News Analysis India

Tag: TIFF

  • ‘American Fiction’ wins top prize at Toronto film fest

    By AFP

    “American Fiction” — a satire about race, media and how white audiences consume Black culture — sealed its place as an early Oscars frontrunner by winning the coveted top prize Sunday at the Toronto International Film Festival.

    The film, the debut feature from Cord Jefferson, tells the story of Thelonious ‘Monk’ Ellison (Jeffrey Wright), an author and university professor who is told by his publishers that his writing isn’t “Black enough.”

    So he adopts a pseudonym and writes a novel using what he believes to be every staid idea about being African American. Of course, the book is a monster hit, producers start circling and Ellison must confront the consequences of his actions.

    Adapted from Percival Everett’s novel “Erasure,” the movie from the 41-year-old Jefferson — an Emmy-winning writer who has worked on shows like “Succession” and “Watchmen” — looks at what it means to be authentic in American culture.

    “When I made the film, I wasn’t yet thinking about how it would feel when it went out into the world,” Jefferson said in a statement read by festival CEO Cameron Bailey at Sunday’s awards ceremony.

    “The film is now in your hands and I am so grateful that it was embraced in this way. I share this with our brilliant cast led by Jeffrey Wright.”

    The film, which had its world premiere in Toronto, is scheduled for wide release in North America in November.

    Voted for by audiences, the People’s Choice Award at North America’s biggest film festival has become something of an early Oscars bellwether, predicting eventual Academy Award best picture winners such as “Nomadland” and “Green Book.”

    “12 Years a Slave,” “The King’s Speech” and “Slumdog Millionaire” also began their journeys to Oscars best picture glory with the Toronto prize.

    The first runner-up prize on Sunday went to Alexander Payne’s “The Holdovers,” a 1970s-era dramedy set at a New England prep school, and second runner-up honors went to Japanese animation master Hayao Miyazaki’s “The Boy and the Heron.”

    TIFF, which ran from September 7 until Sunday, is known for attracting both A-list stars and a large crowd of cinephiles eager to catch movies before the general public.

    Despite the Hollywood actors’ and writers’ strikes, a fair number of bold-faced names promoted their work in Canada’s biggest city, thanks to interim agreements reached with the unions or because they worked as director or producer.

    Some films screening in Toronto were not subject to the strikes because they were independently or internationally produced.

    Sean Penn, Sylvester Stallone, Taika Waititi, Nicolas Cage, Patricia Arquette, Salma Hayek Pinault, Jessica Chastain, Ethan Hawke, Dakota Johnson and Elliot Page all appeared on the TIFF red carpet.

    Music stars Lil Nas X and Paul Simon also came to Toronto to promote new documentaries about their careers. 

    “American Fiction” — a satire about race, media and how white audiences consume Black culture — sealed its place as an early Oscars frontrunner by winning the coveted top prize Sunday at the Toronto International Film Festival.

    The film, the debut feature from Cord Jefferson, tells the story of Thelonious ‘Monk’ Ellison (Jeffrey Wright), an author and university professor who is told by his publishers that his writing isn’t “Black enough.”

    So he adopts a pseudonym and writes a novel using what he believes to be every staid idea about being African American. Of course, the book is a monster hit, producers start circling and Ellison must confront the consequences of his actions.googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display(‘div-gpt-ad-8052921-2′); });

    Adapted from Percival Everett’s novel “Erasure,” the movie from the 41-year-old Jefferson — an Emmy-winning writer who has worked on shows like “Succession” and “Watchmen” — looks at what it means to be authentic in American culture.

    “When I made the film, I wasn’t yet thinking about how it would feel when it went out into the world,” Jefferson said in a statement read by festival CEO Cameron Bailey at Sunday’s awards ceremony.

    “The film is now in your hands and I am so grateful that it was embraced in this way. I share this with our brilliant cast led by Jeffrey Wright.”

    The film, which had its world premiere in Toronto, is scheduled for wide release in North America in November.

    Voted for by audiences, the People’s Choice Award at North America’s biggest film festival has become something of an early Oscars bellwether, predicting eventual Academy Award best picture winners such as “Nomadland” and “Green Book.”

    “12 Years a Slave,” “The King’s Speech” and “Slumdog Millionaire” also began their journeys to Oscars best picture glory with the Toronto prize.

