Screen Toronto Day 1

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THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 6 2018

AT TORONTO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL www.ScreenDaily.com

Editorial +1 310 922 5908

Norwegian Films in Toronto Discovery Blind Spot Director Tuva Novotny Discovery Phoenix Director Camilla Strøm Henriksen Short Cuts To Plant a Flag Director Bobbie Peers

MARIA

BONNEVIE

SVERRIR

GUDNASON

YLVA

BJØRKAAS THEDIN

CASPER

FALCK-LØVÅS

PHOENIX

HUMMELFILM PRESENTS ”PHOENIX” A FILM BY CAMILLA STRØM HENRIKSEN STARRING YLVA BJØRKAAS THEDIN, MARIA BONNEVIE, SVERRIR GUDNASON AND CASPER FALCK-LØVÅS CASTING CELINE ENGEBRIGTSEN COSTUME DESIGN ELLEN YSTEHEDE POST PRODUCER ELEONORE ANSELME COMPOSER PATRIK ANDRÉN SCORE PRODUCER JOHAN SÖDERQVIST SOUND DESIGN BENT HOLM LINE PRODUCER TESSA EGGESBØ PRODUCTION DESIGN EVA NORÉN EDITOR SVERRIR KRISTJÁNSSON DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY RAGNA JORMING FSF CO-PRODUCERS ANNIKA HELLSTRÖM, ERIKA MALMGREN AND RAMUNAS ŠKIKAS EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS DAVID YATES, YVONNE WALCOTT-YATES AND PAULINA RIDER WILHELMSEN PRODUCER GUDNY HUMMELVOLL WRITTEN AND DIRECTED BY CAMILLA STRØM HENRIKSEN PRODUCED BY HUMMELFILM CO-PRODUCED BY CINENIC FILM, RIDER FILM AND THE WYCHWOOD MOVING PICTURE COMPANY IN COOPERATION WITH UAB AHIL, SHORTCUT OSLO, C-MORE W/SUZANNE GLANSBORG AND SVT W/AGNETA PERMAN PRODUCED WITH THE SUPPORT OF NORWEGIAN FILM INSTITUTE W/WIBECKE RØDSETH AND SWEDISH FILM INSTITUTE W/YABA HOLST

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TODAY

SCREENINGS

» Page 26

SCREENINGS TORONTO 2018

TIFF PLATFORM

THE RIVER A Film by EMIR BAIGAZIN

2018 - Drama - Kazakhstan/Poland/Norway - 2.39 - 108 min

•••••••••••••••••••••••• Thu Tue Wed Fri Fri Sat

TIFF DISCOVERY

Sep Sep Sep Sep Sep Sep

6th 9:15 PM SCOTIABANK 11 Press & Industry 11th 2:00 PM SCOTIABANK 5 Press & Industry 12th 6:30 PM TIFF BELL LIGHTBOX 1 Public 14th 12:30 PM TIFF BELL LIGHTBOX 4 Public 14th 3:00 PM SCOTIABANK 6 Press & Industry 15th 1:45 PM TIFF BELL LIGHTBOX 4 Public

FIG TREE

A Film by AÄLÄM-WÄRQE DAVIDIAN 2018 - Drama - Israel/Germany/France/Ethiopia - 2.39 - 93 min

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • Fri Sat Sun Wed Sat

TIFF CONTEMPORARY WORLD CINEMA

Sep 7th 11:45 AM SCOTIABANK 6 Press & Industry Sep 8th 7:00 PM SCOTIABANK 10 Public Sep 9th 4:45 PM TIFF BELL LIGHTBOX 4 Public Sep 12th 12:00 PM TIFF BELL LIGHTBOX 5 Press & Industry Sep 15th 1:00 PM SCOTIABANK 10 Public

BIRDS OF PASSAGE A Film by CRISTINA GALLEGO & CIRO GUERRA (EMBRACE OF THE SERPENT) 2018 - Drama - Colombia/Mexico/Denmark/France - 35mm - 120 min

•••••••••••••••••••••••• Fri Mon Tue Sun

TIFF CONTEMPORARY WORLD CINEMA

Sep 7th 9:30 AM Sep 10th 9:45 PM Sep 11th 3:30 PM Sep 16th 12:15 PM

SCOTIABANK 4 Press & Industry TIFF BELL LIGHTBOX 2 Public TIFF BELL LIGHTBOX 2 Public SCOTIABANK 2 Public

BORDER A Film by ALI ABBASI (SHELLEY)

2018 - Nordic Noir - Sweden/Denmark - 2.39 - 108 min

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • Thu Mon Wed

Sep 6th Sep 10th Sep 12th

5:45 PM SCOTIABANK 14 Press & Industry 9:15 PM SCOTIABANK 1 Public 3:15 PM TIFF BELL LIGHTBOX 2 Public CANNES 2018 PRIX UN CERTAIN REGARD

BOOTH: GERMAN FILMS BOOTH @ THE HYATT SALES - Jean-Christophe Simon simon@filmsboutique.com SALES - Louis Balsan louis@filmsboutique.com

TIFF MARKET

DOMINGO

A Film by CLARA LINHART & FELLIPE BARBOSA (GABRIEL AND THE MOUNTAIN, CASA GRANDE) 2018 - Drama - Brazil/France - 1.85 - 95 min

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TIFF MARKET

Sep 10th

3:30 PM TIFF BELL LIGHTBOX 7 Private

JOY

A Film by SUDABEH MORTEZAI (MACONDO) 2018 - Drama - Austria - 1.85 - 99 min

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TIFF MARKET

Sep

9th

9:00 PM TIFF BELL LIGHTBOX 6 Private

ALICE T.

A Film by RADU MUNTEAN (TUESDAY AFTER CHRISTMAS, ONE FLOOR BELOW) 2018 - Drama - Romania/France/Sweden - 2.39 - 105 min

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • Sat

Sep

8th

9:30 PM TIFF BELL LIGHTBOX 6 Private LOCARNO 2018 BEST ACTRESS AWARD

TIFF MARKET

ALL GOOD A Film by EVA TROBISCH

2018 - Drama - Germany - 2.39 - 93 min

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • Fri

Sep

MÜNCHEN 2018 BEST DIRECTOR

TIFF MARKET

7th

9:00 PM TIFF BELL LIGHTBOX 5 Private

MÜNCHEN 2018 BEST ACTRESS

MÜNCHEN 2018 FIPRESCI AWARD

LOCARNO 2018 FIRST FEATURE AWARD

SHEHERAZADE A Film by JEAN-BERNARD MARLIN

2018 - Drama - France - 2.39 - 106 min

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • Tue

Sep 11th 12:30 PM TIFF BELL LIGHTBOX 7 Private

DA Y

1

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 6 2018

AT TORONTO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL www.ScreenDaily.com

Editorial +1 310 922 5908

Advertising +44 7540 100 315

Star packages crash TIFF party

BY JEREMY KAY

A cluster of late packages has brightened broader commercial prospects at TIFF as industry attendees roll up their sleeves, all too aware of distribution pitfalls as bankruptcy looms for Donald Tang’s Global Road.

FilmNation is kicking off talks on the prize package Knives Out, a murder mystery from Rian Johnson and producer Ram Bergman to star Daniel Craig, as the parties return to their indie roots on breaks from the Star Wars universe and Bond 25,

respectively. CAA Media Finance handles North American rights and represents China with FilmNation.

IMR International arrives with Second World War revenge thriller Ruin starring Margot Robbie and Matthias Schoenaerts, which CAA Media Finance is also touting to US buyers. IMR continues talks with buyers on Olivier Assayas’ upcoming thriller Wasp Network, which now includes Penelope Cruz, Wagner Moura and Gael Garcia Bernal.

As TIFF grows in stature primarily as a market for finished

films, Bloom will hope to capitalise on two world premieres with notable female leads: Jake Scott’s drama mystery American Woman with Sienna Miller, as well as 11th-hour festival selection A Private War, Matthew Heineman’s biopic about war correspondent Marie Colvin with Rosamund Pike in the lead.

Sierra/Affinity has international rights on Brady Corbet’s acclaimed Venice premiere and TIFF selection Vox Lux starring Natalie Portman (CAA and Endeavor Content represent US rights) and Neil Jor-

Seville unwraps Darkened Days, Broken Mirrors

ROMA review, page 10

REVIEWS ROMA Alfonso Cuaron delivers his most personal film yet » Page 10

First Man Reteaming the director with Ryan Gosling, Damien Chazelle’s Neil Armstrong biopic flies high » Page 12

FEATURES King of cool TIFF artistic director Cameron Bailey reflects on this year’s festival » Page 20

Political animal Mike Leigh on his ambitious historical drama Peterloo » Page 22

Buyers drawn to Hotel Mumbai

BY JEREMY KAY

Arclight Films has finalised a raft of prestige sales on thriller Hotel Mumbai starring Dev Patel and Armie Hammer heading into its September 7 world premiere.

The company has licensed rights for Canada (VVS), Benelux (eOne), France (TF1), Germany (SquareOne), Italy (IIF and M2), Scandinavia (Sandrew Metronome), the Middle East (Italia Films) and Latin America (Imagem).

BY JEREMY KAY

Anick Poirier’s Montreal-based Seville International arrives in Toronto with a sales roster comprising the previously unannounced The Great Darkened Days and Broken Mirrors, as well as Firecrackers, and Xavier Dolan’s The Death And Life Of John F. Donovan.

The world premiere of Maxime Giroux’s The Great Darkened Days will take place on September 10.

The Contemporary World Cinema (CWC) entry stars Martin Dubreuil, Sarah Gadon, Reda Kateb, Romain Duris and Cody Fern in a drama that unfolds in the American West during a world war, where a draftdodger from Québec survives by competing in Charlie Chaplin impersonation contests.

Firecrackers centres on two women who plan to exact revenge on an ex after he violates one of the women. Jasmin Mozaffari directed and Michaela Kurimsky and Karena Evans star in the Discovery selection, which receives its world premiere on September 8.

Other titles on Seville’s roster include documentary Anthropocene and The Fireflies Are Gone, Sébastien Pilote’s CWC selection about a disaffected young woman who falls in with an aimless guitarist and his family. The film has a press and industry screening today.

dan’s psycho-thriller Greta with Chloë Grace Moretz and Isabelle Huppert, among others, while AGC Studios will be counting on the Michael Moore brand when it launches international sales on TIFF Docs opener Fahrenheit 11/9.

One year ago Byron Allen’s Entertainment Studios snapped up several films here. It is quieter now, and its Keanu Reeves sci-fi Replicas remains undated. Lionsgate’s splashy TIFF 2017 sci-fi pre-buy Kin opened with a whimper in the US last weekend. US buyers are wary.

TODAY

Bac turns for Alzheimer’s love story

BY MELANIE GOODFELLOW

Teen Spirit begins world tour Teen Spirit, the directing debut of actor Max Minghella starring Elle Fanning as a teenager dreaming of pop stardom, has sold out internationally for Mister Smith.

Deals include to the UK (Lionsgate), Australia (Roadshow), France (Metropolitan Filmexport) and Germany (SquareOne). The film will premiere in Special Presentations on September 7. CAA is handling

the US sale. Fanning plays 17-yearold Violet, who lives on a small farm on the Isle of Wight. Her days are spent doing chores and attending school, but in her free time, Violet surrenders to music. Fanning herself sings her character’s songs in the film. Producers are Fred Berger and Brian Kavanaugh-Jones under their Automatik banner.

Tom Grater

Bac Films has jumped on international sales of Martin Rosete’s romantic drama Remember Me, starring Bruce Dern as a retired widower who comes to the rescue of an old flame with Alzheimer’s.

Dern’s larger-than-life septuagenarian pretends he too is suffering from the disease so that he can join the love of his life, played by French actress Caroline Silhol, in the senior residential community where she resides.

Remember Me is New Yorkbased Spanish filmmaker Rosete’s second feature after his 2016 English-language thriller Money. The script is by Spanish screenwriter Rafa Russo.

Fresh deals on the film, based on true events in 2008 when jihadist terrorists laid siege to the Taj Mahal Palace hotel in Mumbai, include Japan (Gaga), Spain (Inopia Films), Taiwan (Apex Success Global-Longshong) and South Korea (Sycomad).

Anthony Maras makes his feature directing debut. Basil Iwanyk, Gary Hamilton, Mike Gabrawy, Julie Ryan, Andrew Ogilvie and Jomon Thomas served as producers.

Arterton tunes up Dusty biopic Gemma Arterton will star as English soul singer Dusty Springfield in So Much Love from Elizabeth Karlsen and Stephen Woolley’s Number 9 Films. Phyllis Nagy, Oscar-nominated writer of Carol, will make her directing debut from her own screenplay.

Rocket Science is launching international sales in Toronto.

