2017 Toronto Film Festival

Nico, 1988, which opened the  2017 Venice Horizons section and also played in Toronto, is not the first documentary about Christa Paffgen, better known as Nico, the superstar of Andy Warhol’s famous Factory and later lead singer of The Velvet Underground. In 1995, another female director, Susanne Ofteringer, chronicled in Nico Icon the self-destructive lifestyle of the German singer, actress, and model, but it was a too broad documentary that tried to encompass a whole life in the frame of one hour.

Soft silhouettes finally make it to Toronto as gauzy gowns meet form-fitting dresses with gashes of lace and florals, while pre-Emmy parties went toward fitted frocks.

Intense, funny, tragic and cathartic are the words that may best describe Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, a story of desperation, revenge, and determination featuring a fierce Frances McDormand as a divorced Missouri mother who pursues justice for her murdered daughter with steely resolve. She is supported by a stellar cast including Sam Rockwell and Woody Harrelson, and directed by Martin McDonagh.

Golden Globe nominated director Luca Guadagnino’s Call Me by Your Name debuted to much buzz at the Sundance Film Festival and showed at the Toronto Film Festival in advance of its awards-season theatrical release this fall. Adapted by James Ivory from André Aciman’s 2007 novel of the same name, the coming-of-age story stars Armie Hammer as Oliver, an American college student who spends a summer in Italy doing post-graduate study and finds himself slowly falling into a romantic relationship with the younger teenage son of his hosts, Elio (Timothée Chalamet).

Unlike Venice which floated on chiffon, black is trending at TIFF for women and men, though splashes of red shook things up, and silver stayed central.

With the Venice and Telluride film festivals failing to produce a La La Land, a Birdman or a 12 Years A Slave this year, the pressure was on Toronto International Film festival (TIFF) to come up with frontrunners for the Fall season. Festivalgoers and film critics flocked to the multitude of screenings, searching for that elusive picture like gold diggers.

Stronger by David Gordon Green tells the story of Boston bombing survivor Jeff Bauman and stars Golden Globe winner Jake Gyllenhaal as Bauman and Globe nominee Tatiana Maslany as his marathon runner girlfriend. It is a highly personal portrait of Bauman’s odyssey as he is thrust into national prominence and subsequently struggles to regain a normal life as a double amputee and PTSD victim.

Although he is one Hollywood’s biggest stars, some of Ben Stiller’s greatest achievements are related to his work as a director, since he debuted in 1994 with Reality Bites. He was never personally nominated for the Golden Globes, but his film Tropic Thunder put Robert Downey Jr.

One of the most controversial films to come out of Venice and Toronto, mother! is Darren Aronofsky’s attempt at what you could call a universal allegory. Set in a large house rising in a pristine field, it tells the story of the couple (Jennifer Lawrence and Javier Bardem) living in it – alone – until an increasingly strange assortment of visitors begins showing up with ever more startling consequences.

The Death of Stalin stars Jeffrey Tambor, Steve Buscemi, Olga Kurylenko, Toby Kebbell, Michael Palin, Simon Russell Beale, Paddy Considine, Andrea Riseborough, Adrian McLoughlin, Rupert Friend, Jason Isaacs and Paul Whitehouse, among others. A cast which is a testament to the standing of its director, Armando Iannucci, in the comedy world.