19 9/13/15 3:29 PM


R E V I E W S

ELLE FANNING BRINGS EMO-

tional honesty, strength and gnawing urgency to the central performance in About Ray, play-ing a transgender teen born into a

female body who has long since moved beyond any uncertainty that he’s a boy. The irony in director Gaby Dellal’s fluffy comforter of a feel-good movie is that Ray’s story is trapped inside what in the old days might have been called a “women’s picture.” It’s involving but seldom affecting, with the drama continually shoved aside to examine more commonplace matters of parenting and abandonment.

The surge of trans issues in the mainstream conversation, as well as Fanning’s compelling performance, will help The Weinstein Co. draw attention to this Sept. 18 release. But the lightweight treatment is a long way from the psychological texture or emotional trenchancy of other films about female-to-male transi-tion, such as Boys Don’t Cry or French director Celine Sciamma’s little-seen Tomboy.

Dellal co-wrote the screenplay with Nikole Beckwith, and they constantly undermine the intensity of Ray’s in-between-ness by playing up the comedy of bantering in the clucking women that surround him. So much time is spent on Ray’s single mother Maggie that although she’s played with admirable empathy

by Naomi Watts, it starts to seem as if the film should have been called About Maggie.

A regular 16-year-old guy with a mop of bed-head hair, Ray grew up as Ramona in a brownstone in New York’s East Village, full of women, jazz and chaos. The house belongs to grandmother Dolly (Susan Sarandon), known as Dodo, an acerbic old-school feminist who thinks Ramona should follow her example and be a lesbian. Dodo and her longtime part-ner Frances (Linda Emond) feel it’s time for Maggie and Ray to get their own place, but the time never seems right to bring it up.

The central conflict, introduced in an opening family visit with Ray’s doctor, is the necessity of a parental consent form before he can begin taking testosterone. The years of therapy and discussion of Ray’s choice are behind them, and yet Maggie still struggles with gender pronouns and with the larger decision, dealing with the loss of her daughter while fearing for the future of her son. “What if he turns around one day with a full beard and says, ‘Mom, I made a mistake?’” she asks.

There’s little doubt that Maggie will ulti-mately be supportive, but the consent form requires both parents’ signatures, meaning she has to track down Ray’s father Craig (Tate Donovan). He’s been out of the picture for more than a decade and is reluctant to endorse

such a major step. Again, Dellal pushes hard with the cutesy low-key comedy, even when past intrigue is introduced with Craig’s brother (Sam Trammell). And the overwritten dialogue is laced with groaners, such as Dolly showing she’s on Ray’s side with a consolatory hug, saying, “It’s about time we had a man in this family.”

It seems fitting that Craig lives with his new family outside the city in Pleasantville, which is an appropriate name for the emotional ter-rain this skin-deep movie occupies.

About Ray is at its best in quiet moments centered on Fanning’s character, as he binds his chest or works out to develop his skinny frame. There’s poignancy in the characteri-zation of a brave individual eager to plunge into a more authentic life. And even after being assaulted and landing a shiner, Fanning underlines that beneath the bruises of experi-ence Ray is driven by a fully-formed sense of himself. Too bad that moving story gets clut-tered with sugary banalities about the crazy thing we call family.

Special Presentation Cast Naomi Watts, Elle Fanning, Susan Sarandon, Tate Donovan, Linda Emond Director Gaby Dellal 87 minutes

From left: Fanning, Watts and Sarandon are three generations of a New York family. About Ray

Elle Fanning shines as a trans teen opposite Naomi Watts and Susan Sarandon in this well-meaning but overly cutesy dramedy

by david rooney

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its sleeve, making it more of an elevated TV dramedy than a work on par with Trumbo’s best efforts.

Adapted by John McNamara from Bruce Cook’s biography, and directed by Jay Roach in a style somewhere between his commer-cial comedies (Meet the Parents) and his politically charged HBO movies (Game Change), the movie will play best on the small screen.

The story starts in 1947, when the screenwriter was chastised for his convictions by John Wayne (David James Elliott) and columnist Hedda Hopper (Helen Mirren). Still, Trumbo continued to work, signing a contract with MGM that would make him the highest-paid writer in the business. But as the House Un-American Activities Committee set its sights on the film industry, Trumbo found himself at the center of the

before long he declares his love, leaves his wife and starts a family with Maggie, who had recently decided she was going to have a child whether she found a partner or not.