    The first runner-up prize on Sunday went to Alexander Payne’s “The Holdovers,” a 1970s-era dramedy set at a New England prep school, and second runner-up honors went to Japanese animation master Hayao Miyazaki’s “The Boy and the Heron.”

    TIFF, which ran from September 7 until Sunday, is known for attracting both A-list stars and a large crowd of cinephiles eager to catch movies before the general public.

    Despite the Hollywood actors’ and writers’ strikes, a fair number of bold-faced names promoted their work in Canada’s biggest city, thanks to interim agreements reached with the unions or because they worked as director or producer.

    Some films screening in Toronto were not subject to the strikes because they were independently or internationally produced.

    Sean Penn, Sylvester Stallone, Taika Waititi, Nicolas Cage, Patricia Arquette, Salma Hayek Pinault, Jessica Chastain, Ethan Hawke, Dakota Johnson and Elliot Page all appeared on the TIFF red carpet.

    Music stars Lil Nas X and Paul Simon also came to Toronto to promote new documentaries about their careers.
     

  • Deepa Mehta’s film on trangender woman creates buzz at Toronto fest

    By IANS

    TORONTO: Deepa Mehta’s documentary ‘I am Sirat’, which unravels the inner life of a Delhi-based transgender woman, has created a big buzz after its premiere at the ongoing Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) here. 

    Shot on smartphones, ‘I am Sirat’ explores the troubling and complex duality of her life.

    #IAmSirat is a MUST WATCH @TIFF_NET Thank you @IamDeepaMehta & Sirat for bringing this important and beautiful film to Toronto. pic.twitter.com/xVF02kEK8E
    — Anusree Roy (@i_write_allday) September 15, 2023
    Sirat has to suppress her inner urge to live like a woman so that her mother, and a married sister and extended relatives are not scandalized.

    As she was not willing to abandon her widowed mother as she was her only support, Sirat continues to live with her as her boy and rents a room to live out her real self as a trans woman.

    When her lip-synched Punjabi songs and dance reels posted on Instagram get her a big following, she was forced to remove them by her relatives.

    For this conflicted trans woman, the high point of her life arrives when she was granted her TG certificate by a government department, celebrating it by visiting India Gate with a friend and posing for pictures.

    In a post-screening discussion, Deepa Mehta said she and Sirat produced the documentary collaboratively.

    Deepa said when she was in Delhi in November Sirat came to meet her. “She said why don’t you make a film on what I am going through. It took me just a few days and I said: Let’s make the film.”

    The Toronto-based filmmaker added, “I told Sirat: It is your film. You’re the narrator. It has to be seen through your lens. You film yourself, you make the beginning, the middle and the end and I will film you filming yourself.”

    “I have known Sirat for four years now as we previously worked together on a film called Laila. Sirat is somebody who is fearless and yet is having a difficult time … having a dual existence. She is caught between her duty to her mother and (desire for) self-determination.This is what she is doing to this day. I have learnt so much from her.”

    For her part, Sirat – who now calls Deepa Mehta her mother – hoped that the documentary will help people and her mother accept her as a proud transgender woman.

    TORONTO: Deepa Mehta’s documentary ‘I am Sirat’, which unravels the inner life of a Delhi-based transgender woman, has created a big buzz after its premiere at the ongoing Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) here. 

    Shot on smartphones, ‘I am Sirat’ explores the troubling and complex duality of her life.

    googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display(‘div-gpt-ad-8052921-2’); });

    #IAmSirat is a MUST WATCH @TIFF_NET Thank you @IamDeepaMehta & Sirat for bringing this important and beautiful film to Toronto. pic.twitter.com/xVF02kEK8E
    — Anusree Roy (@i_write_allday) September 15, 2023
    Sirat has to suppress her inner urge to live like a woman so that her mother, and a married sister and extended relatives are not scandalized.

    As she was not willing to abandon her widowed mother as she was her only support, Sirat continues to live with her as her boy and rents a room to live out her real self as a trans woman.

    When her lip-synched Punjabi songs and dance reels posted on Instagram get her a big following, she was forced to remove them by her relatives.

    For this conflicted trans woman, the high point of her life arrives when she was granted her TG certificate by a government department, celebrating it by visiting India Gate with a friend and posing for pictures.

    In a post-screening discussion, Deepa Mehta said she and Sirat produced the documentary collaboratively.

