In a cinematic collision of high-profile talent and grassroots grit, powerhouse duo Reema Kagti and Zoya Akhtar are bringing the DIY spirit of India’s small-town filmmakers to the global stage with “Superboys of Malegaon” at the Toronto Film Festival. Director Kagti and producer Akhtar’s latest film explores the world of low-budget filmmaking in Malegaon, a […]

Documentary specialist Dogwoof has taken on worldwide sales for “The Last Spy,” a biography of CIA spymaster Peter Sichel, who turns 102 years old today. The film was written and directed by Katharina Otto-Bernstein, who picked up Emmy nominations as one of the producers of “Mapplethorpe: Look at the Pictures” and “The Price of Everything.” […]

In the films and television shows he’s made as a writer-director, Edward Burns has never not made things personal, but retaining the same level of creative control that he had on his breakthrough “The Brothers McMullen” has often required working on modest budgets and with younger casts and crews, naturally making the work itself move […]

With the documentary “Sudan, Remember Us,” filmmaker Hind Meddeb gives herself a rather difficult task. She sets out to tell the story of four significant years in the history of this African nation through the faces and words of a few young people. Within that time frame, a 30 year dictatorship was overthrown by a […]

“Why is there snow if it’s a volcano?” Fedir (Fedir Pugachov) throws out a seemingly innocent question to his family while wandering around Mount Teide in Spain. But it’s one of many that has become far more difficult to answer for his father Roman (Roman Lutskyi) and stepmother Nastya (Anastasiia Karpienko,) as the Ukrainian family’s holiday in […]

A sense of financial and personal stagnation permeates “Saba,” the Bangladeshi social drama from first-time director Maksud Hossain. A strong (if stylistically straightforward) debut, it follows 25-year-old Saba (Mehazabien Chowdhury), who struggles to make ends meet while looking after her ailing, paraplegic single mother Shirin (Rokeya Prachy), whose own frustrations often explode in Saba’s direction. […]

Sideshow and Janus Films have acquired North American rights to Maura Delpero’s intimate epic “Vermiglio,” which recently won the Venice Film Festival’s Silver Lion Grand Jury Prize.  The drama, which is set at the end of World War II in an Alpine village where the arrival of a soldier causes disruption in the dynamics between […]

James Bond. Benoit Blanc. Joe Bang. These characters have become synonymous with Daniel Craig’s career. Now, Craig adds William Lee, a drug-addicted gay American expat, to that list in Luca Guadagnino’s sexually charged and fantastical love story, “Queer.” The film made its North American premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival on Monday, where Guadagnino […]

As Swiss legend goes, William Tell became a medieval folk hero when occupying Austrian militants forced him into a sick game: He was forced to fire an arrow into an apple atop his son’s head to save his family from execution. It was a daunting task, but the warrior’s aim was true, inspiring a rebellion […]

Argentina’s 1976 military coup d’état, along with the sustained period of violence and forced disappearances that it ushered in, isn’t an obvious historical backdrop for a heartwarming tale of human-animal bonding. But that’s how the timing worked out for Tom Michell, an English teacher stationed at an elite Buenos Aires private school, at the time […]

“We run fast, we shoot fast and we don’t ever stop,” Heather (Jessica Matten) tells her players on the Chuska Warriors about the style of basketball she’d like to see them play in “Rez Ball.” That directive may take a while to set in with her high school squad, but is director Sydney Freeland’s modus […]

Denzel Washington is proud of his children. Why wouldn’t he be? His youngest son, Malcolm Washington, just premiered his directorial debut with an adaptation of August Wilson’s play, “The Piano Lesson,” which he co-wrote with Virgil Williams. In addition, the film stars his Denzel’s eldest son, John David Washington, with his sister Katia serving as […]

In spite of clocking in at just 103 minutes, Dito Montiel’s family crime comedy “Riff Raff” is exceptionally long. Its all-star cast performs admirably, in a film that takes its time to get going, reveals and confronts little once it does, and uses none of its story swerves to build on its dramatic themes, or […]

Suspense and horror films typically get second-class treatment at fall film festivals, often relegated to midnight slots and left out of award season conversations. But this year, three Toronto fest entries — Focus Features’ papal conspiracy thriller “Conclave,” Mubi’s gory horror film “The Substance” and A24’s horror-thriller “Heretic” — may prove to be exceptions to […]

Early on in “Piece by Piece,” Morgan Neville’s unorthodox doc about one of popular music’s most influential figures, Pharrell Williams says that the best way to express himself is through Legos. “I was given Lego sets as a child, and that was a really amazing platform for me to allow my imagination to flourish and […]

Anderson .Paak strode into the Variety studio at Toronto Film Festival wearing a radiant smile, and before the cameras started rolling he began spinning a pillow on his finger like a basketball. “This is a couch potato trick,” he laughed, as his 13-year-old son Soul Rasheed watched in awe. It’s fitting that .Paak can’t keep […]

“Call My Agent!”’s Ophélia Kolb plays a struggling mother on the edge of society in “The Courageous” (“Les Courageux”), Swiss-American Jasmin Gordon’s first foray into narrative feature filmmaking, which stages its world premiere at the Toronto Film Festival (TIFF) on Sept. 10. Co-produced by Maximage and RTS Radio Télévision Suisse, the family drama revolves around […]

A brutally violent directorial debut, Christopher Andrews’ rural Irish drama “Bring Them Down” veers between pitch-black humor and pervading melancholy. A tale of fathers, sons, and mutilated sheep, it toys with narrative point of view in “Rashomon”-like fashion, but keeps pressing questions of masculinity and cycles of sadness hovering just out of view. Fittingly, like […]

She might be the greatest dramatic actress of her generation, but Cate Blanchett hasn’t scared away every comedic director. After all, “Rumours” helmers Guy Maddin, Evan Johnson and Galen Johnson sent her the script for their audacious satire. “I think in a strange way, everything is funny,” Blanchett said during an interview at the Variety Toronto […]