Set in 1968, the film follows Springfield’s journey to Tennessee to record the careerdefining record Dusty In Memphis. Some of the singer’s greatest hits will feature in the film. Number 9 is working with Universal Music on the soundtrack. It will shoot in the UK and US in spring 2019.

Tom Grater

NEWS

TIFF BRIEFS Military recruits leads Kristin Scott Thomas and Sharon Horgan have signed to star in Peter Cattaneo’s Military Wives, about a band of misfit women who form a choir on a military base.

Embankment Films is launching worldwide sales in Toronto. CAA Media Finance co-reps US rights.

Cruz, Bernal buzz Wasp Penelope Cruz, Wagner Moura and Gael Garcia Bernal have joined Oliver Assayas’ Wasp Network.

IMR International continues sales in Toronto and CAA Media Finance represents US rights to the story of Cuban spies in US territory during the 1990s.

Corbet builds Brutalist Brady Corbet, whose Vox Lux premiered in Venice this week, is reteaming with Andrew Lauren Productions for The Brutalist. The film will chronicle 30 years in the life of a Hungary-born Jewish architect who emigrates to the US.

Last Words for Doc & Film

BY MELANIE GOODFELLOW

Doc & Film International has boarded sales on US director Jonathan Nossiter’s end-of-the-world drama Last Words, starring Nick Nolte, Charlotte Rampling, Alba Rohrwacher, Stellan Skarsgard and Valeria Golino.

The long-gestating project, which was first unveiled at Les Arcs Coproduction Village in 2016, unfolds against the backdrop of a near-future world devastated by ecological disaster and conflict, where there have

been no human births in over a decade. A handful of survivors respond to a mysterious call to meet up in Athens. The feature’s narrator Jo, a 17-year-old boy of African origin, brings with him a treasure trove of film reels, and the group revisits the final chapters of mankind’s existence on Earth, while Jo becomes its “last moviemaker”.

Nossiter co-wrote the screenplay with Argentinian-French writer Santiago Amigorena, loosely adapting the latter’s 2015

novel Mes Derniers Mots. The pair previously collaborated on the script for Rio Sex Drama. Parisbased Doc & Film will launch sales at TIFF on Last Words, which is due to shoot this autumn in Italy, France and Morocco for a 2019 delivery.

Donatella Palermo at Romebased Stemal Entertainment is producing alongside Serge Lalou, under his Paris-based Films d’Ici banner, which celebrates its 40th anniversary this year. Paprika Films is on board as co-producer.

Gunpowder lights up Summer Of 84

BY JEREMY KAY

New York-based sales and distribution outfit Gunpowder & Sky has closed a raft of deals on retro thriller Summer Of 84 and will court buyers from remaining territories in Toronto this week.

Francois Simard, Anouk Whissell and Yoann-Karl Whissell codirected the Sundance premiere about teenage friends who suspect their police-officer neighbour is a serial killer. Rights have gone to Australia/New Zealand (Road-

show), Canada (Mongrel), Latin America (Cinemex), Spain (A Contracorriente), France (L’Atelier D’Images), Germany (Panda­ storm), Scandinavia (NonStop), Benelux (Splendid) and Japan (Nihon Sky Way). Deals have also

Uncork’d pops with Stante Uncork’d Entertainment has acquired all North American rights from Wide Management to Slovenian coming-of-age thriller Consequences ahead of its world premiere tomorrow in Discovery.

Darko Stante’s directorial debut is based on his experiences working with troubled youths in a correctional facility. Andraz Jeric and Jerca Jeric of Temporama Film Society produced.

Jeremy Kay

closed in Taiwan (Moviecloud), China (Lemon Tree), Vietnam (Mockingbird Pictures), the Middle East and North Africa (Front Row) and Central and Eastern Europe (HBO CEE).

The company set an unconventional US release last month, programming late-night showings in a tour of the top 50 markets.

CINEMA DO BRASIL CONGRATULATES THE BRAZILIAN FILM SELECTED TO TORONTO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL 2018 CONTEMPORARY WORLD CINEMA

FLORIANÓPOLIS DREAM

Sep 6 Sep 7 Sep 8 Sep 15

17h30 14h15 16h30 21h30

SUEÑO FLORIANÓPOLIS

Scotiabank 3 (public) Scotiabank 8 (press & industry) Scotiabank 13 (public) Scotiabank 14 (public)

Promoted by

6 Screen International at Toronto September 6, 2018

by Ana Katz Produced by Campo Cine and Prodigo Films Co-produced by Groch Filmes Sales: Film Factory | lide@filmfactory.es Supported by

Institucional Partner

More information at www.cinemadobrasil.org.br info@cinemadobrasil.org.br

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NEWS

Roadside seizes The Last Full Measure

Premiere launch puts faith in Grace

F LO IRS OK T

TIFF BRIEFS

Roadside Attractions has picked up US rights from ICM Partners and Foresight Unlimited to Todd Robinson’s The Last Full Measure. The distributor plans an early 2019 wide theatrical release on the drama about efforts to award a posthumous Congressional Medal of Honor to a US medic who served in the Vietnam War.

Working Woman plots course to US Zeitgeist Films in association with Kino Lorber has acquired all North American rights to Israeli filmmaker Michal Aviad’s sexual harassment drama and TIFF selection Working Woman. m-appeal handles international sales.

BY JEREMY KAY

De France wakes up to A Bigger World

BY MELANIE GOODFELLOW

Celluloid Dreams has released the first image of Belgian actress Cécile de France in French filmmaker Fabienne Berthaud’s upcoming feature A Bigger World (Un Monde Plus Grand). Based on the real-

2018_UKF_TIFF_Screenad_HP_218x150.indd 2

8 Screen International at Toronto September 6, 2018

life experiences of French musician and composer Corine Sombrun, de France plays a woman who discovers she has shamanistic powers during a trip to Mongolia. Carole Scotta is lead producer for Parisbased Haut et Court in co-

production with Christine Palluel for 3x7 Productions/ Groupe Telfrance and Genevieve Lemal for Scope Pictures. De France is at TIFF this year with Emmanuel Mouret’s Mademoiselle De Joncquieres, which world premieres in Platform.

Los Angeles-based sales agent and producer Premiere Enter tainment Group has launched the faith-based label Grace Films. Premiere CEO and president Elias Axume announced that the label will kick off sales at TIFF on Getting Grace, Champion and Heavens To Betsy.

Daniel Roebuck stars in and directs Getting Grace, about a teenage girl dying of cancer who teaches an awkward funeral director how to celebrate life. The film opened on 60 screens in the US in March through Hannover House.

Andrew Cheney, Gary Graham and Faith Renee Kennedy star in Champion, which tells of an incident

that causes the lives of two men to intersect. The film is Judd Brannon’s feature directing debut; Steve Hyland produced. Champion earned a limited US theatrical release and goes out on digital through Universal Pictures Home Entertainment.

Robert Alaniz wrote and directed Heavens To Betsy, a comedy about an aspiring children’s author whose prayers are suddenly answered, erasing her past and altering her present life. The film stars Jim O’Heir and Karen Lesiewicz. Vision Video handled the US release.

“There is a growing demand for faith films, both domestically and internationally,” said Axume.

31/08/2018 12:51

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From Avi Nesher, the Master of Contemporary Cinema

2018 SCREENINGS: Friday, September 7 at 1pm, Scotiabank 11 (P&I) Saturday, September 8 at 9:45pm, Scotiabank 4 (Public) Monday, September 10 at 3:15pm, TIFF Bell Lightbox #2 (Public) Wednesday, September 12 at 11:45am, Scotiabank 10 (P&I) Sunday, September 16 at 6:45pm, Scotiabank 3 (Public)

SOHO METROPOLITAN 318 Wellington St W, Suite #334 +1.707.494.4394 +1.310.980.2208

REVIEWS Reviews edited by Fionnuala Halligan finn.halligan@screendaily.com

» ROMA p10 » A Star Is Born p11 » First Man p11

» The Biggest Little Farm p12 » 22 July p12

ROMA Reviewed by Fionnuala Halligan In making his most deeply personal film — to the point of modelling the sets on his family’s old apartment in the middle-class Roma district of Mexico City and filling them with his mementos — Alfonso Cuaron has written a love letter to women who have devoted their lives to the children of the families who employ them.

Directing, writing and shooting this film, he has spurred himself to a glorious technical achievement. Watching ROMA is like reading his autobiography, in which the intense flow of family life is punctuated by hundreds of intimate details to savour.

Famously, ROMA is a Netflix pick-up from backer Participant Media: the deep pockets of the SVoD platform will help this small, no-star, black-and-white, Spanish-dialect film from a master director reach an audience. Yet in its naked beauty this is very much an enduring big-screen proposition — not necessarily theatrical, but certainly for festival audiences and cinephiles. An awards-qualifying run in the US is on the cards, but ROMA could test — and prove — how Netflix works with the festival world going forward.

The fact that ROMA is set in a flavourful Mexico City of 1970-71 does not restrict this

10 Screen International at Toronto September 6, 2018

SPECIAL PRESENTATIONS Mex. 2018. 135mins Director/screenplay/ editor/cinematography Alfonso Cuaron Production company Esperanto Filmoj, Participant Media Worldwide distribution Netflix Producer Nicolas Celis, Gabriela Rodriguez, Alfonso Cuaron Production design Eugenio Caballero Main cast Yalitza Aparicio, Nancy Garcia, Marina de Tavira, Fernando Grediaga, Veronica Garcia

story of domestic servitude or confine its appeal to Latin America. Low-status help the world over continues to work exhausting hours with poor pay and conditions to love and care for their employers’ children — a part of, but apart from, the family. Yet the appeal of the film is also its deeply layered specificity, the realistic nature of the family and its drama, the random threat thrown up by the political landscape, and Cuaron’s fluid camera framing and eulogising the landscape in which he grew up.

Men certainly do not emerge from Cuaron’s story smelling of anything other than the dog turds that decorate the entrance to the family compound in Colonia Roma during this period of political strife in Mexico. The culprit is beloved pet Borras, and nanny/maid Cleo (nonactor Yalitza Aparicio) fights a losing battle with his copious excrement. A beautifully framed credit sequence starts with the water washing away Borras’s sins before the camera moves into the house, panning and following simple village girl Cleo as she fights another daily battle against the mess created by four young children, their parents and grandma.

Her best friend Adela (Nancy Garcia) cooks, while there is also a driver. They start when the sun rises, and they are the last to bed.

Dad is a doctor called Antonio (Fernando

Grediaga) whose arrival home at night is calibrated like a military parade. He shouts that there is “dog crap everywhere”, and soon departs, pretending to the kids that he is in Quebec at a conference. Mum Sofia (Marina de Tavira) is tearful and barely coping. She snaps at Cleo, taking her for granted, but this is the accepted order of things, and when Cleo becomes ill-advisedly pregnant by the dubious martial-arts fanatic Fermin, she is given the best of help throughout the pregnancy. An earthquake at the hospital’s baby unit, however, is an unsettling omen for things to come.

While Cuaron tells an intimate story, he also widens it out effortlessly to fill the screen. New Year’s Eve at a hacienda in the country, where a forest fire breaks out; a trip to the cinema where Cleo breathlessly tracks her wayward charges; and, finally and devastatingly, the Corpus Christi Massacre is restaged, leading to the film’s most haunting, confronting and evocative sequence. Sound design is as specific as the visuals and delivered in Dolby Atmos, from the ever-barking dogs to the haunting calls of the street vendors.

There is a lot of love in ROMA, Cuaron’s first film to be set in his homeland since Y Tu Mama Tambien in 2001, and it is his most personal and most honest. It may even be his best.

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SCREENINGS IN TORONTO: Thursday, September 6 at 2:15pm, Yonge-Dundas Cineplex Friday, September 7 at 11:30am, Yonge-Dundas Cineplex

RSVP to RSVP.Foresight@gmail.com SOHO METROPOLITAN 318 Wellington St W, Suite #334 +1.707.494.4394 +1.310.980.2208

REVIEWS

First Man Reviewed by Fionnuala Halligan

A Star Is Born Reviewed by Jonathan Romney One redeeming facet of a vanity project is that its makers are likely to take it very seriously indeed. If there is one thing that stands in favour of Bradley Cooper’s A Star Is Born, it is absolute sincerity on the part of its makers, actor/writer/debut director Cooper and co-star Lady Gaga.

The fourth screen iteration of a vintage property, A Star Is Born will not be for everyone: it may not impress lovers of previous renderings, nor is it likely to appeal to fans of Gaga’s outré performance-art persona, a skin she determinedly sheds here. But, taken on its own terms as an unashamedly anachronistic attempt to muster the emotional intensity of the Hollywood melodrama tradition, Cooper’s film must be at least grudgingly acknowledged as a success.

Cooper plays Jackson Maine, a country rocker with a drinking problem and a love-hate relationship with his big brother and manager (Sam Elliott). One night he stumbles into a drag bar where he meets Ally (Gaga), a determined working-class girl who dreams of being a singer, and who dazzles Jackson with a version of ‘La Vie En Rose’. Jack is smitten and invites Ally to join him on stage — then makes her a regular fixture in his band.