    Deepa said when she was in Delhi in November Sirat came to meet her. “She said why don’t you make a film on what I am going through. It took me just a few days and I said: Let’s make the film.”

    The Toronto-based filmmaker added, “I told Sirat: It is your film. You’re the narrator. It has to be seen through your lens. You film yourself, you make the beginning, the middle and the end and I will film you filming yourself.”

    “I have known Sirat for four years now as we previously worked together on a film called Laila. Sirat is somebody who is fearless and yet is having a difficult time … having a dual existence. She is caught between her duty to her mother and (desire for) self-determination.This is what she is doing to this day. I have learnt so much from her.”

    For her part, Sirat – who now calls Deepa Mehta her mother – hoped that the documentary will help people and her mother accept her as a proud transgender woman.

  • ‘Rustin’ puts spotlight on undersung civil rights hero

    By Associated Press

    TORONTO: Bayard Rustin, the civil rights activist and primary architect of the 1963 March on Washington, who often worked tirelessly out of the limelight, takes center stage in the new Netflix drama “Rustin.”

    The film, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) on Monday, stars Colman Domingo as Rustin, a towering figure who worked for decades alongside Martin Luther King Jr. and whose vision of the March on Washington — site of the “I Have a Dream” speech — led to one of the most indelible moments of American history.

    “I believe in social dislocation and creative trouble,” Rustin once said.

    “Rustin,” directed by veteran theater and film director George C. Wolfe, is the first narrative feature from Higher Ground, Barack and Michelle Obama’s production company. Led by a powerhouse performance by Domingo that’s already being called a likely Academy Award nomination for best actor, “Rustin” aims to celebrate a pivotal but undersung civil rights hero.

    “So much of what he did was compassionate and fueled by responsibility — not arrogance but responsibility,” says Wolfe. “He had a brain that was organizationally astonishing. What would make him heroic was not fueled by selfishness. And he was funny.”

    Rustin, who died in 1987, was an openly gay Black man, who lived through a time when being either was enough to put him in jail. In 1953, Rustin spent 50 days in jail and was registered as a sex offender — a conviction that was posthumously pardoned in 2020 by California Gov. Gavin Newsom.

    Wolfe, a major theater figure who directed Tony Kushner’s “Angels in America: Millennium Approaches” and Suzan-Lori Parks′ Pulitzer Prize-winning “Topdog/Underdog” and created the musical “Bring in ‘Da Noise, Bring in ’Da Funk,’” was initially drawn to Rustin as a subject after learning about him while working as creative director for the National Center for Civil and Human Rights in Atlanta. Wolfe, himself a Black and gay man with a laser-focus for putting together a production, identified strongly with Rustin’s sense of purpose and his refusal to be neatly defined.

    “My definition of myself is so much larger,” says Wolfe. “I’m not going to waste time arguing with you about what I can and cannot do because I’m busy. Clearly, you aren’t that busy because you’re busy trying to place me in a box. That I really get. It’s like: ‘I’m directing ‘Angels in the America’ a seven-hour play, get out of my way.’ ‘I’m doing a movie about Bayard Rustin. I gotta do my job.’ Can I get shame out of my way so I can go do this? Can I get fear out of my way so I can go do this?”

    Rustin, a Pennsylvania-raised Quaker, was famously hard to pin down. The illegitimate son of an immigrant from the West Indies, he was a communist, then a socialist and pacifist who believed strongly in nonviolent protest. During World War II, he spent 28 months in prison for refusing military service. Later, he became a prominent supporter of Israel.

    After personal experiences of discrimination, he became committed to eradicating segregation. Rustin helped organize the first freedom rides and once spent 22 days on a North Carolina chain gang after being arrested on one ride. He was a central planner of the 1955-1956 Montgomery bus boycott.

    Former President Obama, who awarded Rustin the Congressional Medal of Freedom in 2013, gave some suggestions to Wolfe after seeing a cut of the film.

    “His notes were very smart and very thorough and they were deeply helpful,” says Wolfe. “Nobody loves hearing notes. But it’s helpful when they’re smart.”

    “Rustin,” which will open in select theaters Nov. 3 and arrive on Netflix on Nov. 17, is Wolfe’s second straight film for the streaming service, following the Oscar-nominated “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.” The 2020 film featured Chadwick Boseman in one of his final performances. Wolfe acknowledges there would have been a part for Boseman in “Rustin.”

