October 2- 11
Ning Hao’s film Breakup Buddies. he Toronto film festival will trumpet European and Asian filmmakers when it opens today as audiences increasingly demand the best new films from around theworld. Organisers spent much of the past yearwooing filmmakers outside of North America who might normally premiere films in their own region, in order to meet that demand.
Significant European filmmakers agreed to premiere their films in Toronto, including Phoenix, ASecond Chance, The NewGirlfriend featuring rising French star Anais Demoustier, Lone Scherfig’s The Riot Club, and Norwegian masterBent Hamer’s 1001 Grams.
Top Chinese filmmakers such as Zhang Yimou ( Coming Home), Ning Hao ( Breakup Buddies), Peter Chan ( Dearest) andWang Xiaoshuai ( Red Amnesia) will grace the red carpet.
“It’s natural for filmmakers to think within their immediate country or region,” festival boss Cameron Bailey said. “North Americans and Europeans have done that formany years,” he said. “I think a lot of the European art- house filmmakers sawtheir cinema as primarily a European phenomena that operated within a circuit in Europe fromfilm festival launches, to release to critics’ reviews.” it’s a sign of the growing globalisation of the film industry that they’re looking beyond their borders to try to reach as much of theworld as they can.”
The Toronto film festival, which runs through September 14, will showcase 268 feature films, including 143world premieres, from70 countries. “For us, this is a year of discovery,” Bailey said. “There are 85 first features in the festival.”
These include Ross Katz’s Adult Beginners, Sarah Leonor’s The GreatMan, Batin Ghobadi’s Mardan, Myroslav Slaboshpytskiy’s The Tribe, and Ken Kwek’s Unlucky Plaza.
The festival noted that Christopher Nolan, whose films have grossed over $ 3.5 billion ( Dh12.9 billion), and Steve McQueen both presented their first features in Toronto.
Though it does not award a jury prize like at Cannes orVenice, the Toronto film festival has been a key event forOscar- conscious studios and distributors. This year’s line- up includes celebrities such as Jennifer Aniston, John Cusack, Robert Downey Jr., Tina Fey, Al Pacino, Adam Sandler and John Travolta.
Alongside newfilms from China and Taiwan such as Chinese filmmaker Zhang
Yimou’s Coming Home. and the festival will also host an Asian film summit.
Bailey said he and his team spent “a lot of time in China this year... to try to find out what is going on in terms of the Chinese film culture, the changes there.”
In the coming years, he predicted that Chinese film audiences will surpass North America at the box office. “They’re building cinemas like crazy in China,” he said. — AFP A scene from Peter Chan’s film Dearest. Gael Garcia Bernal in Jon Stewart’s
directorial debut Rosewater.
Miles Teller ( left) and J. K. Simmons in
Whiplash. Tina Fey and Jason Bateman in This Is Where I Leave You.