But Ally is signed up by Rez (Rafi Gavron), a snaky British music maven. Before long her natural jejune charisma is jazzed up with a glitzy image and she is performing brash R‘n’B pop with backing dancers. The now-married couple’s relationship turns sour as Jack’s career takes a downswing and Ally’s hits the heights, with inexorably tear-jerking results.

Characterisation is thin. Ally is introduced as a rebel with a volatile streak, although these character elements soon drop out of the equation. And Jack’s decline is less than convincing as we do not get much sense of his history, beyond issues with his brother and late dad. That said, the two leads keep the show afloat. Cooper is more affably shambling than properly persuasive as a man with feral demons, but he projects a muscular, blue-eyed warmth that cowboy fanciers may find irresistible.

As for Gaga, she exudes sweet but steely candour and her performance as a regular girl with something to say transcends cliché. By the time she has sung a soupy closing ballad and given a distinctly Garland-esque last look to camera, there is little doubt: a star has been rebooted.

12 Screen International at Toronto September 6, 2018

GALA PRESENTATIONS US. 2018. 135mins Director Bradley Cooper Production company Warner Bros, Live Nation Productions, Metro Goldwyn Mayer Pictures, Joint Effort Worldwide distribution Warner Bros Producers Bill Gerber, Jon Peters, Bradley Cooper, Todd Phillips, Lynette Howell Taylor Screenplay Eric Roth, Bradley Cooper, Will Fetters Production design Karen Murphy Editing Jay Cassidy Cinematography Matthew Libatique Music Bradley Cooper, Lady Gaga, Lukas Nelson Main cast Lady Gaga, Bradley Cooper, Sam Elliott, Andrew Dice Clay, Dave Chappelle, Rafi Gavron

La La Land’s Damien Chazelle, a director who can turn a score into a character and uses sound design in First Man to harness audiences inside a primitive spaceship, widens his horizons to tell the story of America’s great hero Neil Armstrong and his professional and personal journey to the moon. It is a beautifully made film, with an impeccable lead performance from Ryan Gosling as the sober, sensitive astronaut. It is also a film that takes elegant flight but stalls across its extended closing sequences; a project that, in its probing of Armstrong’s emotional mechanisms, neglects the development of other characters who might have anchored it more securely.

The question is whether First Man has the right stuff to deliver solid returns and awards attention for Chazelle and worldwide distributor-backer Universal Pictures.

Both prospects seem positive. Strong notices should be expected for Gosling, Claire Foy as Armstrong’s wife Janet, Nathan Crowley’s production design, Justin Hurwitz’s score and Linus Sandgren’s lensing. And although it is not flying on a completely full tank, there is enough to land First Man safely in international multiplexes.

Chazelle, working with screenwriter Josh Singer in adapting Armstrong’s only authorised biography, focuses on the test pilot-turned-astronaut as an emotionally repressed man and Korean War veteran who suffers greatly over the death of his two-year-old daughter.

Joining the Gemini space programme in Houston is a way for the family to make a fresh start, and Janet becomes pregnant again as the film embarks on its voyage from the Mojave desert in 1961 to the moon landings of 1969.

Two elements of Chazelle’s retelling stand out in particular. The first is the relationship between Neil and Janet in the face of a roll-call of accidents and fatalities in their lives. Being an astronaut’s wife looks like a thankless role in real life and it is no great gift to an actress, but Foy approaches the part with a matter-of-fact intelligence that gives a great deal of weight to Janet, who died earlier this year. Also, Crowley’s recreation of the shuttles and crafts are hyper-detailed and, coupled with Sandgren’s claustrophobic lens, make it clear just how risky and murderous these tin-cans were and how truly brave their occupants. An expressive score by Hurwitz, seems to rise and fall with the rockets and amplify the extreme stress placed on both their casings and the astronauts inside.

GALA PRESENTATION US. 2018. 141mins Director Damien Chazelle Production company Temple Hill Entertainment Worldwide distribution Universal Pictures Producers Wyck Godfrey, Marty Bowen, Isaac Klausner, Damien Chazelle Screenplay Josh Singer, based on the book First Man: The Life Of Neil A Armstrong by James R Hansen Production design Nathan Crowley Editing Tom Cross Cinematography Linus Sandgren Music Justin Hurwitz Main cast Ryan Gosling, Claire Foy, Jason Clarke, Patrick Fugit, Ethan Embry, Corey Stoll, Kyle Chandler, Ciaran Hinds

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22 July Reviewed by Tim Grierson

The Biggest Little Farm Reviewed by David D’Arcy The eight years filmmaker John Chester and his wife Molly spent creating an environmentally friendly farm are captured in the charming The Biggest Little Farm. The couple bring a sense of wonderment to this visually inventive home movie and, while their good intentions may seem wildly utopian, the pair get their hands dirty as they birth calves and battle coyotes.

The novelty of the subject matter should ensure the film a long festival ride after exposure at Telluride and Toronto, with those events focused on environmental programming having particular interest. An arthouse release could easily follow. Chester has already shown his short films about the farm on Oprah Winfrey’s series Super Soul Shorts, and US television networks should vie for a doc that creates characters out of a moody rescue dog and a massive grey sow called Emma.

Chester opens his film as if it were a quirky storybook.

The filmmaker and his wife, a private chef and blogger, adopt a taciturn abandoned dog whose constant barking angers neighbours. The couple and animal decamp for an idle farm north of Los Angeles. They enlist an adviser with a floppy hat, a southern accent and an ardour for earth-friendly farming. Over eight years, they turn a desiccated landscape into Apricot Lane Farms.

This is decidedly not a how-to film, although there is much to be learned from it. Chester approaches the eight years as a series of epiphanies, with radiant cinematography revealing it all: Emma the pig gives birth to a huge litter, snails ravage a fruit orchard (until ducks march in to eat them) and coyotes hunt for prey. Anything but dilettantes, Chester and Molly make terms like crop coverage and biodiversity mean something concrete.

Yet any farm is a business, even if it has ambitious ecological goals. The funding of Chester’s 87-hectare expanse (complete with staff ) and the financing of a documentary about it make you wonder what it took to support this enterprise. We see a party for supporters wearing pig noses who wish the couple well, and we see eggs from the farm sell out at farmers’ markets. Given the sheer value of southern California real estate, the project must have been more complicated. In its tender celebration of creatures great and small, the film seems to shortchange its own complexity.

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TIFF DOCS US. 2018. 91mins Director/ cinematography John Chester Production company FarmLore Films International sales United Talent Agency, info@unitedtalent.com Producers Sandra Keats, John Chester Screenplay Mark Monroe, John Chester Editing Amy Overbeck Music Jeff Beal

SPECIAL PRESENTATION

An absorbing, thought-provoking exploration of how individuals and a society try to rebuild in the wake of terrorism, 22 July shuns sensationalism in its portrait of Norway’s devastating 2011 attacks that left 77 people dead, detailed already this year in Erik Poppe’s U-July 22.

As with United 93 and Captain Phillips, filmmaker Paul Greengrass has taken a horrifying true story and brought sober perspective to it — in the case of 22 July, suggesting that a community’s response to terror can be as critical to a democracy as the attacks themselves.

After playing in Venice and Toronto, this Netflix production will begin streaming on the platform in October.

Audience awareness of the 2011 attacks may cut both ways: some viewers will be curious to see how Greengrass handles the material, while others may decide they do not want to endure such grim subject matter.

22 July devotes its first 30 minutes to the co-ordinated attacks that hit downtown Oslo and a teen summer camp on the island of Utoya. We meet Anders Behring Breivik (Anders Danielsen Lie), a right-wing fanatic who believes he is waging war to end the rise of immigration in Norway, as he carefully prepares his strikes. After he is arrested, the movie shifts to two separate narrative threads: attorney Geir Lippestad (Jon Oigarden) must defend the defiant terrorist in his upcoming court case, while Viljar (Jonas Strand Gravli), a promising student, goes through painful physical therapy after barely surviving the massacre.

Collaborating with Oscar-winning editor William Goldenberg, Greengrass economically recreates Breivik’s fiendish plan, and the terrorist’s attack on the island is handled tactfully without diminishing the violent carnage this killer wrought. But the suspense is no less formidable once focus shifts to the subsequent court case. Joachim Trier regular Lie marvellously portrays an intelligent, confident monster who is chilling in his blasé demeanour.

Gravli brings real feeling to his role as the profoundly shaken Viljar, who is haunted by his near-death experience. This subplot occasionally drifts into melodramatic cliché, but Viljar’s story gives the victims of terrorism a human face, illustrating the lingering psychological wounds. And Oigarden is superb as a man who despises his client but knows he must give him a proper defence — in part, because Lippestad needs to believe that Breivik has not succeeded in tearing down the rule of law.

Nor-Ice. 2018. 143mins Director Paul Greengrass Production company Netflix Worldwide distribution Netflix Producers Scott Rudin, Paul Greengrass, Gregory Goodman, Eli Bush Screenplay Paul Greengrass, based on the book One Of Us by Asne Seierstad Production design Liv Ask Editing William Goldenberg Cinematography Pal Ulvik Rokseth Music Sune Martin Main cast Anders Danielsen Lie, Jon Oigarden, Jonas Strand Gravli, Maria Bock, Thorbjorn Harr, Ola G Furuseth, Seda Witt, Isak Bakli Aglen

September 6, 2018 Screen International at Toronto 13

PROMOTIONAL FEATURE

SCOTLAND’S

SCREEN EVOLUTION

The $25m Screen Scotland initiative aims to make the country a leading international hub for talent, content and locations

S

cotland is investing more than ever before in its film and television sectors to grow the industry across all areas from production and talent to infrastructure and audience opportunities.

The activities are being overseen and executed by Screen Scotland, the new name and identity for Scotland’s unique public sector and industry partnership. With an enhanced annual budget of $25.5m (£20m) Screen Scotland combines creative, skills and enterprise partners to offer increased funding and support services that will drive cultural, social and economic development for Scotland’s burgeoning screen sector.

Screen Scotland arrives on the global scene headed by Isabel Davis, the former head of international at the British Film Institute (BFI), and with $12.7m (£10m) in additional funding from the Scottish Government including a brand new $3.8m (£3m) fund for television content.

“Screen Scotland exists to create opportunities for Scotland’s screen sector,” says Davis, who worked at the UK Film Council before she joined the BFI in 2011.

Davis describes Screen Scotland’s ambition to operate effectively and efficiently on the global stage. “We have got everyone pointing in the same direction,” she says. “All the partners with [parent body] Creative Scotland, Highlands and Islands Enterprise, Skills Development Scotland, Scottish Enterprise, Scottish Funding Council and the Scottish Government are all coming together with the sector and everyone is on the same page.”

Screen Scotland will build on Scotland’s international reputation for story-

telling and talent on both sides of the camera and filmmaking infrastructure.

“We can develop and grow talent, audiences, infrastructure and skills.

Scotland can take advantage of the growth opportunities now,” says Davis, a graduate of the University of Edinburgh.

“We have every opportunity to deliver,” she affirms. “Whether that’s production finance or the ability for a film or a TV show to travel, it is intrinsic to the success of any industry that it has strong international ties.”

Attracting investment Film and television producers spent a projected record-breaking circa $127m (£100m) shooting in Scotland in 2017, an increase of 45% on the previous year.

Several high-profile international productions filmed in Scotland in 2017, including Disney/Marvel’s Avengers: Infinity War, TIFF Opening Gala film and Netflix-backed Outlaw King, directed by David Mackenzie, and Universal Pictures’ Mary Queen Of Scots from Working Title Films. This demonstrates the continuing interest and appetite from major film and high-end TV producers to use Scotland as a backdrop for their productions and take advantage of its highly skilled crews and talent.

Scotland benefits from all UK creative industries tax reliefs and UK co-production treaties, and has recently enhanced its production incentives.

“We want our Scottish talent to travel and we definitely want interna(Right) Isabel Davis

14 Screen International at Toronto September 6, 2018

Outlaw King

tional talent to come and see Scotland as somewhere they can call home, or call production home, for a while,” Davis says. “We have a strong base to build on and it is very much part of the strategy that we are able to maintain and strengthen those links in both directions.”

Screen Scotland went live with a dedicated portal ( www.screen.scot) on August 21. It now provides a first point of call for those looking to access film and TV funding, support and services in Scotland.

“This new approach and strategy has been formulated hand in hand with the industry,” Davis explains. “It’s going to be a much more seamless journey to get the support and advice that people need.”

Screen Scotland will continue to look at funding opportunities and work with the industry on processes to ensure it is as easy as it can be.

“We are in the business of making Scotland an attractive, exciting filmmaking destination for the world,” notes Davis.