Jumping forward a couple of years, we find the once-neglected husband taking his own turn at self-absorption. John writes all day while Maggie cares for their child and the two he had with Georgette. She resents being taken for granted while Georgette, who still calls daily to vent about her career, contin-ues to gets his attention. While sharing her frustrations with an old college boyfriend (scene-stealer Bill Hader) and his wife (Maya Rudolph), she starts to wonder if she could just return her husband to his original owner.

Sporting a thick, haughty accent that might initially make her character seem one-note,

Trumbo

I T’S HARD TO IMAGINE A

time when Hollywood was concerned by anything except

box office and the bottom line. So Trumbo, about blacklisted scribe Dalton Trumbo, who stood up to Congress, did jail time and went on to write films like Spartacus, serves as a decent reminder that not everyone in Tinseltown needs to be driven by greed, hubris and the pursuit of Oscar.

Starring a lively Bryan Cranston in a role that demands a certain amount of grandstand-ing and a lot of smoking, this rather hastily made period piece is boosted by a few welcome stabs at humor, most notably from Louis C.K. and John Goodman as two industry members who saw Trumbo through the worst years of the Red Scare. Otherwise, the film is far from subtle and tends to wear its righteous politics on

A QUASI HOME WRECK ER HAS A

change of heart in Rebecca Miller’s Maggie’s Plan, in which Greta Gerwig

learns, after much frustration, to stop steer-ing her life and let destiny do its job. A happy change of gears for the filmmaker, who has spent most of her career in more dramatic ter-ritory (The Ballad of Jack and Rose), the picture is one part Woody Allen, a few parts screw-ball-era comedy of remarriage and a vigorous shake of Gerwig herself, without whose partic-ular spirit — “so pure,” as one character puts it here, and “a little stupid” — this scenario might have trouble getting off the ground.

Gerwig plays the title character, a New School employee who befriends an adjunct prof, Ethan Hawke’s John Harding. Harding is married to Georgette (Julianne Moore), an ambitious Dane whose career has overshad-owed his dreams to publish a novel. Maggie’s enthusiasm for his writing is intoxicating, and

Cranston as Trumbo and Mirren as Hopper.

Gerwig and Hawke begin an adulterous affair.

Moore is virtuosic when Maggie comes to Georgette to propose engineering a reunion John will believe was accidental. She retains her air of intellectual superiority and sense of being wronged while revealing the wom-an’s loneliness and immediate liking for her younger rival. Georgette agrees to the plan, arranging for John to speak at a Canadian academic conference she’s attending; in a hap-penstance she couldn’t have planned better with God’s help, a snowstorm traps the still-hot-for-each-other exes in a cozy hideaway.

From here, the film’s comedy softens to allow each participant in this triangle to suffer emo-tional blowback, but it doesn’t get as bogged down as a typical rom-com would. Occasionally, a scene of Maggie with her daughter suggests this relationship is the film’s point, with the other stuff just enjoyable window dressing. And, as the picture’s uncommonly satisfying closing moments prove, it is. Maybe Maggie was right to take fate into her own hands — just not in the way she thought.

Special Presentation Cast Greta Gerwig, Ethan Hawke, Julianne Moore, Bill Hader, Maya Rudolph Director Rebecca Miller // 92 minutes

firing line, refusing to name names and holding himself in contempt of Congress.

The film portrays Trumbo as a family man (Diane Lane plays his wife, Cleo, and Elle Fanning his daughter) and workaholic, though also a bit of a speechifier. Luckily, fictional buddy Arlen (Louis C.K.) is there, and scenes between them help redeem what often feels like a broad historical pastiche.

Things get more interesting when Trumbo returns from prison, only to be blacklisted by the studios. Forced to make a living by having other writers claim his scripts as their own, he penned B-movies for producer

Frank King (Goodman) as well as Oscar winners Roman Holiday and The Brave One, for which he had to watch others accept his prize.

Roach cuts back and forth between comic hijinks, dramatic low points and re-created histor-ical footage of the communist witch hunts. Camerawork is serviceable, if never extremely interesting, while a cloying score by Theodore Shapiro seems to hits every single note on the nose.

