2017 Toronto Film Festival

Lebanese director Ziad Doueiri, who made the powerful film The Attack, which not many people beyond the festival circuit saw, continues to impress with The Insult, a large-scale drama that should appeal to bigger audiences. The new film, which is well shot and well acted, is about a seemingly trivial street incident – a slur – between two working class men, which first escalates into a vocal verbal dispute, then into a physical brawl, and finally into an emotionally and politically charged courtroom drama about broader moral and ethical issues.

The HFPA announced the first annual HFPA award for best short at the Toronto Film Festival. Two prizes were awarded to the best and first runner up short film in TIFF’s Canada’s Top Ten Film Festival, Short Film Selection.

At only 27, Jennifer Lawrence has won four Golden Globes (Joy, American Hustle, Silver Lining Playbook, Winter’s Bone), one Oscar (Silver Lining Playbook) and attended many film festivals as she traveled the world also promoting her blockbuster trilogy The Hunger Games. But when she arrives at the Toronto Film Festival, she’s come with the experience of having her film mother! booed at the recent Venice Film Festival and remains unfazed.

Idris Elba hasn’t been wasting much time this year, packed with performances in  The Dark Tower, Thor: Ragnarok, The Mountain Between Us and Molly’s Game, the latter films both premiering back to back in Toronto. In Molly’s Game, Aaron Sorkin’s directorial debut, he is defense lawyer to Jessica Chastain’s Molly Bloom (the film is the based on the life Olympic skier turned high stakes poker player).

Paolo Virzì’s The Leisure Seeker is among the several films which world premiered at the Venice Film Festival before bowing in North America in Toronto. Virzì is less known than Italian compatriots like Paolo Sorrentino, Matteo Garrone or Nanni Moretti but he has been a solid chronicler of his generation, with personal stories mostly centered around his native Tuscan city of Livorno.

There was no breakout trend at this year’s HFPA/InStyle party – the freedom to choose and reflect one’s own personality refreshing in the range of colors and styles on display.

Julianne Moore has had a busy month, first hitting the Lido at the Venice Film Festival with co-star Matt Damon and filmmaker George Clooney for their movie Suburbicon, and now the 56-year-old Golden Globe-winning actress is being feted again, along with her co-star and director, at the Toronto Film Festival. Suburbicon stars Matt Damon as Gardner Lodge, a seemingly model husband and father living in the picture-perfect suburb of Suburbicon in the 1950s.

This time the stars in attendance were, in fact, too numerous to mention. Let's just say that the HFPA/InStyle TIFF party at the Windsor Arms further consolidated its reputation for the festivals best-attended affair.

Festive fashion ran the gamut as friends and colleagues caught up with each other at the HFPA/InStyle party.

Black was a surprising trend at the glittering HFPA/InStyle party with George Clooney making an early arrival and all the stars turning up to celebrate TIFF.