    “Without question,” he says. “We had talked about working together. He sent me a script to look at, I sent him something I had written. So it’s very much to me an incomplete conversation.”

    “Rustin” dramatizes the frenetic work ahead of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom and Rustin’s balancing of many competing factions, from the NAACP to labor unions and police forces. The supporting cast includes Chris Rock as NAACP director Roy Wilkins, Jeffrey Wright as Baptist pastor Adam Clayton Powell Jr., Audra McDonald as activist Ella Baker and Aml Ameen as King.

    “People never remember the work. It is the collective,” says Wolfe “When one person gives one of the greatest oratory speeches ever in the history of this county, it’s totally understandable. But that sense of the collective and what it takes to do the thing needs to be honored.”

    TORONTO: Bayard Rustin, the civil rights activist and primary architect of the 1963 March on Washington, who often worked tirelessly out of the limelight, takes center stage in the new Netflix drama “Rustin.”

    The film, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) on Monday, stars Colman Domingo as Rustin, a towering figure who worked for decades alongside Martin Luther King Jr. and whose vision of the March on Washington — site of the “I Have a Dream” speech — led to one of the most indelible moments of American history.

    “I believe in social dislocation and creative trouble,” Rustin once said.googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display(‘div-gpt-ad-8052921-2’); });

    “Rustin,” directed by veteran theater and film director George C. Wolfe, is the first narrative feature from Higher Ground, Barack and Michelle Obama’s production company. Led by a powerhouse performance by Domingo that’s already being called a likely Academy Award nomination for best actor, “Rustin” aims to celebrate a pivotal but undersung civil rights hero.

    “So much of what he did was compassionate and fueled by responsibility — not arrogance but responsibility,” says Wolfe. “He had a brain that was organizationally astonishing. What would make him heroic was not fueled by selfishness. And he was funny.”

    Rustin, who died in 1987, was an openly gay Black man, who lived through a time when being either was enough to put him in jail. In 1953, Rustin spent 50 days in jail and was registered as a sex offender — a conviction that was posthumously pardoned in 2020 by California Gov. Gavin Newsom.

    Wolfe, a major theater figure who directed Tony Kushner’s “Angels in America: Millennium Approaches” and Suzan-Lori Parks′ Pulitzer Prize-winning “Topdog/Underdog” and created the musical “Bring in ‘Da Noise, Bring in ’Da Funk,’” was initially drawn to Rustin as a subject after learning about him while working as creative director for the National Center for Civil and Human Rights in Atlanta. Wolfe, himself a Black and gay man with a laser-focus for putting together a production, identified strongly with Rustin’s sense of purpose and his refusal to be neatly defined.

    “My definition of myself is so much larger,” says Wolfe. “I’m not going to waste time arguing with you about what I can and cannot do because I’m busy. Clearly, you aren’t that busy because you’re busy trying to place me in a box. That I really get. It’s like: ‘I’m directing ‘Angels in the America’ a seven-hour play, get out of my way.’ ‘I’m doing a movie about Bayard Rustin. I gotta do my job.’ Can I get shame out of my way so I can go do this? Can I get fear out of my way so I can go do this?”

    Rustin, a Pennsylvania-raised Quaker, was famously hard to pin down. The illegitimate son of an immigrant from the West Indies, he was a communist, then a socialist and pacifist who believed strongly in nonviolent protest. During World War II, he spent 28 months in prison for refusing military service. Later, he became a prominent supporter of Israel.

    After personal experiences of discrimination, he became committed to eradicating segregation. Rustin helped organize the first freedom rides and once spent 22 days on a North Carolina chain gang after being arrested on one ride. He was a central planner of the 1955-1956 Montgomery bus boycott.

    Former President Obama, who awarded Rustin the Congressional Medal of Freedom in 2013, gave some suggestions to Wolfe after seeing a cut of the film.

    “His notes were very smart and very thorough and they were deeply helpful,” says Wolfe. “Nobody loves hearing notes. But it’s helpful when they’re smart.”

    “Rustin,” which will open in select theaters Nov. 3 and arrive on Netflix on Nov. 17, is Wolfe’s second straight film for the streaming service, following the Oscar-nominated “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.” The 2020 film featured Chadwick Boseman in one of his final performances. Wolfe acknowledges there would have been a part for Boseman in “Rustin.”

