2017 Toronto International Film Festival

The Hollywood Foreign Press Association has announced a new initiative in which rising filmmakers from the 2018 Venice International Film Festival and the 2018 Toronto International Film Festival will be selected for a three-week residency program in partnership with Film Independent. Three filmmakers (writers, directors, producers) from The Orrizonti Section of the Venice International Film Festival and three filmmakers from TIFF's Filmmaker Lab, the Festival's flagship talent development program, will be selected to travel to Los Angeles from January 2 – 23, 2019 for mentorship, master classes, and workshops.

Stressors that cause fear are something that, in real life, most of us try to avoid. Humans, after all, instinctively seek out that which offers them comfort.

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.

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.

Most films take at least a couple years to go from idea to the big screen, so trying to plot a release of something that aligns almost perfectly with current headlines of the moment is typically a fool’s game. But with the slow-drip revelations of high-level corruption, obstruction, lying and possibly other criminal behavior from another American presidential administration seemingly leasing a long-term parking spot in the news, writer-director Peter Landesman’s new film arrives at a particularly ripe moment, which no doubt accounts for the project’s full, pointed title.

Year after year Jake Gyllenhaal makes the Toronto Film Festival a regular stop in his calendar -that's because he's not an actor that chooses the easy path. He didn't hesitate to lose a lot of weight to portray a human vulture that preys on other people's misery in director Dan Gilroy’s Nightcrawler - which earned him his second Golden Globe nomination- just to gain it back and a few pounds more to play a failing boxer in Antoine Fuqua's Southpaw.

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).

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.

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

As usual, the Toronto International Film Festival’s first Saturday culminated with what has become a tradition. The annual HFPA/InStyle bash took over the Windsor Arms off Bloor street, as a veritable who’s who of filmdom descended on the hotel to celebrate film, the beginning of the Fall awards season, and generally catch up with one another at North America’s largest festival.