Sex, genocide and dead cats
2004-09-09 11:15
Toronto - Tinseltown glamour and early Oscars buzz will delight, and Rwandan genocide and explicit sex will shock at the Toronto film festival, where the industry huddles to haggle over global movie rights.
Despite lacking glitzy prizes, the festival, which opens on Thursday and runs until September 18, claims a place alongside the world's most prestigious cinematic gatherings such as Venice, Berlin, Cannes and Sundance.
Hollywood studios often use Toronto, which will feature 328 films from 61 countries, to kick off Oscars sweepstakes for their major fall releases.
Star power this year comes courtesy of 2004 Best Actor and Best Actress Academy Award Winners Sean Penn and Charlize Theron.
Kevin Spacey brings along his Beyond the Sea a bio-pic of 1950s singer Bobby Darin, and Dustin Hoffman's I Heart Huckerbees and Helen Hunt's A Good Woman get world premieres.
Al Pacino to 'shuffle onstage'
Al Pacino will shuffle onstage as Shylock in the North American premiere of Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice, and comedian Jamie Foxx turns in an acclaimed performance as singer Ray Charles in Ray.
As well as the Gala premieres of big budget Hollywood movies, Toronto's clout rests on an eclectic programme and the thousands of world movie industry distributors and publicists who flock to the festival.
What industry executives see, and buy, here will help shape what the world sees in the cinema for the rest of the year.
"People see us as an international festival of discovery, which is how we've always wanted to be seen," said festival co-director Noah Cowan.
"Our more traditional roles as the most significant launch platform for award-destined films and as the home of Canadian cinema also remain intact."
Controversy brewing
Controversy is brewing over the world premiere of Der Untergang (Downfall) which depicts the final days of Hitler in his bunker in Berlin, and breaks a taboo by suggesting the dictator's human characteristics, in a spellbinding performance by Bruno Ganz.
A brace of films probes Rwanda's genocide: Hotel Rwanda stars Nick Nolte and a documentary Shake Hands with the Devil, the Journey of Romeo Dallaire traces the agony of the Canadian general who commanded a United Nations force which failed to halt the carnage.
Toronto also sees the world premiere of Gunner Palace, a documentary about a US military company which occupies one of Saddam Hussein's Baghdad pads, which bills itself as the first movie on the Iraq war.
Stirring the pot
More controversy will be stirred by Nine Songs directed by Britain's Michael Winterbottom in which an actor and actress have full intercourse. Explicit sex scenes also are featured in Anatomy of Hell by French director Catherine Breillat.
Debate is already raging over Causistry: The Art of Killing a Cat which profiles two animal rights activists who resolved to kill, skin and eat a cherished domestic pet, to protest the plight of factory slaughtered animals.
Festival programmers have reportedly received death threats from animal rights activists at their decision to show the movie.
Under two months before US President George W Bush's date with voters, a new documentary Going Upriver: The Long War of John Kerry tackles the Vietnam service of his opponent, a red-hot political issue south of the Canadian border.
While Toronto lacks the glamour of Cannes or Venice, much of the substance of the event is behind the scenes, in industry screening rooms and bars and restaurants where movie types meet.
Some 650 distribution and sales companies are registered, including many from Australia, Austria, Germany, Italy, France, Japan, Singapore and Britain.
Film producers will tout films to distributors keen to snap up overseas rights to sleeper hits or others premiered here.