    “Without question,” he says. “We had talked about working together. He sent me a script to look at, I sent him something I had written. So it’s very much to me an incomplete conversation.”

    “Rustin” dramatizes the frenetic work ahead of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom and Rustin’s balancing of many competing factions, from the NAACP to labor unions and police forces. The supporting cast includes Chris Rock as NAACP director Roy Wilkins, Jeffrey Wright as Baptist pastor Adam Clayton Powell Jr., Audra McDonald as activist Ella Baker and Aml Ameen as King.

    “People never remember the work. It is the collective,” says Wolfe “When one person gives one of the greatest oratory speeches ever in the history of this county, it’s totally understandable. But that sense of the collective and what it takes to do the thing needs to be honored.”

  • Cord Jefferson’s insightful satire of race and media, ‘American Fiction,’ lights up Toronto International Film Festival

    By Associated Press

    TORONTO: Fifty pages into Percival Everett’s “Erasure” Cord Jefferson knew he wanted to adapt it into a movie script. Halfway through, he began to see Jeffrey Wright playing the book’s academic protagonist, Thelonious “Monk” Ellison. By the time he was finished, he knew he wanted to direct it, too.

    As quick as that, Cord Jefferson — the 41-year-old TV writer of “Succession,” “Master of None” and “Watchmen” — began working toward his directing debut, “American Fiction.” And just as speedily, following its premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, “American Fiction” became a breakout hit of the festival, launching Jefferson as a major new voice in movies.

    In the film, Monk (Wright), is a frustrated author who’s agent (John Ortiz) tells him his books — the latest of which is a reworking of Aeschylus’ “The Persians” — aren’t “Black enough.” “I’m Black,” he responds, “and this is my book.”

    Monk, played with acerbic perfection and delightful disgust by Wright, writes as a drunken lark, a book intended to parody the kinds that sell and cater to white audiences’ view of Black people. Under the pseudonym Stagg R. Leigh, he dashes off a manuscript of thug life trauma porn titled “My Pafology” that — surprise — immediately sells and gets bought for movie rights.

    “All the conversations that the book was having were conversations I was having with my friends and had been having for decades,” Jefferson, who was an editor for Gawker before transitioning into TV, said in an interview.

    “I worked as a journalist for eight or nine years before working in television,” he added. “I was having the exact same conversations with Black colleagues in both professions: Why are we always writing about misery and trauma and violence and pain inflicted on Blacks? Why is this what people expect from us? Why is this the only thing we have to offer to culture?”

    “American Fiction,” which MGM will release Nov. 3 in theaters, is a funny, jazzy riff on Black representation in books and films that delights in mocking both stereotypes and identity politics while pleading for something more nuanced — something like “American Fiction.”

    “One of the main themes is the way we see ourselves as unique, specific individuals, and the way the world tries to put us into little boxes and sand away all the things that make us unique and special,” Jefferson said.

    At the TIFF premiere, Jefferson took a moment to note that he loves movies like “12 Years a Slave” and “New Jack City.” But Jefferson, lamenting “a poverty of imagination when it comes to what Black life looks like,” said other films on the spectrum should exist, too.

    “I feel like Jewish people get ‘Schindler’s List’ and ‘Annie Hall,’” said Jefferson.

    While Woody Allen’s film may be a reference point to “American Fiction,” direct comparisons are harder to come by for such a breezy but biting commentary. Tracee Ellis Ross, Sterling K. Brown and Erika Alexander co-star, along with Issa Rae, who plays the author of a book titled “We’s Lives in Da Ghetto.”

    “One of the most exciting things has been in test screening when we ask people, ‘What does this film remind you of?’” says Jefferson. “There’s been several people who can’t name a comedy or a film it reminds them of.”

    Jefferson, who grew up in Tucson, Arizona, wrote on some of the issues his film touched on in a 2014 piece titled “The Racism Beat.” In it, he described the importance of writers from marginalized groups bringing individual perspective to journalism, but the difficulty of not being defined by it. Jefferson, who also wrote essays about donating a kidney to his father and being biracial, became a writer for “The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore” before transitioning into drama and comedy series. He won an Emmy for penning the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre episode of “Watchman” episode with Damon Lindelof.

