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The Toronto Film Festival has ended with a message to Hollywood: Steven Spielberg’s new drama, The Fabelmans, could be the film to beat going into awards season after taking home the TIFF People’s Choice Award. While Toronto is not a prize-driven festival and does not have an official jury like the Cannes and Venice festivals, its highly coveted People’s Choice Award – voted only by audiences – is almost always a harbinger of a best picture nominee, with films like Green Book, La La Land and Jojo Rabbit, all winners that went on to receive Oscar love.

Throughout a long and distinguished career, the most defining characteristic of Werner Herzog’s canon has been sheer variety, driven by an enormous sense of curiosity. In his prolific documentary work, the 80-year-old German filmmaker has shown an intense interest in people (Little Dieter Needs to Fly, Meeting Gorbachev), in addition to the natural world and its history, both culturally and scientifically (Cave of Forgotten Dreams, Fireball: Visitors From Darker Worlds).

Russell Crowe won a Golden Globe as Best Actor in a drama in 2002 for his portrayal of mathematician John Nash in A Beautiful Mind directed by Ron Howard.  During exclusive 2000 and 2001 interviews with the journalists of the Hollywood Foreign Press, he talked about schizophrenia and mental illness.

Expectations were high when packed theatres screened the much-hyped biopic, Weird: The Al Yankovic Story, at the Toronto Film Festival. This was, after all, the story of the legendary parody songsmith who had hit records changing the lyrics to famous songs including Eat It (Michael Jackson’s Beat It), Another One Rides the Bus (Queen’s Another One Bites the Dust) and My Bologna (The Knack’s My Sharona).

An interesting heads-up from Sonny Bunch writing in the Washington Post on September 15 – Chinese businesses are increasingly buying up international video game companies. Why this is worrying is that the size of the international gaming market dwarfs that of the global box office, and all video games bought by the Chinese are subject to the same censorship that is applied by the ministry of culture to movies that are approved for the Chinese audience – no Tibetan references, no time travel, ghost stories, gambling, violence or nudity.

“The cartel has invaded everything! The festivals, Hollywood! We have kept everything!,” joked Alejandro González Iñárritu chatting with the Hollywood Foreign Press Association in 2014 on his film Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance). Of course, the winner of two Golden Globes and the recipient of four nominations is far from being a drug dealer.

After a long absence due to the pandemic, California State University, Northridge (CSUN) senior undergraduate students of class 2020 were finally able to share their works on Wednesday night, September 14, at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts’ Samuel Goldwyn Theater. By the time the young and diverse crowd had settled into their seats, at least half an hour after the scheduled start time, the large venue was nearly full, overflowing with eager anticipation.

“This is to say goodbye and thank you,” said Gwen Deglise, the longtime head programmer of the American Cinematheque, from the stage of the Aero Theater in Santa Monica on Friday, September 9th, 2022. The audience, patrons, and team members responded with an emotional standing ovation and “Thank You, Gwen” shout-outs.

The immense fortitude of the female gender was on rich display throughout this year’s Toronto International Film Festival, from well-received narrative features like The Woman King and Women Talking to the gripping documentary In Her Hands, which details two years in the fraught existence of one of the few female mayors in Afghanistan, and by far the youngest. “This is Zarifa Ghafari’s story, but also the story of so many other women in Afghanistan.

Survival of the fittest is the perfect way to describe my inaugural trip to La Biennale di Venezia, better known as the Venice Film Festival, on the Lido di Venezia, Italy. I spent nearly two full weeks in Venice.