“There is an incredible team

‘We want our Scottish talent to travel and we definitely want international talent to come and see Scotland as somewhere they can call home’ Isabel Davis, Screen Scotland

already in place, with solid expertise and experience, and we will be enhancing that team further as we move forward so that we really deliver for the sector.”

In order to maintain close ties with its industry constituents, there is also a Screen Committee of the Creative Scotland board to oversee the work. Membership includes senior representatives from Scotland’s industry: producer Gillian Berrie from Sigma Films, independent producer John McCormick, and David Strachan of documentary and factual outfit Tern TV. Within its enhanced annual budget of $25.5m (£20m), Screen Scotland is launching a new $3.8m (£3m) broad-

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Mary Queen Of Scots

Ordeal By Innocence

cast content fund. The move reflects the way the industry is developing, with the advent of pay TV giants and the deeppocketed streaming giants Netflix and Amazon all looking to create content.

“It is important we work with industry trends. We live in very exciting times of telling stories for longer-form screen content or stories simply not for a theatrical platform,” Davis says. “It is important we remain flexible in order to respond to the way the market is developing and ensure we open up all the opportunities for Scottish IP and Scottish talent development.”

Attracting big productions Screen Scotland has also increased the coffers for its production growth fund to $2.6m (£2m). Supported by the Scottish Government and the National Lottery, the fund looks to attract large-scale productions and maximise spend in Scotland. Since its launch in 2015, the fund has helped Outlaw King, T2 Trainspotting, Ordeal By Innocence, Churchill, The Wife, The Cry, The Victim and Tell It To The Bees set up to film in Scotland.

Screen Scotland will also oversee the $5m (£4m) film development and pro-

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duction fund for producers, writers and directors based in Scotland, alongside refreshed funding guidance for feature film and documentary development and production, distribution and exhibition, and markets and festivals.

Guidance for the new $3.8m (£3m) broadcast content development and production fund is now live on the Screen Scotland website and the fund is open for applications.

Screen Scotland’s ambitions are for the long-term sustainability of the country and its sector as an international production, content, talent and locations hub. Developing talent, finding new ways to support that talent and exposing them to business across the UK and the international industry requires a commitment Screen Scotland is in place to make.

“Scotland is somewhere people think of as one of the most progressive and open and exciting places in the UK and the world right now, so for makers of film, TV and other creative content it is a very attractive place to be,” Davis says.

The development of Scotland’s studio infrastructure is a continuing priority for Screen Scotland. Scotland’s existing

‘Scotland should be the best place in the world to live, work and be creative. That is the goal, to build on the huge creative collateral that we have’ Isabel Davis, Screen Scotland

build spaces recently hosted Avengers: Infinity War, which established its production base at the Pelamis building in Leith, T2 Trainspotting at the Pyramids business park, Bathgate and Churchill at Film Services Livingston.

Wardpark Studios, Cumbernauld is a permanent, converted, fully integrated studio facility with four sound stages and has been the home of the Sony/ Starz series Outlander since 2012. Building a business case for a permanent, sustainable studio facility in the country is ongoing.

Davis adds: “We’ve also been working on a business case for an additional permanent, sustainable studio facility and are

at an advanced stage with this work. We hope to be able to say more very soon.”

Screen Scotland will also continue to back a number of screen organisations through its regular funding programme including Regional Screen Scotland, Centre for the Moving Image (Edinburgh International Film Festival, Filmhouse Edinburgh and Aberdeen) and Glasgow Film Theatre (Glasgow Film Festival). All the organisations work to nurture and showcase Scotland’s storytelling traditions, an important element of the way the country is perceived around the world.

“There is a natural warmth towards and appreciation of stories from Scotland that I experience in cinemas, at festivals, wherever,” says Davis. “Scotland is very beautiful, so that helps. Scotland should be the best place in the world to live, work and be creative. That is the goal, to build on the huge creative collateral that we have and the affection for Scotland that is out there in the world.”

Screen Scotland contact details: Twitter @screenscots Website www.screen.scot

September 6, 2018 Screen International at Toronto 15

PROMOTIONAL FEATURE

O

ne of the highlights of Avengers: Infinity War was when Captain America rocked up on the streets of Edinburgh and battled several of Thanos’s minions alongside Black Widow, Vision and Falcon, in an action sequence that took in both the old town and city centre. In total the Marvel production spent seven weeks shooting in Edinburgh, although the sequence was six months in the planning, with Screen Scotland’s Screen Commission working in conjunction with Film Edinburgh and the city of Edinburgh Council to co-ordinate it all.

“One of director Joe Russo’s children studies in Edinburgh so he’s in Scotland quite regularly,” explains Brodie Pringle, head of Screen Commission, the newly branded public sector and industry partnership established to drive cultural, social and economic development for Scotland’s burgeoning screen sector.

“Joe Russo drove the fact they wanted to look at Scotland as a potential location.

We worked with the production over the course of a year and scouted the whole of the country before they settled on Edinburgh as their location.

“Once they chose Edinburgh, they really went for it and maximised their use of the city beyond all of our expectations. Film Edinburgh pulled rabbits out of hats on an almost daily basis.”

Infinity War was not the first time Captain America had visited Scotland — parts of The Winter Soldier were filmed in Culross, Fife — but it was the first time the Scottish capital had played itself in a US studio tentpole (the city’s 13th-century medieval quarter often doubles for period London in high-end TV dramas).

For Pringle and Screen Scotland, the international exposure associated with appearing in a Marvel blockbuster is most welcome. “That kind of gasp of appreciation when Captain America arrives in Edinburgh was heard very loudly here in Scotland,” she notes with a laugh.

While Scotland has long had a strong filmmaking tradition, production has boomed over the last few years. In addition to Avengers: Infinity War, recent film and television productions to shoot in Scotland include Working Title Films’ Mary Queen Of Scots, Sky’s Patrick Melrose, the BBC’s Ordeal By Innocence, local indie film We Don’t Talk About Love, as well as Netflix’s Robert The Bruce epic Outlaw King. Directed

by Scottish filmmaker David Mackenzie, the latter title is the biggest budget film ever produced by a Scottish producer, namely Gillian Berrie of Glasgow-based Sigma Films.

“Outlaw King was in development for

Avengers: Infinity War filmed on location in Edinburgh

HOLLYWOOD HEADS TO SCOTLAND Scotland’s cities, castles and islands are humming to the sound of international film and TV shoots quite a few years,” Pringle explains. “We worked with Sigma by supporting them through our recce fund. We’ve learned that recce funding isn’t just about financial support. What it also does is allow us to attach Scottish scouts or line producers to productions at a very early stage, which in itself showcases the quality of people we have in Scotland, subsequently gaining the confidence of the studio later down the line.”

Once Outlaw King was financed, the Screen Commission remained on board, providing a conduit between the production and national stakeholders such as Historic Environment Scotland.

“Outlaw King is a historical drama, it’s based on fact, so to be able to move into the actual locations that relate directly to the story was paramount to its realisation,” says Pringle. “As you can imagine, there were a lot of negotiations around that, but it all happened very

16 Screen International at Toronto September 6, 2018

smoothly and hopefully will deliver some really dramatic scenes in some incredible places across Scotland.”

Global showcase This recent boom in production can be attributed in part to the ‘Outlander effect’; the Sony/Starz TV show has been based in Scotland since 2012.

“That has been pivotal in Scotland being recognised as a real player, able to produce quality films, quality drama,” says Pringle. “It was a show that showcased what our crews can produce.”

Part of Outlander’s legacy is Wardpark Studios, Cumbernauld, Scotland’s first purpose-built studio complex, where the show has been based since 2012. It has also given impetus to training the next generation of behind-the-scenes Scottish talent.

“We’re focusing on building our crew base through dedicated training pro-

‘That gasp of appreciation when Captain America arrives in Edinburgh was heard very loudly here in Scotland’ Brodie Pringle, Creative Scotland

grammes at all levels, and bringing in new entrants,” says Pringle. “In partnership with Outlander, we’re on to almost 100 crew members on the show over the past four years. That’s the model we want to continue over the next few years.

With additional investment from the Scottish Government, we can upskill the

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great people we already have in the industry in Scotland as well as attracting new entrants and retaining them here in a sustainable industry.”

The fruits of this filmmaking boom are about to take centre stage even sooner, with three other independent productions that shot in Scotland all receiving their world premieres at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival. Annabel Jankel’s Tell It To The Bees, Tom Harper’s Wild Rose and Naziha Arebi’s Freedom Fields all benefited from development funding from Creative Scotland.

“What we look for in awarding the production growth fund is how much money will directly be spent in Scotland — in a direct ratio to what we invest,” Pringle explains. The production growth fund provides funding as a non-recoupable grant based on spend in Scotland and opportunities that the production would provide to the Scottish sector.

There is a minimum spend-to-funding ratio of 8:1 to be eligible for the fund.

Toronto titles Based on a 2009 novel by Fiona Shaw, Tell It To The Bees, which stars Anna Paquin and Holliday Grainger, was initially set in a small mill town in 1950s Yorkshire. Having secured cornerstone financing from the BFI, the filmmakers were looking for additional regional funding and a place to shoot.

“We were looking at Ireland, we were looking at Belgium, we looked at Yorkshire, obviously,” reveals producer Daisy Allsop. But when director Annabel Jankel spent a week scouting locations in Scotland, they decided to relocate both the film and production there. “We could have easily shot Scotland for Yorkshire but there was no reason to do that,” says Allsop. “It made perfect sense to make it a Scottish story.”

Eventually, the production based itself in Stirling and Jankel filmed entirely on location in the surrounding area, with a large country home in Balfron providing the focal point for half of the film’s fiveweek shoot. The Screen Scotland Screen Commission helped crew the film with a majority Scottish contingent.

“The pool of talent in Scotland is fantastic,” says Allsop. “We were aiming to make all our HoDs Scottish or female, and we almost did it. Actually, one or two were Scottish and female. There were six productions shooting [at the time] and we thought we’d never get the crew because we were coming in late.

But we managed to get most of our people locally, and everybody was incredibly talented and very used to working quickly.”

Wild Rose, by contrast, was always set

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Wild Rose

Freedom Fields

in Glasgow. “This is a truly Scottish film and a celebration of working-class life in contemporary Scotland,” says producer Faye Ward of London-based Fable Pictures. Written by Glasgowborn Nicole Taylor, it tells of Rose (played by Jessie Buckley), a single mother who dreams of making it as a country singer in Nashville. Director Tom Harper shot in Glasgow for 23 of the film’s 31-day shoot.

“Screen Scotland funded our initial scouting when we first went up to Glasgow. They actually came with us on the recce to make sure everything ran smoothly,” says Ward. “All of that really helped us set up in Glasgow. The film also received development and production funding from Screen Scotland.”

As with Tell It To The Bees, Screen Scotland was instrumental in placing a majority Scottish crew. And when the production was denied permission to

‘The pool of talent in Scotland is fantastic.

We were aiming to make all our HoDs Scottish or female, and we almost did it’ Daisy Allsop, producer

shoot at a few select sites, Pringle stepped in to successfully secure access to these key locations.

“We like to be as persuasive as possible,” says Pringle. “I’m an ex-location manager, so I have a rule — I ask three times. But it’s important the national Screen Commission can step in if things get sticky, and reassure location owners

or stakeholders that the film is a professional film. It might be low budget, but they have our funding behind it, they have our support behind it, and they are going to be a valuable piece of content that will then go on to promote their location, their country.”

The third of the Toronto-bound trio is Freedom Fields, a feature documentary from UK-Libyan director Naziha Arebi and Scotland-based producer Flore Cosquer, which follows three women and their football team in post-revolution Libya.

The film was shot in Libya over four years with Screen Scotland coming onboard in 2016 and supporting the project with both development and production funding. “Screen Scotland backing this unusual co-production is testament to their ongoing support to creative documentary and documentary talent in Scotland,” says Cosquer, “as well as their interest in looking out to the world, supporting diverse voices and inspirational character-led stories.”

For both visiting filmmakers and homegrown talent, the future of Scottish filmmaking looks bright. “As an expanding production hub, we’re ready to support the significant upturn in film and TV content that is being made here, and through this, maximise the opportunities for the entire sector that this brings,” says Pringle. With a doubling of staff, an increase in funds and a commitment to reach out internationally, Screen Scotland is well placed to lead the future success of the sector.

Screen Scotland contact details: Twitter @screenscots Website www.screen.scot

September 6, 2018 Screen International at Toronto 17

SPOTLIGHT CAMERON BAILEY

Toronto’s king of cool

A

h, Netflix. The unresolved spat with Cannes demonstrates how the streaming service continues to rattle the traditional film business, yet over at TIFF, artistic director Cameron Bailey prefers a “come one, come all” approach.