    Directing a film, Jefferson says, wasn’t necessarily a lifelong ambition. He hadn’t gone to film school, so he didn’t think it was in the cards until he spoke with a friend directing an episode of “Master of None” who had studied business, not film.

    “I realized all you need to do is have a vision and be able to articulate it to other people,” says Jefferson.

    That “American Fiction” is hard to categorize, he says, might mean he’s on the right track.

    “This being my first movie, I’m eager to find what my voice is,” Jefferson says. “I don’t really know what my voice is yet, but I’m trying to achieve that. Having people say that the movie feels unique makes me think maybe I’m on to finding my voice somewhere along the path.”

    TORONTO: Fifty pages into Percival Everett’s “Erasure” Cord Jefferson knew he wanted to adapt it into a movie script. Halfway through, he began to see Jeffrey Wright playing the book’s academic protagonist, Thelonious “Monk” Ellison. By the time he was finished, he knew he wanted to direct it, too.

    As quick as that, Cord Jefferson — the 41-year-old TV writer of “Succession,” “Master of None” and “Watchmen” — began working toward his directing debut, “American Fiction.” And just as speedily, following its premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, “American Fiction” became a breakout hit of the festival, launching Jefferson as a major new voice in movies.

    In the film, Monk (Wright), is a frustrated author who’s agent (John Ortiz) tells him his books — the latest of which is a reworking of Aeschylus’ “The Persians” — aren’t “Black enough.” “I’m Black,” he responds, “and this is my book.”googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display(‘div-gpt-ad-8052921-2’); });

    Monk, played with acerbic perfection and delightful disgust by Wright, writes as a drunken lark, a book intended to parody the kinds that sell and cater to white audiences’ view of Black people. Under the pseudonym Stagg R. Leigh, he dashes off a manuscript of thug life trauma porn titled “My Pafology” that — surprise — immediately sells and gets bought for movie rights.

    “All the conversations that the book was having were conversations I was having with my friends and had been having for decades,” Jefferson, who was an editor for Gawker before transitioning into TV, said in an interview.

    “I worked as a journalist for eight or nine years before working in television,” he added. “I was having the exact same conversations with Black colleagues in both professions: Why are we always writing about misery and trauma and violence and pain inflicted on Blacks? Why is this what people expect from us? Why is this the only thing we have to offer to culture?”

    “American Fiction,” which MGM will release Nov. 3 in theaters, is a funny, jazzy riff on Black representation in books and films that delights in mocking both stereotypes and identity politics while pleading for something more nuanced — something like “American Fiction.”

    “One of the main themes is the way we see ourselves as unique, specific individuals, and the way the world tries to put us into little boxes and sand away all the things that make us unique and special,” Jefferson said.

    At the TIFF premiere, Jefferson took a moment to note that he loves movies like “12 Years a Slave” and “New Jack City.” But Jefferson, lamenting “a poverty of imagination when it comes to what Black life looks like,” said other films on the spectrum should exist, too.

    “I feel like Jewish people get ‘Schindler’s List’ and ‘Annie Hall,’” said Jefferson.

    While Woody Allen’s film may be a reference point to “American Fiction,” direct comparisons are harder to come by for such a breezy but biting commentary. Tracee Ellis Ross, Sterling K. Brown and Erika Alexander co-star, along with Issa Rae, who plays the author of a book titled “We’s Lives in Da Ghetto.”

    “One of the most exciting things has been in test screening when we ask people, ‘What does this film remind you of?’” says Jefferson. “There’s been several people who can’t name a comedy or a film it reminds them of.”

    Jefferson, who grew up in Tucson, Arizona, wrote on some of the issues his film touched on in a 2014 piece titled “The Racism Beat.” In it, he described the importance of writers from marginalized groups bringing individual perspective to journalism, but the difficulty of not being defined by it. Jefferson, who also wrote essays about donating a kidney to his father and being biracial, became a writer for “The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore” before transitioning into drama and comedy series. He won an Emmy for penning the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre episode of “Watchman” episode with Damon Lindelof.

    Directing a film, Jefferson says, wasn’t necessarily a lifelong ambition. He hadn’t gone to film school, so he didn’t think it was in the cards until he spoke with a friend directing an episode of “Master of None” who had studied business, not film.

    “I realized all you need to do is have a vision and be able to articulate it to other people,” says Jefferson.