Special Presentation Cast Bryan Cranston, Diane Lane, Helen Mirren, Louis C.K. Director Jay Roach 124 minutes

Bryan Cranston portrays screenwriting legend Dalton Trumbo in Jay Roach’s serviceable if underwhelming biopic

by jordan mintzer

Maggie’s PlanRebecca Miller’s endearing relationship

comedy starring Greta Gerwig is her most broadly appealing film yet

by john defore

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R E V I E W S

From Afar (Desde Alla)

ABSENT FATHERS CAST A LONG SHADOW IN WHICH

an unexpected connection deepens in From Afar, an assured first feature from Venezuelan writer-director

Lorenzo Vigas. Deliberately detached in its observational style yet as probing and affecting as any psychological drama, this is an elliptical film that trusts its audience enough to peel away exposition and unnecessary dialogue, uncovering layers of ambiguity. The intimate chamber piece, which just won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival, nonetheless has a stinging clarity that’s amplified in fine performances from Chilean veteran Alfredo Castro (No) and newcomer Luis Silva.

Castro plays single, middle-aged Armando, whose behavior on the streets in Caracas could less accurately be called cruis-ing than watching. When Armando first approaches the surly Elder (Silva) for sex, he gets an earful of anti-gay abuse. But the macho youth eventually follows him home, only to assault and rob him. Undeterred by his injuries or losses, Armando starts stalking Elder on the street, even finding out where he lives. The initial danger of their sex-free encounters shifts into more unsettling and increasingly obscure territory.

The infinitesimal degrees by which Vigas reveals changes in Elder make this a mesmerizing story, particularly when the youth starts opening up while the older man remains secre-tive. Without sentimentality, a nuanced portrait emerges of a rough-hewn kid who has never known what it is to be cared for; the film provides a transfixing account of how those unfamiliar sensations can nourish fluidity of desire and sexuality.

Castro’s wonderful performance imbues the character with a watchfulness full of hurt and anger, while Silva, a 21-year-old making his screen debut, is equally compelling. The way Elder sheds his inhibitions and relaxes into an unfamiliar sense of security makes what follows quite shattering.

Vigas and DP Sergio Armstrong capture the grit of the Caracas settings without overstatement. Armstrong frequently shoots his subjects in searching close-ups, but his gaze, simul-taneously tender and harsh, is never judgmental. By the time the movie is over, we’ve come to know and care about both men.

Discovery // Cast Alfredo Castro, Luis Silva, Jerico Montilla Director Lorenzo Vigas // 94 minutes

Alfredo Castro plays a gay man who cruises Caracas for sex — and more — in this rich, riveting Venice winner

by david rooney

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Silva plays a young Venezuelan who befriends an older gay man.

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Five Nights in Maine

IT’S R ARE TO COME ACROSS A MOVIE

about grief and grieving that doesn’t feel manipulative or routine (one understands

why Alejandro G. Inarritu took an ax to his narrative in 2003’s 21 Grams, rearranging the splintered pieces in nonchronological order). To its credit, Five Nights in Maine, the fea-ture-length debut from writer-director Maris Curran, isn’t either of those things. That doesn’t mean it’s good.

Starring David Oyelowo as a widower and Dianne Wiest as his cancer-stricken mother-in-law, this lugubrious indie drama is affecting in parts but never gels into a satisfying or sub-stantial whole. Part of the problem is also what makes the film unusual: its exceedingly light touch in dealing with race.

Centering on the uneasy interactions between Sherwin (Oyelowo) and Lucinda (Wiest) during his visit to her New England house, Five Nights in Maine hinges on our recognition of the ele-phant in the room: that Lucinda has never been comfortable with her daughter, Fiona (Hani Furstenberg), marrying a black man. While it’s admirable that the movie doesn’t blud-geon us with message and meaning (a la Paul Haggis’ Crash), two people tiptoeing around what’s bothering them does not always make for gripping viewing. Curran tries to turn the main story (i.e. racism) into the underlying subtext, but she’s not yet a sophisticated enough stylist or director of actors to pull it off.

The film opens with Sherwin and Fiona in bed, shot in intimate close-up as they canoodle. Curran lays the foreshadowing on thick with David Boulter’s downbeat score and a voicemail in which a solemn-sounding Fiona tells Sherwin, “I love you” (never a good sign 10 minutes in).

David Oyelowo plays a widower and Dianne Wiest his mother-in-law in an admirable but unsatisfying drama

by jon frosch

Soon enough, Sherwin is fielding a phone call from the police: Fiona has been killed in a traffic accident. Curran keeps her camera tight on Oyelowo’s face as he absorbs the news, and his stunned reaction, eyes darting about in child-like panic, makes for one of the film’s most vivid moments.

