Toronto Film Festival
There are a couple of interesting articles about the Toronto Film Festival which begins officially today. Last week, the New York times had this article with the rather provocative title “New Goals for Films at Toronto: To Be Seen”:
Set to begin on Sept. 4, the 33rd Toronto film festival has devoted some prime spots to movies that are not so much jockeying for position in the forthcoming Oscar race as fighting to be seen at all. Even with strong credentials, several featured pictures have been sideswiped by corporate consolidation, a weak market for independent films and producers’ wariness of an audience that has often shunned the difficult.
Movies by name writer-directors like Che by Steven Soderbergh and Synedoche, New York by Charlie Kaufman debuted at Cannes, but struggled to find distribution.
Of course, we know the context of this — the collapse of the so-called “specialty” film market, detailed here in comments — “Yes, the sky is falling!” — from indie film producer Mark Gill and here by writer-director John August.
Then there’s this analysis of the Toronto Film Festival in today’s LA Times:
Set to begin this Thursday, the Toronto International Film Festival will show 249 feature films and 63 shorts from 64 countries over 10 days. Now in its 33rd year, the annual festival comes at an especially trying time for the independent film business. With specialty films performing poorly at the box office and a number of key distributors recently closing their doors, the picture for filmmakers, producers and sales agents is looking particularly troubling this year.
So what are the movies generating the most buzz? The LA Times offers up a list of their Top 10:
Burn After Reading
Che
The Hurt Locker
Me and Orson Welles
Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist
Rachel Getting Married
Religulous
RocknRolla
Synedoche, New York
The Wrestler
UPDATE: Patrick Goldstein of the LA Times interviews colleague John Horn who just returned from the Telluride Film Festival in this article. Several movies are slated to screen at the Toronto Film Festival. Interesting to see Horn’s take on their commercial viability:
You talked to a bunch of acquisition execs today about the movies available for sale in Toronto. Based on what the execs told you, how would you rank them in order of commercial appeal?
1. “Management.” Stars Jennifer Aniston. And it’s a comedy.
2. “The Burning Plain.” From “Babel” screenwriter Guillermo Ariaga, and doesn’t sound nearly as bleak. Stars Charlize Theron.
3. “I Love You Philip Morris.” There’s some footage of this Jim Carrey gay love story (!) being shown to buyers, even though the film is not in the festival.
4. “Is There Anybody There” and “Lovely, Still.” Last year’s “Away From Her” proved there’s an audience for movies about the elderly. The first stars Michael Caine, the second Ellen Burstyn.
5. “The Wrestler.” Mickey Rourke in the roll he was born to play: an over-the-hill wrestler. Directed by Darren Aronofsky.