    That “American Fiction” is hard to categorize, he says, might mean he’s on the right track.

    “This being my first movie, I’m eager to find what my voice is,” Jefferson says. “I don’t really know what my voice is yet, but I’m trying to achieve that. Having people say that the movie feels unique makes me think maybe I’m on to finding my voice somewhere along the path.”

  • TIFF premiere of documentary on Lil Nas X delayed by bomb threat 

    By PTI

    TORONTO: The world premiere of Lil Nas X’s documentary at the ongoing Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) was delayed on Saturday night after a bomb threat was called in targeting the pop superstar.

    The gala screening of “Lil Nas X: Long Live Montero”, directed by Carlos Lopez Estrada and Zac Manuel, was scheduled for a 10 PM start at Roy Thomson Hall, one of TIFF’s premier venues.

    According to the entertainment website Variety, Estrada, Manuel and film’s editor Andrew Morrow arrived on the red carpet first.

    Insiders said as Lil Nas X, whose real name is Montero Lamar Hill, pulled up in his car to join them, organisers were informed that they had received a bomb threat and the artist was told to hold.

    The threat specifically targeted the rapper — known for songs such as “Montero” (Call Me By Your Name) and “Old Town Road” — for being a Black queer artist, another source said.

    The 24-year-old musician’s arrival was delayed 20 minutes as the security team at the prestigious gala conducted a sweep of the venue.

    He joined Estrada and Manuel on the red carpet after the threat turned out to be a hoax and the screening began at approximately 10:30 PM.

    Representatives for TIFF did not respond to an immediate request for comment.

    The film festival will run through September 17.

    TORONTO: The world premiere of Lil Nas X’s documentary at the ongoing Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) was delayed on Saturday night after a bomb threat was called in targeting the pop superstar.

    The gala screening of “Lil Nas X: Long Live Montero”, directed by Carlos Lopez Estrada and Zac Manuel, was scheduled for a 10 PM start at Roy Thomson Hall, one of TIFF’s premier venues.

    According to the entertainment website Variety, Estrada, Manuel and film’s editor Andrew Morrow arrived on the red carpet first.googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display(‘div-gpt-ad-8052921-2’); });

    Insiders said as Lil Nas X, whose real name is Montero Lamar Hill, pulled up in his car to join them, organisers were informed that they had received a bomb threat and the artist was told to hold.

    The threat specifically targeted the rapper — known for songs such as “Montero” (Call Me By Your Name) and “Old Town Road” — for being a Black queer artist, another source said.

    The 24-year-old musician’s arrival was delayed 20 minutes as the security team at the prestigious gala conducted a sweep of the venue.

    He joined Estrada and Manuel on the red carpet after the threat turned out to be a hoax and the screening began at approximately 10:30 PM.

    Representatives for TIFF did not respond to an immediate request for comment.

    The film festival will run through September 17.

  • Toronto International Film Festival unveils starry lineup despite strikes

    By Associated Press

    NEW YORK: The Toronto International Film Festival unveiled a starry lineup to its 48th edition on Monday, even if remains unclear if stars will be there to walk red carpets due to the ongoing actors and writers strikes. 

    Among the films making their world premieres at TIFF this year are Craig Gillespie’s GameStop drama “Dumb Money,” with Paul Dano and Pete Davidson; Ellen Kuras’ “Lee,” starring Kate Winslet at war photographer Lee Miller and Tony Goldwyn’s Ezra,” with Robert De Niro and Rose Byrne. 

    Also headed to Toronto are Michael Keaton’s “Knox Goes Away,” starring Al Pacino and James Marsden; Kristen Scott Thomas’ “North Star,” featuring Scarlett Johansson and Sienna Miller; David Yates’ Netflix drama “Pain Hustlers,” starring Emily Blunt and Chris Evans; and Maggie Betts’ “The Burial,” with Jamie Foxx and Tommy Lee Jones. 

    Those films, and many more including directorial debuts by Anna Kendrick (“Woman of the Hour”) and Chris Pine (“Poolman”), will make up some of the gala premieres at TIFF, the largest film festival in North America. 

