Toronto International Film Festival

Directed by Hany Abu-Assad and written by Chris Weitz and J. Mills Goodloe, The Mountain Between Us is accurately billed as a “disaster-romance”, where the former is a high altitude plane crash which leaves British Surgeon Ben Bass (Idris Elba) and American photojournalist Alex Martin (Kate Winslet) stranded and sole survivors in the remote Rocky Mountain wilderness.

Aaron Sorkin’s directorial debut Molly’s Game is adapted from Molly Bloom’s memoir of running high stakes poker games in Los Angeles and New York. It stars Jessica Chastain in the title role and the taut, crisp dialogue the two-time Golden Globe winner (Steve Jobs, The Social Network) is known for.

There are two, count’em, tennis movies bowing in Toronto this year: Janus Metz Pedersen’s Borg vs. McEnroe and Battle of the Sexes by Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris (Golden Globe nominees for Little Miss Sunshine).

Actresses at the top of their game were in Toronto to showcase their work while demonstrating the range of choices in fashion right now.

Borg McEnroe is not just a film about two of the greatest tennis players ever. Danish director Janus Metz made sure that the film opening the Toronto International Film Festival was much more than just about the game of tennis.

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.

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.