“The landscape has shifted as a result of changes in production and distribution and how audiences are seeing content,” says Bailey. “Whether [films are] going into traditional distribution afterwards or going on to a streaming service, it doesn’t matter so long as people are aware of the movie, and that’s one of the most important things a festival can do… We value the theatrical experience and we want people to see movies in movie theatres, but I don’t think it has to be exclusively one or the other.”

Renowned for his famously unflappable demeanour, Cameron takes the 11thhour mayhem of festival preparations in his stride: “We like crazy.”

Strength in depth Bailey is buzzing about the selections, brushing aside any suggestions a strong Venice presented stiff competition for world premieres. “It’s not something I noticed,” he says. “We got the highly anticipated David Mackenzie film [opening night gala Outlaw King] — that’s a Netflix film. We have world premieres from Steve McQueen [Widows], Barry Jenkins [If Beale Street Could Talk], Claire Denis [High Life], Sebastian Lelio [Gloria Bell] and many more.

We’ve done very well.

“We will be showing films that will be coming from earlier in the year as well,” he continues. Non-premieres include Alfonso Cuaron’s ROMA, as well as Nadine Labaki’s Cannes hit Capernaum, 3 Faces from Jafar Panahi and Bradley Cooper’s feature directorial debut A Star Is Born with Lady Gaga.

TIFF’s premieres policy has not changed. All films playing in the first four days of the festival must either be world premieres or North American premieres in order to screen at Roy Thomson Hall, Visa Screening Room at the Elgin Theatre, and the Princess of Wales Theatre.

TIFF world premieres include Amazon Studios’ Beautiful Boy with Timo-

Matt Barnes

TIFF’s artistic director Cameron Bailey tells Jeremy Kay what he believes the festival offers audiences, industry and filmmakers in the face of disruption from the streaming giants, a vibrant Venice and pending changes among the event’s top staff Cameron Bailey

(Annapurna snapped up US rights at Cannes); and UK director Carol Morley’s Out Of Blue, featuring Patricia Clarkson and Mamie Gummer.

Festival Street returns: several blocks of King Street West will be pedestrianonly over the opening weekend to host popular food trucks and a women’s rally on September 8.

In the wake of the deadly Danforth Avenue shootings in Toronto’s Greektown district in July, Bailey says the safety of festival-goers is a priority.

‘We want people to see movies in movie theatres, but I don’t think it has to be exclusively one or the other’ Cameron Bailey, artistic director

thée Chalamet and Steve Carell, directed by Felix van Groeningen; Sam Taylor-Johnson’s literary adaptation A Million Little Pieces; Dan Fogelman’s Life Itself; Universal’s race drama Green Book from Peter Farrelly; Xavier Dolan’s The Death And Life Of John F. Donovan; and Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 11/9, which investigates life in the US under Donald Trump and will open the TIFF Docs section.

“There is no voice we could use more right now than Michael Moore’s,” says Bailey. “Everything he has been doing for years really comes into focus in this film.”

There will be a healthy array of titles with rights available to US and international distributors, including Keith Behrman’s buzzy coming-of-age Canadian drama Giant Little Ones, screening as a Special Presentation. The competitive Platform sec-

20 Screen International at Toronto September 6, 2018

(Right) A Million Little Pieces

tion offers rich pickings including opener Donnybrook, the bareknuckle fight drama starring Jamie Bell; Alex Ross Perry’s Her Smell starring Elisabeth Moss as a has-been punk rock star; Karyn Kusama’s Destroyer starring Nicole Kidman as a detective

“People are ready to celebrate the city and do it safely, and remind ourselves and the world that we’re not going to change or be cowed by what happened,” he says. “We are looking to make sure everybody who attends knows Toronto is as exciting and vibrant a city as it always has been, and we have not and will not change our attitude in terms of putting on this festival.”

Bailey’s own role at TIFF expands this autumn when he adds co-head to his resumé. From November he will share leadership duties with Joana Vicente, formerly executive director of the Independent Filmmaker Project, to replace Michele Maheux who leaves next summer.

Piers Handling, the TIFF director and CEO who hired Bailey 28 years ago, steps down after the festival. “Many of the things we’ve done in terms of big new moves have been his ideas,” says Bailey.

He sidesteps a question about whether he was approached for a possible move to Berlin. “I’m really happy to be here,” he smiles. “I have a whole new job myself that I’m taking on after this year’s festival, so if I can get through September I’m going to s look forward to that.” ■

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PRODUCTION FOCUS PETERLOO

Political

animal

(From left) Mike Leigh and actor David Moorst on the set of Peterloo

Mike Leigh’s Peterloo plays in Masters at this year’s TIFF. The UK director tells Geoffrey Macnab about the contemporary resonance of his historical drama, his belief in the power of cinema and the challenges that face young filmmakers

M

ike Leigh’s $17.8m (£14m) period epic Peterloo, made with backing from Amazon Studios, tells the story of the Peterloo massacre in August 1819, when the local yeomanry — a small unit of the British Army Reserves — charged into a crowd of at least 60,000 people.

They had assembled in St Peter’s Field in Manchester, north-west England to listen to anti-poverty and pro-democracy radical reformer Henry Hunt at a time when less than 2% of the UK population could vote and many were hungry. At least 15 people were killed and many hundreds injured. The horror of the

‘I’ve been very fortunate that in all the 21 films I’ve made, nobody has interfered with any of them at any stage’ Mike Leigh

event swayed public opinion where the right to vote was eventually extended to ordinary citizens.

The director grew up in Salford close to the site of the massacre and, now aged 75, remembers Peterloo was barely talked about when he was a child. While he studied it for “two minutes in history [class]”, it was not commemorated at all. His father, a doctor and a socialist, never mentioned it. “You could walk to St Peter’s Square from where I grew up,” he recalls.

“Why didn’t the primary school march us down there? Nobody mentioned it.”

Over the years, Leigh learned more and more about the massacre. He realised the bicentenary was fast approaching and saw the potential for a film.

Peterloo, which premiered in Competition at Venice before playing TIFF’s Masters, begins with the Battle of Waterloo

and ends with the massacre. “People who were at Waterloo were at Peterloo,” Leigh says of the bookends.

In the film, a bugler from the Battle of Waterloo heads home to Manchester after the battle. He is then caught up in the events at Peterloo four years later, still wearing his red military coat. Even if Leigh has used narrative sleight of hand to compress the story, Peterloo is still an ambitious undertaking, a socialist version of a David Lean epic, with digitally rendered crowd scenes courtesy of UK outfit Lipsync — which also invested in the film, as it did with Leigh’s 2014 drama Mr. Turner.

Artistic freedom The director is quick to Maxine Peake lobbied Leigh emphasise the size of the profor a role in the film torical records ject has not meant he has comprobut given a new mised artistically. “Either you get immediacy by the way Leigh stitched interfered with or you don’t,” he says. them together. This was not the typical “Either you get backing or you don’t.

Leigh project when he would go to Those are the bottom lines. Now, I’ve backers saying, “I can’t tell you anything been very fortunate that in all of the 21 about it, there isn’t a script, can’t tell you films I’ve made, nobody has interfered who is in it, give us the money and we’ll with any of them at any stage. Amazon is make a film.” no exception. It is the biggest budget Leigh may have directed plenty of telwe’ve had but it’s not huge.” evision dramas early in his career, This is also a film without an obvious including Nuts In May and Abigail’s star. The director pays tribute to his Party, but the director points out “that enormous cast, which includes Maxine was at a time when that was all you Peake, Rory Kinnear and Alastair Maccould do”. He says he did not consider kenzie. He says even those in the smallmaking Peterloo as a mini-series. “The est parts were “intelligent, committed, thought has never occurred to me,” did the research, no egos — really getLeigh says. “I am committed — for as ting down to it”. Leigh himself did a long as it is possible to do so — to makmassive amount of research. The rousing motion pictures.” ing speeches heard throughout the film His instinct as a storyteller has always from the reformers are drawn from his-

22 Screen International at Toronto September 6, 2018

been to make “one-off single pieces”.

Peterloo has plenty of contemporary resonance. It highlights the continuing divide between the prosperous south and the deprived north of England. Leigh, who grew up in the north but has lived in the south for many years, recalls taking his eldest son as a 12-year-old to Liverpool. “We needed something from the greengrocers,” he says. “I remember him being palpably shocked, and not being able to articulate about it, at the difference between what was in the shops and the general atmosphere.”

This is Leigh’s first major project with UK actress Peake — but not their first collaboration. He directed her once in a commercial and she also had a tiny part (“in the back of a taxi”) in All Or Nothing.

“She’s a political animal herself,” Leigh explains. “She always recites [Percy

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Simon Mein/Amazon Studio

us back at the BBC, for example.” He believes young talent should be given the chance for “radical” experimenting. “By that, I don’t mean arty films,” he adds, “but just the freedom to explore.”

Leigh recently stood down as chairman of the London Film School after 18 years in the post, but he remains heavily involved in supporting young talent.

With more than 70 awards for his films already (including a Golden Lion for Vera Drake and the Palme d’Or for Secrets & Lies) as well as several Oscar nominations, the director is hardly an ignored figure.

‘You can’t assess if a film is going to work cinematically by a table reading. It is nonsense’ Mike Leigh

Bysshe Shelley’s poem] ‘The Masque Of Anarchy’ on the anniversary of Peterloo in Manchester where she lives. As soon as I announced we were doing this, she was on to me straight away, saying, ‘Please can I be in it?’”

The trouble with table reads Ask Leigh whether he would like to be a young independent UK filmmaker starting out today, and he gives a wary response. He realises he is speaking “from the privileged, lucky experience of someone who has umpteen films and never been interfered with — often when there was no script and no-one knew what they are were going to get”.

He fears young filmmakers are now subjected to what, in his view, is “excessive interrogation, hoops to jump through, boxes to tick, as distinct from

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being given licence to go out and explore and create”. Leigh will not name specific funders, but rails against “the requirement the film has what is called a ‘table reading’, which is actors sitting round reading the script. To me, this is counterproductive, anti-creative and not what films are about. They’re not plays, they’re films. You can’t assess if a film is going to work cinematically by a table reading. It’s nonsense.”

Leigh understands the “box ticking” that goes on “in terms of gender, ethnic diversity etc”, but believes this “can be eccentric and get in the way”. He cites the example of a young filmmaker he knows who works with a regular crew including a male cinematographer.

After several meetings, the funders asked the director, “Why aren’t you working with a female cinematogra-

pher?”, to which the director responded, “Because he’s a bloke.”

“These things are symptoms of something,” argues Leigh. “Young filmmakers need to be encouraged. Of course you can’t dole out any money to anybody, but [the funding] needs to be more liberal and more imaginative, as it was for (Right) Rory Kinnear as reformer Henry Hunt

“We’ve got a shelf next door — god knows what to do with the damn things,” he says of his vast collection of statuettes.

Nonetheless, he still sometimes experiences slights and rejections: Cannes turned down Peterloo, just as it did Vera Drake. Does it make any difference to him whether he is going for a Golden Lion or a Palme d’Or? “They happen or they don’t happen. You don’t hustle for them,” Leigh declares. “Everybody knows that Cannes rejected Peterloo. They said they respected it but it wasn’t for them.”

After so many years, Leigh is “philosophical” about these festivals and their programming choices. “They are brilliant conduits for getting the film out into the world,” he says. “It is what it is.

I just want people to see the films.”

Leigh maintains his belief in the medium. He still has the same passion for making films for cinemas and for watching them. “I would like to think Peterloo is testament to that commitment,” he says. “It’s a cinematic commitment. Just to devote oneself with a gang of like-minded folk to crafting and making films of the kind we do seems to me good s enough.” ■ Peterloo plays in Masters on September 6 (P&I, Scotiabank 1, 18:30), September 9 (public, Winter Gardens, 14:00), September 12 (public, Lightbox 3, 21:15), September 14 (P&I, Scotiabank 1, 09:45), September 15 (public, Scotiabank 1, 15:00)

September 6, 2018 Screen International at Toronto 23

SCREENINGS

JURY GRID, PAGE 34

Edited by Jamie McLeish » Screening times and venues are correct at the time of going to press but subject to alteration

PUBLIC SCREENINGS

17:30 FLORIANOPOLIS DREAM

(Argentina-BrazilFrance) 106mins. Film Factory. Dir: Ana Katz.

Cast: Andrea Beltrao, Caio Horowicz, Gustavo Garzon, Joaquin Garzon, Manuela Martinez, Marco Ricca, Mercedes Moran.

When a family growing apart decides to take a road trip from Argentina to Brazil in the hope of fixing a broken marriage, the awkward experience soon turns into a vacation that opens up each member to new and exciting experiences.

Contemporary World Cinema Scotiabank 3

17:45 GRETA See box, right

18:00 DOGMAN

PUBLIC SCREENING 17:45 GRETA

(US-Ireland) 98mins.

Sierra/Affinity.