    Get ready for #TIFF23, the biggest public film festival in the world.Become a TIFF Member by August 21 for early access to Festival tickets and more unbeatable benefits. https://t.co/KtslkUqKI2See you September 7–17. pic.twitter.com/S2xjYgu8t4
    — TIFF (@TIFF_NET) June 28, 2023
    The festival is a key platform for Hollywood to debut its fall fare and awards hopefuls. But like the Venice Film Festival, which begins about a week before TIFF launches on September 7, Toronto organizers are anxiously following the SAG-AFTRA and WGA strikes. 

    While those strikes continue, actors and writers are prohibited by their unions from promoting their films. TIFF will go forward, regardless, but an ongoing strike would sap the festival of A-listers and surely lessen the usual cacophony of buzz emanating from Toronto. 

    The strike has already led to one of Venice’s top titles Luca Guadagnino’s “Challengers,” starring Zendaya to pull out as the festival’s opening night selection and postpone its release to April. 

    Other major titles coming to TIFF include Alexander Payne’s “The Holdovers,” starring Paul Giamatti as a boarding school professor; Richard Linklater’s “Hit Man,” an action comedy starring Glen Powell and Adria Arjona; Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin’s “Nyad,” starring Annette Bening as long-distance swimmer Diana Nyad; Mahalia Belo’s “The We End Start From,” starring Jodie Comer as a mother fleeing a flooded London; and Ethan Hawke’s “Wildcat,” featuring his daughter, Maya Hawke, as author Flannery O’Connor. 

    TIFF previously announced that Taika Waititi’s soccer comedy ” Next Goal Wins ” will open this year’s festival, which runs through September 17. 

    NEW YORK: The Toronto International Film Festival unveiled a starry lineup to its 48th edition on Monday, even if remains unclear if stars will be there to walk red carpets due to the ongoing actors and writers strikes. 

    Among the films making their world premieres at TIFF this year are Craig Gillespie’s GameStop drama “Dumb Money,” with Paul Dano and Pete Davidson; Ellen Kuras’ “Lee,” starring Kate Winslet at war photographer Lee Miller and Tony Goldwyn’s Ezra,” with Robert De Niro and Rose Byrne. 

    Also headed to Toronto are Michael Keaton’s “Knox Goes Away,” starring Al Pacino and James Marsden; Kristen Scott Thomas’ “North Star,” featuring Scarlett Johansson and Sienna Miller; David Yates’ Netflix drama “Pain Hustlers,” starring Emily Blunt and Chris Evans; and Maggie Betts’ “The Burial,” with Jamie Foxx and Tommy Lee Jones. googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display(‘div-gpt-ad-8052921-2’); });

    Those films, and many more including directorial debuts by Anna Kendrick (“Woman of the Hour”) and Chris Pine (“Poolman”), will make up some of the gala premieres at TIFF, the largest film festival in North America. 

    Get ready for #TIFF23, the biggest public film festival in the world.
    Become a TIFF Member by August 21 for early access to Festival tickets and more unbeatable benefits. https://t.co/KtslkUqKI2
    See you September 7–17. pic.twitter.com/S2xjYgu8t4
    — TIFF (@TIFF_NET) June 28, 2023
    The festival is a key platform for Hollywood to debut its fall fare and awards hopefuls. But like the Venice Film Festival, which begins about a week before TIFF launches on September 7, Toronto organizers are anxiously following the SAG-AFTRA and WGA strikes. 

    While those strikes continue, actors and writers are prohibited by their unions from promoting their films. TIFF will go forward, regardless, but an ongoing strike would sap the festival of A-listers and surely lessen the usual cacophony of buzz emanating from Toronto. 

    The strike has already led to one of Venice’s top titles Luca Guadagnino’s “Challengers,” starring Zendaya to pull out as the festival’s opening night selection and postpone its release to April. 

    Other major titles coming to TIFF include Alexander Payne’s “The Holdovers,” starring Paul Giamatti as a boarding school professor; Richard Linklater’s “Hit Man,” an action comedy starring Glen Powell and Adria Arjona; Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin’s “Nyad,” starring Annette Bening as long-distance swimmer Diana Nyad; Mahalia Belo’s “The We End Start From,” starring Jodie Comer as a mother fleeing a flooded London; and Ethan Hawke’s “Wildcat,” featuring his daughter, Maya Hawke, as author Flannery O’Connor. 

    TIFF previously announced that Taika Waititi’s soccer comedy ” Next Goal Wins ” will open this year’s festival, which runs through September 17.