After some familiar movie mourning beats — Sherwin showering, smoking, drinking and sleeping — our protagonist drives to Maine to meet the ailing Lucinda. The remainder of the film traces their fraught relationship, from awkward meals in which their dislike for each another is communicated via withering looks and loaded silences to a final showdown that sees the ill will between them boiling over.

Sherwin also bonds with Lucinda’s nurse, Ann (a restrained Rosie Perez), takes a dip in a nearby lake, goes for a stroll in the woods and gazes at a ladybug who lands on his finger. In other words, not much happens in Five Nights in Maine — or, rather, it’s all happening under the surface, but Curran hasn’t found a way to tap into Sherwin’s ravaged inner life.

The film’s thinness can be, at least in part, blamed on its oblique handling of the theme of racial resentment. In addition to dealing with Lucinda’s polite seething, Sherwin is on the receiving end of a distrustful double take from a white local at a store as well as a hunter’s gun-shots (which may or may not have been aimed at a deer). You get what Curran’s trying to do — identify a less visible 21st century racism, one expressed through tones, glances and anony-mous gestures. But in lieu of explicit dialogue, there’s little in the actual images she creates that conveys Sherwin’s experience of prejudice and alienation. Five Nights in Maine tries to be subtle in its approach to race; it ends up feeling evasive, an impression reinforced by Curran’s needlessly shaky camera and reluctance to hold a shot for more than several seconds.

Oyelowo is convincing, despite a slightly forced American accent and an actory tendency to telegraph his character’s feelings. Lucinda is a more vivid figure, and Wiest gives a highly mannered performance, her wispy voice and delicate diction making every line

land like a passive- aggressive torpedo.

Five Nights in Maine doesn’t offer tidy resolu-tions or catharsis; that’s refreshing. Of course, avoiding pitfalls isn’t quite the same thing as doing things well — a statement that could be applied to the film as a whole.

Discovery Cast David Oyelowo, Dianne Wiest, Rosie Perez Director Maris Curran 84 minutes

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Oyelowo and Wiest clash immediately.

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8 Decades of The Hollywood Reporter The most glamorous and memorable moments from a storied history

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WHEN GEORGE Lucas’ space epic Star Wars first hit theaters in 1977, the

galaxy was missing Cloud City’s Casanova, Lando Calrissian. The debonair character joined the mega franchise in 1980’s Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back (subsequently appearing in 1983’s Episode VI: Return of the Jedi) and was made famous by Billy Dee Williams, nick-named the “black Clark Gable” for his devilish charm.

The Harlem-raised actor had made his theater debut

at 7 years old before breaking into Hollywood as a student of Sidney Poitier’s. Williams scored his breakout role in 1971’s Brian’s Song and went on to star opposite Diana Ross in Motown Productions’ Billie Holiday biopic Lady Sings the Blues, which scored five Oscar nominations.

“The first time I saw Billy was in Lady Sings the Blues. I watched it in a movie theater on Hollywood Boulevard,” recalls Mark Hamill, who has played Luke Skywalker since the first Star Wars and will reprise his role in J.J. Abrams’ Episode VII: The Force Awakens

(out Dec. 18). “There was one scene [where] he took his shirt off and the girls in the theater screamed. He had such charisma and was so effortlessly classy, and he brought that along to our movie. Billy took the framework of what was there in the storyline [for Lando] and brought his wagon-load of charm.”

Nine years after Empire Strikes Back, which THR praised as “a worthy successor to the original,” Williams landed the role of villain Harvey Dent in another major franchise film, Tim Burton’s Batman. In 1992, a much smaller-scale film, Giant Steps, a Canadian drama centered on the relationship between an aspiring trumpet

player and the legendary jazz musician (played by Williams) whom he idolizes, brought him to the Toronto International Film Festival. Williams, now 78, has since devoted much of his career to television, guest-starring on shows such as Modern Family and General Hospital and reviving his fan favorite Lando character through voice roles in Star Wars-based cartoons. No word yet on whether Williams’ Lando will appear in The Force Awakens, set 30 years after Return of the Jedi and reuniting numerous members of the original cast. — MEENA JANG

Williams at Toronto’s now-shuttered Bistro 990 in September 1992.

In 1992, Billy Dee Williams Took Giant Steps to Toronto

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