Dir: Neil Jordan. Cast: Chloë Grace Moretz, Colm Feore, Isabelle Huppert, Maika Monroe, Stephen Rea. Isabelle Huppert teams with writer/director Neil

(Italy-France) 103mins.

Rai Com, HanWay Films.

Dir: Matteo Garrone.

Cast: Adamo Dionisi, Alida Baldari Calabria, Edoardo Pesce, Francesco Acquaroli, Gianluca Gobbi, Marcello Fonte, Nunzia Schiano.

In the latest from Matteo Garrone (Gomorrah), mild-mannered Marcello spends his days grooming dogs, hanging out with his beloved daughter and, like most of his neighbourhood, trying to avoid Simoncino, a former boxer and resident bully with whom Marcello coexists uneasily — until a double-crossing prompts an ugly act of vengeance.

Kristin Thora Haraldsdottir, Lara Johanna Jonsdottir, Thorsteinn Bachmann.

Drawing on true stories and interviews with the families of addicts, this harrowing portrait of addiction follows Stella and Magnea through the decades as precarious teenage years morph into perilous adulthoods.

Special Presentations Scotiabank 1

Contemporary World Cinema Scotiabank 4

LET ME FALL

RAY & LIZ

(Iceland-FinlandGermany) 136mins.

The Icelandic Film Company. Dir: Baldvin Z. Cast: Elin Sif Halldorsdottir, Eyrun Bjork Jakobsdottir,

(UK) 108mins. Luxbox.

Dir: Richard Billingham.

Cast: Deirdre Kelly, Ella Smith, Joshua MillardLloyd, Justin Salinger, Patrick Romer, Sam Gittins, Tony Way.

26 Screen International at Toronto September 6, 2018

Jordan to play the title role in this psychological thriller about a lonely, mysterious widow whose friendship with a naïve young woman (Chloë Grace Moretz) takes on an increasingly obsessive and sinister air.

Special Presentations Ryerson Theatre

Renowned photographer Richard Billingham makes his feature-film debut with this intricate family portrait, inspired in part by his own memories and shot on stunning 16mm.

Wavelengths Jackman Hall

THE FALL OF THE AMERICAN EMPIRE

(Canada) 128mins.

Séville International.

Dir: Denys Arcand.

Cast: Alexandre Landry, Louis Morissette, Maripier Morin, Maxim Roy, Pierre Curzi, Rémy Girard, Vincent Leclerc.

Denys Arcand’s thematic successor to The Decline Of The American Empire and The Barbarian

Invasions centres on a young man whose life is changed when he finds two bags of cash after an armed robbery.

Special Presentations Elgin Theatre

18:30 ANTHROPOCENE: THE HUMAN EPOCH

(Canada) 87mins.

Séville International.

Dir: Edward Burtynsky, Jennifer Baichwal, Nicholas de Pencier.

Baichwal, de Pencier and Burtynsky follow up Manufactured Landscapes and Watermark with a sobering meditation on psychedelic potash mines, expansive concrete seawalls, mammoth industrial machines and other examples of humanity’s massive re-engineering of the planet.

Special Presentations Winter Garden Theatre

the English after being crowned king of Scotland, legendary warrior Robert the Bruce fights to reclaim the throne, in the latest from David Mackenzie (Hell Or High Water).

the English after being crowned king of Scotland, legendary warrior Robert the Bruce fights to reclaim the throne, in the latest from David Mackenzie (Hell Or High Water).

Gala Presentations Princess of Wales

Gala Presentations Roy Thomson Hall

RAFIKI

(Kenya-South AfricaFrance-Lebanon-NorwayNetherlands-GermanyUS) 82mins. MPM Premium. Dir: Wanuri Kahiu. Cast: Dennis Musyoka, Jimmi Gathu, Nini Wacera, Samantha Mugatsia, Sheila Munyiva.

The latest from Wanuri Kahiu charts a precarious love story between two young Kenyan women in a society where homosexuality is banned.

Discovery Scotiabank 2

20:00

OUTLAW KING

OUTLAW KING

(US-UK) 137mins.

Netflix. Dir: David Mackenzie. Cast: Chris Pine, Aaron TaylorJohnson, Billy Howle.

Forced into exile by

(US-UK) 137mins.

Netflix. Dir: David Mackenzie. Cast: Chris Pine, Aaron TaylorJohnson, Billy Howle.

Forced into exile by

20:30 MAIDEN

(UK) 93mins. Dogwoof.

Dir: Alex Holmes.

Cast: Tracy Edwards.

In a moving portrait of resilience, Alex Holmes chronicles the unprecedented journey of 24-year-old Tracy Edwards and the first all-female sailing crew to enter the Whitbread Round the World Race.

TIFF Docs Scotiabank 14

20:45 FAHRENHEIT 11/9

(US) 120mins. AGC Studios. Dir: Michael Moore.

Palme d’Or-winning documentarian Michael Moore (Fahrenheit 9/11) turns his attention to another significant date, examining the legacy of www.screendaily.com

»

SCREENINGS

Donald Trump’s ascension to the US presidency on November 9, 2016.

TIFF Docs Ryerson Theatre

STYX

(Germany-Austria) 94mins. Beta Cinema.

Dir: Wolfgang Fischer.

Cast: Gedion Wekesa Oduor, Susanne Wolff.

Wolfgang Fischer’s allegory for Western indifference feels only too real when a woman on a solo sailing trip across the Atlantic happens upon a sinking boat full of refugees.

Contemporary World Cinema Scotiabank 3

21:00 GIRLS OF THE SUN

(France) 115mins. Elle Driver. Dir: Eva Husson.

Cast: Emmanuelle Bercot, Golshifteh Farahani.

Bang Gang (A Modern Love Story) director Eva Husson returns to the festival with a timely war film about survival and sisterhood centred on the Girls of the Sun, a battalion of women fighting to take back their homes from Isis extremists in Iraqi Kurdistan.

Special Presentations Scotiabank 1

PUBLIC SCREENING

Washington, Kelvin Harrison Jr, Nicole Beharie, Rob Morgan.

When a black man is shot dead by police, three members of his community face different but serious consequences if they reveal their knowledge of the murder or the systemic corruption behind it, in writer/director Reinaldo Marcus Green’s bracing feature debut.

Special Presentations TIFF Bell Lightbox 1

MONSTERS AND MEN

(US) 96mins. HanWay Films. Dir: Reinaldo Marcus Green. Cast: Anthony Ramos, Chanté Adams, Jasmine Cephas Jones, John David

Marie Vialle, Micha Lescot, Quentin Dolmaire.

An art student (Manal Issa) sets out to revive the prospects of a jaded famous artist (Eric Cantona), retired from his life as an artist years ago, in this understated comedy from French director Sébastien Betbeder.

Contemporary World Cinema Jackman Hall

(France) 82mins.

Cercamon. Dir: Sébastien Betbeder. Cast: Eric Cantona, Jean-Luc Vincent, Manal Issa,

KURSK

(Belgium-Luxembourg) 117mins. Europa Corp. Dir: Thomas Vinterberg. Cast: Colin Firth, Léa Seydoux, Matthias Schoenaerts.

Director Thomas Vinterberg and a formidable cast — including Matthias Schoenaerts, Léa

MOUTHPIECE

Seydoux and Colin Firth — recreate the tragic final hours of the reallife nuclear submarine explosion that left the ship stranded at the bottom of the Barents Sea, while bureaucratic obstacles impeded rescue and their families searched for answers.

Special Presentations Princess of Wales

21:15 EL ANGEL

ULYSSES & MONA

22:00

(Argentina-Spain) 114mins. Film Factory.

Dir: Luis Ortega. Cast: Cécilia Roth, Chino Darin, Daniel Fanego, Lorenzo Ferro, Luis

Gnecco, Mercedes Moran, Peter Lanzani.

Loosely based on the infamous Argentinian serial killer dubbed Death Angel, this cautionary drama follows an

innocuous-looking but deeply sinister thief whose lawlessness escalates when he takes up with a career criminal.

Contemporary World Cinema Scotiabank 2

PUBLIC SCREENING MIDNIGHT THE PREDATOR

(US) 101mins. 20th Century Fox. Dir: Shane Black. Cast: Alfie Allen, Augusto Aguilera, Boyd Holbrook, Jacob Tremblay, Jake Busey, Keegan-Michael Key, Olivia Munn, Sterling K Brown, Thomas Jane, Trevante Rhodes.

The destructive extraterrestrials wreak havoc on a small town, forcing an ex-soldier and a biologist to take action.

Midnight Madness Ryerson Theatre

(Canada) 91mins.

Creative Artists Agency (CAA). Dir: Patricia Rozema. Cast: Amy Nostbakken, Maev Beaty, Norah Sadava.

Patricia Rozema (I’ve Heard The Mermaids Singing) adapts the award-winning twowoman play by Amy Nostbakken and Norah Sadava, about an aspiring writer attempting to reconcile her feminism with the conformist choices of her mother following her parent’s sudden death.

Special Presentations Winter Garden Theatre

21:30 LORO

(Italy-France) 150mins.

Pathé International. Dir: Paolo Sorrentino. Cast: Elena Sofia Ricci, Kasia Smutniak, Riccardo Scamarcio, Toni Servillo.

Paolo Sorrentino skewers Italian politics in this satirical, profane and imaginative fictionalisation of controversial Italian tycoon and politician Silvio Berlusconi.

Masters Elgin Theatre

22:00 KURSK See box, above

MIDNIGHT THE PREDATOR See box, left

28 Screen International at Toronto September 6, 2018

www.screendaily.com

Midnight Madness Ryerson Theatre

PRESS & INDUSTRY

09:00 ASAKO I & II

(Japan-France) 119mins. mk2 Films. Dir: Ryusuke Hamaguchi.

Cast: Daichi Watanabe, Erika Karata, Koji Seto, Masahiro Higashide, Rio Yamashita, Sairi Ito. When Asako’s first love disappears suddenly, she is given a chance to relive her romance two years later when she meets his perfect double, in Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s romantic drama.

Contemporary World Cinema Scotiabank 13

PRESS & INDUSTRY

DOGMAN

(Italy-France) 103mins.

Rai Com, HanWay Films.

Dir: Matteo Garrone.

Cast: Adamo Dionisi, Alida Baldari Calabria, Edoardo Pesce, Francesco Acquaroli, Gianluca Gobbi, Marcello Fonte, Nunzia Schiano.

Mild-mannered Marcello spends his days grooming dogs, hanging out with his beloved daughter and, like most of his neighbourhood, trying to avoid Simoncino, a former boxer and resident bully with whom Marcello coexists uneasily — until a double-crossing prompts an ugly act of vengeance.

Special Presentations Scotiabank 3

MUSEO

(Mexico) 126mins.

Luxbox, Distant Horizon.

Dir: Alonso Ruizpalacios.

Cast: Alfredo Castro, Bernardo Velasco, Gael Garcia Bernal, Ilse Salas, Leonardo Ortizgris, Leticia Bredice, Lisa Owen, Simon Russell Beale.

Two friends execute a heist of Mayan artifacts from Mexico City’s National Museum of Anthropology, but fencing the stolen goods proves trickier, in this layered drama.

Contemporary World Cinema Scotiabank 10

09:15 THE WILD PEAR TREE

(Turkey-France-

www.screendaily.com

Germany-Bulgaria) 188mins. Memento Films International. Dir: Nuri Bilge Ceylan. Cast: Aydin Dogu Demirkol, Bennu Yildirmlar, Hazar Erguclu, Murat Cemcir, Serkan Keskin.

An aspiring author returns home from college to pursue his passion for literature, but is faced with a complicated family dynamic caused by his father’s gambling addiction, in the Winter Sleep director’s hypnotic tale of discovery.

Masters Scotiabank 11

09:30 AN ELEPHANT SITTING STILL

(China) 234mins.

Rediance. Dir: Hu Bo. Cast: Zhang Yu, Peng Yuchang, Wang Yuwen, Liu Congxi.

Over the course of a single, suspenseful day, the troubled lives of four desperate people unfold in this resonant film about the human condition — director Hu Bo’s first and, tragically, final feature.

Discovery Scotiabank 7

EL ANGEL

(Argentina-Spain) 114mins. Film Factory.

Dir: Luis Ortega. Cast: Cecilia Roth, Chino Darin, Daniel Fanego, Lorenzo Ferro, Luis Gnecco, Mercedes

Moran, Peter Lanzani.

Loosely based on the infamous Argentinian serial killer dubbed Death Angel, this cautionary drama follows an innocuous-looking but deeply sinister thief whose lawlessness escalates exponentially when he takes up with a career criminal.

Contemporary World Cinema Scotiabank 8

LEGEND OF THE DEMON CAT — DIRECTOR’S CUT

(China-Japan) 120mins. Moonstone Entertainment. Dir: Chen Kaige. Cast: Edward Zhang, Hiroshi Abe, Huang Xuan, Liu Haoran, Oho Ou, Qin Hao, Sandrine Pinna, Shota Sometani, Yuqi Zhang.

The unlikely duo of a Chinese poet and Japanese monk join forces to investigate after a demonic cat possesses a general’s wife and wreaks havoc on a Tang Dynasty imperial court, killing a concubine.

Special Presentations Scotiabank 14

WILDLIFE

(US) 104mins.

FilmNation Entertainment. Dir: Paul Dano. Cast: Bill Camp, Carey Mulligan, Ed Oxenbould, Jake Gyllenhaal.

In Paul Dano’s evocative and emotional directorial

11:30 THE KINDERGARTEN TEACHER

(US) 97mins.

Protagonist Pictures.

Dir: Sara Colangelo.

Cast: Anna Baryshnikov, Gael Garcia Bernal,

debut, a teenage boy (Ed Oxenbould) in 1960s Montana experiences the breakdown of his parents’ marriage and the struggles of his mother (Carey Mulligan) to keep their lives afloat after his father (Jake Gyllenhaal) leaves.

Special Presentations Scotiabank 2

09:45 MONSTERS AND MEN

(US) 96mins. HanWay Films. Dir: Reinaldo Marcus Green. Cast: Anthony Ramos, Chanté Adams, Jasmine Cephas Jones, John David Washington, Kelvin Harrison Jr, Nicole Beharie, Rob Morgan.

When a black man is shot dead by police, three members of his community face different but serious consequences if they reveal their knowledge of the murder or the systemic corruption behind it, in writer/ director Reinaldo Marcus Green’s bracing feature debut.

Special Presentations Scotiabank 4

Maggie Gyllenhaal, Michael Chernus, Parker Sevak, Rosa Salazar.

Maggie Gyllenhaal gives a captivating performance as an overworked teacher who becomes obsessed with one of her students

and his gift for poetry, in Sara Colangelo’s Englishlanguage remake of Israeli filmmaker Nadav Lapid’s challenging 2014 drama.

THE FALL OF THE AMERICAN EMPIRE

their community’s private information, launching a proverbial witch hunt with very real consequences.

(Canada) 128mins.

Séville International.

Dir: Denys Arcand. Cast: Alexandre Landry, Louis Morissette, Maripier Morin, Maxim Roy, Pierre Curzi, Rémy Girard, Vincent Leclerc.

Denys Arcand’s thematic successor to The Decline Of The American Empire and The Barbarian Invasions centres on a young man whose life is changed when he finds two bags of cash after an armed robbery.

Special Presentations Scotiabank 9

11:30 ASSASSINATION NATION

(US) 108mins. Bloom.

Dir: Sam Levinson.

Cast: Abra, Bella Thorne, Bill Skarsgard, Hari Nef, Joel McHale, Kelvin Harrison Jr, Maude Apatow, Odessa Young, Suki Waterhouse.

In this Salem-set socialmedia thriller from Sam Levinson (Another Happy Day), four young women are accused of hacking and publishing

Gala Presentations Scotiabank 3

Midnight Madness Scotiabank 13

THE KINDERGARTEN TEACHER See box, above

11:45 DONBASS

(Germany-UkraineFrance-NetherlandsRomania) 121mins.

Pyramide International.

Dir: Sergei Loznitsa.

Cast: Alexander Zamurayev, Boris Kamorzin, Gerogy Deliev, Irina Plesnyaeva, Konstantin Itunin, Liudmila Smorodina, Natalia Buzko, Nina Antonova, Olesya Zhurakovskaya, Petro Panchuk, Sergei Kolesov, Sergei Russkin, Sergei Smeyan, Svetlana Kolesova, Tamara Yatsen.

Told through a series of impressively choreographed vignettes, Sergei Loznitsa’s scathing political commentary »

September 6, 2018 Screen International at Toronto 29

SCREENINGS

follows the war that has been raging in Eastern Ukraine for years, wielding both artillery and propaganda as weapons.

Contemporary World Cinema Scotiabank 10

NON-FICTION

(France) 106mins.

Playtime. Dir: Olivier Assayas. Cast: Christa Théret, Guillaume Canet, Juliette Binoche, Nora Hamzawi, Vincent Macaigne.

French auteur Olivier Assayas probes the promises and pitfalls of art in the age of digital communication, in this comedy about a Parisian publisher (Guillaume Canet) and his successful actress wife (Juliette Binoche) adapting to the new-media landscape.

Special Presentations Scotiabank 1

12:00 LORO

(Italy-France) 150mins.

Pathé International. Dir: Paolo Sorrentino. Cast: Elena Sofia Ricci, Kasia Smutniak, Riccardo Scamarcio, Toni Servillo.

Paolo Sorrentino skewers Italian politics in this satirical, profane and imaginative fictionalisation of controversial Italian tycoon and politician Silvio Berlusconi and his inner circle.

Masters Scotiabank 2

TOUCH ME NOT

(Romania-GermanyCzech Republic-BulgariaFrance) 125mins. Doc & Film International.

Dir: Adina Pintilie.

Cast: Christian Bayerlein, Grit Uhlemann, Hanna Hofmann, Irmena Chichikova, Laura Benson, Seani Love, Tomas Lemarquis.

The Berlinale Golden Bear winner is a brave and raw look at bodies, intimacy and empathy, exploring the private lives and sexual desires of four people with an approach that blurs the line between fiction and documentary.

Discovery Scotiabank 14

PRESS & INDUSTRY 12:45 CARMINE STREET GUITARS

(Canada) 80mins. The Match Factory. Dir: Ron Mann. Cast: Cindy Hulej, Dorothy Kelly, Lenny Kaye, Rick Kelly.

Documentarian Ron Mann delivers a ballad to Greenwich Village guitar-maker Rick Kelly,

12:15 ASH IS PUREST WHITE

(China-France) 141mins. mk2 Films. Dir: Jia Zhang-ke. Cast: Casper Liang, Liao Fan, Xu Zheng, Zhao Tao. A gangster’s ex-girlfriend struggles to adapt to life and find her way in the new ‘capitalist’ China after five years in prison, in the latest from festival favourite Jia Zhang-ke.

Masters Scotiabank 4

12:30 LONG DAY’S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT

(China-France) 140mins.

Wild Bunch. Dir: Bi Gan. Cast: Hong-Chi Lee, Jue Huang, Meihuizi Zeng, Sylvia Chang, Wei Tang.

Sculpting in time and space, Long Day’s Journey Into Night is a technical marvel as well as a dreamlike, neon-bathed noir, confirming Bi Gan

30 Screen International at Toronto September 6, 2018

SHADOW

who builds his custommade instruments from repurposed wood scavenged from historic New York City buildings.

With appearances by store clientele including Charlie Sexton, Bill Frisell and Jim Jarmusch.

TIFF Docs Scotiabank 9

as one of cinema’s most exciting young luminaries.

(China) 116mins.

Bloom. Dir: Zhang Yimou. Cast: Deng Chao, Wang Jingchun, Hu Jun, Zheng Kai, Wu Leo, Sun Li, Wang Qianyuan, Guan Xiaotong.

Master filmmaker Zhang Yimou brings a completely original cinematic style to an epic battle story, contrasting visuals that draw on China’s centuries-old tradition of ink-wash painting against next-level fighting

sequences to dazzling effect.

Gala Presentations Scotiabank 3

WOMEN MAKE FILM: A NEW ROAD MOVIE THROUGH CINEMA

(UK) 240mins. Dogwoof.

Dir: Mark Cousins.

Cast: Tilda Swinton.

The monumental but largely unrecognised efforts of female filmmakers are highlighted and celebrated.

TIFF Docs Scotiabank 13

14:30 BURNING

(South Korea) 148mins.

Finecut. Dir: Lee Changdong. Cast: Yoo Ah-in, Jun Jong-seo, Steven Yeun.

In this thriller from director Lee Chang-dong, based on a short story

by Haruki Murakami, a young man grows suspicious about the motives of a deceptive interloper who is hanging around with his childhood

Wavelengths Scotiabank 8

12:45 CARMINE STREET GUITARS See box, above

13:00 MANTO See box, right

14:00 HOTEL BY THE RIVER

(South Korea) 96mins.

Finecut. Dir: Hong Sangsoo. Cast: Kwon Haehyo, Ki Joobong, Yu Junsang, Kim Minhee, Song Seonmi.

The interactions of a struggling poet, his estranged sons and two female friends power Hong Sangsoo’s latest rumination on life’s themes — great and small — in this black-and-white feature.

Masters Scotiabank 7

PRESS & INDUSTRY 13:00 MANTO

(India) 112mins.

Radiant Films International. Dir: Nandita Das. Cast: Nawazuddin Siddiqui,

Rasika Dugal, Tahir Raj Bhasin.

Nandita Das’s biopic follows the most tumultuous years in the life of iconoclastic writer Saadat Hasan

Manto and also those of the countries — India and Pakistan — that Manto inhabited and chronicled.

Special Presentations Scotiabank 11

www.screendaily.com

friend-turned-burgeoning love interest.

Special Presentations Scotiabank 1

THE FIREFLIES ARE GONE

(Canada) 95mins.

Séville International.

Dir: Sébastien Pilote.

Cast: Francois Papineau, Karelle Tremblay, Luc Picard, Marie-France Marcotte, Pierre-Luc Brillant.

Karelle Tremblay stars as an angst-ridden teenager teetering between malaise and wanderlust in a small industrial town, in the latest from Quebec’s Sébastien Pilote.

Contemporary World Cinema Scotiabank 10

14:45 LA QUIETUD

(Argentina) 120mins.

Wild Bunch. Dir: Pablo Trapero. Cast: Bérénice Bejo, Edgar Ramirez, Graciela Borges, Joaquin Furriel, Martina Gusman.

www.screendaily.com

Against the backdrop of a military dictatorship, Eugenia is reunited with her estranged family following her father’s stroke and is forced to confront dark secrets, in Pablo Trapero’s much anticipated follow-up to 2015’s The Clan.

Special Presentations Scotiabank 14

15:00 LOOK AT ME

(Qatar-France-Tunisia) 96mins. MPM Premium.

Dir: Nejib Belkadhi.

Cast: Idryss Kharroubi, Nidhal Saadi, Sawssen Maalej.

A man finds himself at a crucial crossroads, torn between the life he thought he could leave behind in Tunisia and the life he has created for himself in Marseille, in Nejib Belkadhi’s latest film.

Contemporary World Cinema Scotiabank 9

15:15 EVERYBODY KNOWS

(France-Spain-Italy) 133mins. Memento Films International.

Dir: Asghar Farhadi.

Cast: Barbara Lennie, Eduard Fernandez, Javier Bardem, Penelope Cruz, Ricardo Darin.

Academy Award winner Asghar Farhadi (A Separation, The Salesman) directs Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem in this layered, psychological drama about a family wedding interrupted by a shocking crime and some longburied secrets.

Gala Presentations Scotiabank 2

15:30 EDGE OF THE KNIFE

(Canada) 100mins.

Dir: Gwaai Edenshaw, Helen Haig-Brown.

Cast: Adeana Young, Tyler York, William Russ.

In 19th-century Haida Gwaii, an accident prompts a tormented man to retreat into the forest where he becomes Gaagiixiid/Gaagiid — the Wildman — in this landmark first feature made in the two dialects of the Haida language.

Discovery Scotiabank 8

GIRLS OF THE SUN

(France) 115mins. Elle Driver. Dir: Eva Husson.

Cast: Emmanuelle Bercot, Golshifteh Farahani.

Bang Gang (A Modern Love Story) director Eva Husson returns to TIFF with a timely war film about survival and sisterhood centred on the ‘Girls of the Sun’, a battalion of women fighting to take back their homes from Isis extremists in Iraqi Kurdistan.

Special Presentations Scotiabank 4

OUR TIME

(Mexico-FranceGermany-DenmarkSweden) 173mins.

The Match Factory.

Dir: Carlos Reygadas.

Cast: Carlos Reygadas, Eleazar Reygadas, Natalia Lopez, Phil Burgers, Rut Reygadas.

A couple’s open relationship begins to crumble when the husband cannot control his jealousy, in Carlos Reygadas’s heartfelt exploration of marriage and intimacy, featuring the director and his wife in the lead roles.

Masters Scotiabank 11

16:30 DEAD SOULS

(France-Switzerland) 495mins. Doc & Film International. Dir: Wang Bing.

Wang Bing reconstructs a tragic chapter of Chinese history with this haunting eight-hour documentary

on the labour re-education camps in the Gobi Desert, where untold numbers died of starvation under the Communist Party’s AntiRightist Campaign of 1957.

Wavelengths Scotiabank 7

17:30 PROSECUTING EVIL: THE EXTRAORDINARY WORLD OF BEN FERENCZ

(Canada) 83mins. CBC. Dir: Barry Avrich. Cast: Alan Dershowitz, Ben Ferencz, David Scheffer, Don Ferencz.

Barry Avrich returns to TIFF with a portrait of Ben Ferencz, the last surviving Nuremberg Trial prosecutor, who continues to wage his lifelong crusade in the fight for law and peace.

TIFF Docs Scotiabank 9

17:45 BORDER

(Sweden-Denmark)

»

September 6, 2018 Screen International at Toronto 31

SCREENINGS

110mins. Films Boutique.

Dir: Ali Abbasi. Cast: Ann Petren, Eero Milonoff, Eva Melander, Jogen Thorsson, Sten Ljungren.

The story of a border agent who uses her ability to sense human emotions to catch smugglers. She is forced to confront a new reality when one man confounds her detection.

Contemporary World Cinema Scotiabank 14

18:00 IN MY ROOM

(Germany-Italy) 119mins.

The Match Factory. Dir: Ulrich Kohler. Cast: Elene Radonicich, Emma

Bading, Hans Low, Michael Wittenborn, Ruth Bickelhaupt.

A highlight of the Un Certain Regard section in Cannes, In My Room follows Armin, who awakens after a tragic loss and discovers all of humanity has disappeared, giving him a rare opportunity for selfdiscovery, until a stranger arrives.

PETERLOO

Dir: Mike Leigh. Cast: Karl Johnson, Maxine Peake, Neil Bell, Philip Jackson, Rory Kinnear, Tim McInnerny, Vincent Franklin, Rachel Finnegan.

Veteran UK filmmaker Mike Leigh (Topsy-Turvy, Mr. Turner) returns to TIFF with a sobering look at the context and consequences of the 1819 Peterloo Massacre in Manchester, when British government militias responded with violence to a crowd calling for political reform.

(UK) 153mins.

Cornerstone Films.

Masters Scotiabank 13

Wavelengths Scotiabank 8

18:30

19:00

20:45

BLACK 47

(Ireland-Luxembourg) 96mins. Altitude Film Sales. Dir: Lance Daly. Cast: Barry Keoghan, Freddie Fox, Hugo Weaving, James Frecheville, Jim Broadbent, Moe Dunford, Sarah Greene, Stephen Rea. Set during the Irish famine, Lance Daly’s searing drama tells the story of a British army deserter who returns home to find his mother has died of starvation and that his brother was

PRESS & INDUSTRY 20:15 KINGSWAY

(Canada) 88mins.

Dir: Bruce Sweeney.

Cast: Agam Darshi, Camille Sullivan, Colleen Rennison, Gabrielle Rose, Jeff Gladstone, Jennifer Mclean, Jillian Fargey.

A single car mechanic’s suspicions that her sister-in-law is having an affair prompts their family and friends to confront their own stalled routes to romance.

Contemporary World Cinema Scotiabank 9

32 Screen International at Toronto September 6, 2018

PRESS & INDUSTRY

THE VICE OF HOPE

(Italy) 100mins. True Colours. Dir: Edoardo de Angelis. Cast: Cristina Donadio, Marina Confalone, Massimiliano Rossi, Pina Turco.

To support her family, Maria works as a trafficker of surrogate

mothers, transporting them from place to place along a river — but when one disappears, Maria is left with the task of finding her and must move deeper into a world she wishes to escape.

Contemporary World Cinema Scotiabank 10

hanged by the British, leading him down a path of justice for both his family and country.

empathic requiem for his generation’s inheritance of — and reconciliation with — the wounds of war.

Contemporary World Cinema Scotiabank 11

Discovery Scotiabank 8

20:15

21:15

KINGSWAY

THE RIVER

See box, left

(Kazakhstan-PolandNorway) 108mins.

Films Boutique. Dir: Emir Baigazin. Cast: Bagdaulet Sagindikov, Eric Tazabekov, Ruslan Userbayev, Sultanali Zhaksybek, Zhalgas Klanov, Zhasulan Userbayev.

Emir Baigazin’s immersive family portrait tells the story of five young brothers who lead secluded lives under the watch of their controlling father, until the boys’ accidental discovery of the modern world threatens their way of life.

20:45 THE VICE OF HOPE See box, above

21:00 THE LOAD

(Serbia-France-CroatiaIran-Qatar) 98mins.

New Europe Film Sales.

Dir: Ognjen Glavonic.

Cast: Ivan Lucev, Leon Lucev, Pavle Cemerikic, Tamara Krcunovic.

As Kosovo endures the 1999 Nato bombing, weary Vlada drives a truckload of undisclosed cargo to Belgrade, in director Ognjen Glavonic’s

Platform Scotiabank 11

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American Film Market

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Oct. 31 - Nov. 7 | Santa Monica AmericanFilmMarket.com

THE RIVER (Kaz-Pol-Nor) Emir Baigazin

JESSICA FOREVER (Fr) Caroline Poggi, Jonathan Vinel

DESTROYER (US) Karyn Kusama

★★★

Good

AVERAGE

Excellent

SCREEN INTERNATIONAL

Le Film Français, France

VINCENT LE LEURCH

Time Out New York, US

JOSHUA ROTHKOPF

Boston Globe, US

LOREN KING

NOW/CTV, Canada

★★★★

RADHEYAN SIMONPILLAI

Los Angeles Times, US

THE SCREEN JURY — PLATFORM

JUSTIN CHANG

JURY GRID

Emir Baigazin’s family portrait tells the story of five young brothers who lead secluded lives under the strict ★★ ★★ ★★ ★★ ★★ ★★ watch of their controlling father, until they accidentally discover the modern world and their way of life is ★★ ★★ ★★ ★★ ★★ ★★ threatened. The cast includes Zhalgas Klanov, Zhasulan Userbayev, Eric Tazabekov and Bagdaulet Sagindikov.

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Caroline Poggi and Jonathan Vinel’s visually striking debut feature presents a dystopian world where violent ★★ ★★ ★★ ★★ ★★ ★★ misfits reign supreme, counterbalanced by one woman (Aomi Muyock) and her makeshift family of rehabilitated ★★ ★★ ★★ ★★ ★★ ★★ marauders fighting for peace.

0.0

When a new case uncovers traumas from a past undercover operation, a Los Angeles Police Department detective ★★ ★★ ★★ ★★ ★★ ★★ (Nicole Kidman) must face her personal and professional demons. Jennifer’s Body director Karyn Kusama’s cast ★★ ★★ ★★ ★★ ★★ ★★ includes Sebastian Stan, Toby Kebbell and Scoot McNairy.

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MADEMOISELLE DE JONCQUIERES (Fr) Emmanuel Mouret

Cécile de France stars as an embittered woman who takes revenge on her promiscuous lover (Edouard Baer), ★★ ★★ ★★ ★★ ★★ ★★ a notorious libertine, by throwing him into the arms of Mademoiselle de Joncquieres (Alice Isaaz), a young lady ★★ ★★ ★★ ★★ ★★ ★★ with a chequered past.

DONNYBROOK (US) Tim Sutton

An ex-marine who struggles to provide for his family and a violent drug dealer with an undefeated fight record ★★ ★★ ★★ ★★ ★★ ★★ compete in the Donnybrook, a legendary, bare-knuckle brawl with a cash prize of $100,000. Jamie Bell, Frank ★★ ★★ ★★ ★★ ★★ ★★ Grillo and Margaret Qualley star.

OUT OF BLUE (UK) Carol Morley

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0.0

Patricia Clarkson plays a Louisiana homicide detective who investigates the shooting of a leading astrophysicist ★★ ★★ ★★ ★★ ★★ ★★ and black-hole expert, which destabilises her view of the universe and herself. Carol Morley’s feature is a loose ★★ ★★ ★★ ★★ ★★ ★★ adaptation of the neo-noir novel Night Train by Martin Amis.

0.0

★★ Average ★ Poor

✖ Bad

Screen office Fourth floor, meeting room one, TIFF Bell Lightbox, 350 King Street West, Toronto, ON, M5V 3X5 Editorial Tel +1 310 922 5908 Editor Matt Mueller, matt.mueller@screendaily.com, +44 7880 526 547 Americas editor Jeremy Kay, jeremykay67@gmail.com, +1 310 922 5908 Chief critic and reviews editor Finn Halligan, finn.halligan@screendaily.com, +44 7798 571 270 Group head of production and art Mark Mowbray, mark.mowbray@screendaily.com, +44 7710 124 065 Features editor Charles Gant, charles.gant@screendaily.com Art director, MBI Peter Gingell, peter.gingell@mb-insight.com Sid Adilman mentorship programme Karina Mohammed Advertising and publishing Publishing director Nadia Romdhani, nadia.romdhani@ screendaily.com, +44 7540 100 315 Commercial director Scott Benfold, scott.benfold@ screendaily.com International account managers Hettie Halden, hettie.halden@ screendaily.com Ingrid Hammond, ingridhammond@ mac.com Gunter Zerbich, gunter.zerbich@ screendaily.com

ANGELO (Aust-Lux) Markus Schleinzer

Angelo is inspired by the true story of Angelo Soliman, a Nigerian boy born in the 18th century and taken by force ★★ ★★ ★★ ★★ ★★ ★★ from his homeland at the age of 10. He is sold to a European countess and moves into court life in Vienna, falling ★★ ★★ ★★ ★★ ★★ ★★ in love with a young courtesan. Makita Samba stars with Alba Rohrwacher and Christian Friede.

CITIES OF LAST THINGS (Tai-China-US-Fr) Ho Wi Ding

Through a triptych in which the future, the present and the past are told in reverse chronology over several ★★ ★★ ★★ ★★ ★★ ★★ decades, Ho’s tale examines three significant moments in the life of an ordinary man and the circumstances that ★★ ★★ ★★ ★★ ★★ ★★ led to a life-altering decision. The cast includes Jack Kao, Ding Ning, Li Hong-Chi and Louise Grinberg.

THE INNOCENT (Switz-Ger) Simon Jaquemet

0.0

0.0

Judith Hofmann stars as a woman who is a committed member of a free church movement. When her former ★★ ★★ ★★ ★★ ★★ ★★ lover, played by non-professional actor Thomas Schüpbach, is released from prison, she questions her family ★★ ★★ ★★ ★★ ★★ ★★ responsibilities and her faith.

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President, North America Nigel Daly, nigeldalymail@gmail.com, +1 213 447 5120 Business development executive, North America Danny De Lillo, danny.delillo@screendaily.com, +1 917 818 8701 Business development executive, North America Nikki Tilmouth, nikki.screeninternational@gmail.com +1 323 868 7633 Production manager Neil Sinclair, neil.sinclair@mb-insight. com, +44 7703 823 444 Marketing executive Charlotte Peers, charlotte.peers@mbi. london Managing director, publishing and events Alison Pitchford

ROJO (Arg-Braz-Fr-Neth-Ger) Benjamin Naishtat

Set in Argentina during the mid-1970s, this hypnotic drama follows a successful lawyer whose picture-perfect life ★★ ★★ ★★ ★★ ★★ ★★ begins to unravel when a private detective arrives in his seemingly quiet small town and starts asking questions. ★★ ★★ ★★ ★★ ★★ ★★ Dario Grandinetti stars with Andrea Frigerio and Alfredo Castro.

HER SMELL (US) Alex Ross Perry

In Alex Ross Perry’s star-studded drama, Elisabeth Moss takes centre stage as Becky Something, a talented ★★ ★★ ★★ ★★ ★★ ★★ but self-destructive musician who seems determined to alienate everyone around her — even at the cost of her ★★ ★★ ★★ ★★ ★★ ★★ band’s success. Cara Delevingne and Amber Heard co-star.

THE GOOD GIRLS (Mex) Alejandra Marquez Abella

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Chief executive, MBI Conor Dignam Printer Big Bark Graphics, S/B — 68 Healey Road, Units 1-3, Bolton, ON, L7E 5A4 Screen International, London MBI, Zetland House, 5-25 Scrutton Street, London EC2A 4HJ, United Kingdom Subscription enquiries help@subscribe.screendaily.com +44 330 333 9414

The Good Girls tackles Mexico’s 1982 financial crash, and its impact on a well-to-do socialite and her husband ★★ ★★ ★★ ★★ ★★ ★★ as the social and economic order starts to shift around them. Ilse Salas and Flavio Medina star. Mexican director ★★ ★★ ★★ ★★ ★★ ★★ Alejandra Marquez Abella made a name for herself with Toronto 2015 and SXSW 2016 drama Semana Santa.

34 Screen International at Toronto September 6, 2018

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SCREEN SCOTLAND

Screen Scotland is the new dedicated partnership for screen in Scotland, delivering enhanced support for all aspects of Scotland’s screen sector.

Join us at Toronto International Film Festival at the UK Film Centre, 9th Floor, Hyatt Regency Hotel. www.screen.scot | @screenscots E locations@creativescotland.com T +44 (0) 141 302 1724 Corsewall Lighthouse Hotel, by Kirkcolm, Dumfries and Galloway Photo: Visit Scotland/Scottish Viewpoint