TIFF: Cate Blanchett, Angelina Jolie, Amy Adams Add Star Wattage at Post-Strikes Toronto Fest Tribute Awards

Cate Blanchett thanked Knix, the underwear maker, for sponsoring her TIFF Tribute Award on Sunday night, which was ironic because the Elizabeth and Carol actress apparently went bottomless to the glittering festival event.

“I’m not actually wearing any underwear,” Blanchett revealed, jokingly or not, while wearing a long party dress on stage at the Royal York Hotel. “As Michelle Obama says, when I go low, you go high,” she added during a freestyle acceptance speech without the use of a teleprompter or her cellphone.

On a more serious note, Blanchett paid tribute to fellow women actors. “We have to keep asking questions that open locked doors and knowing our worth — our worth creatively as well as financially — as greater inclusivity on our sets leads to less homogenous and more vibrant storytelling,” she said.

“I think homogeneity is the enemy of everything we make,” Blanchett, also the star of Tár and Blue Jasmine, added. Blanchett’s tribute award coincides with the Oscar winner starring in Canadian director Guy Maddin’s Rumors, which has a North American premiere in Toronto, and Alfonso Cuarón’s Disclaimer, a TV series screening as part of TIFF’s Primetime program.

The gala dinner fundraiser for TIFF’s philanthropic efforts — and an occasional harbinger of Oscar recognition — is held each year at Fairmont Royal York Hotel. Among the other passionate tributes Sunday night, Angelina Jolie received the TIFF Tribute Award in Impact Media while bringing her latest film, Without Blood, to Toronto for a world premiere.

And while introducing Jolie, Salma Hayek Pinault admitted to stage fright. “I’m so emotional, and it’s not even my award,” the Without Blood star said before heaping praise on Jolie. When accepting her award, Jolie lamented not doing enough to protect human rights worldwide, while seeking unity through her films and art.

“In a world full of broken commitments, it often seems that power and control and business matter more than protecting the fragile fabric of human rights,” said Jolie, who, besides making films about war in recent years, has been a longtime human rights activist. Jolie on Sunday also introduced a private screening of Netflix’s Maria, in which she stars as opera legend Maria Callas, after a world premiere in Venice.

Oscar-nominated actor Amy Adams was overcome with emotion when picking up the TIFF Tribute Performer Award after being introduced by Arrival director Denis Villeneuve, a native French speaker who talked up his improved use of the English language when bringing her on stage. Besides thanking Villeneuve for being at her side on stage, Adams gave a call-out to her daughter Aviana, 14, for attending her first ever awards show where her mother figured among the trophy winners.

“I’m really honored to be here tonight among the activist, the artists and the visionaries who have inspired me, both on screen and off, for I’m not going to say how long, but for a long time,” Adams added from the Royal York Hotel stage.

Emmy-winning actor Jharrel Jerome, at TIFF with his latest movie, Unstoppable, picked up a TIFF Tribute Award. “This story is something I’ve believed in, and I wanted to see it through, and bro look at us now,” Jerome told filmmaker William Goldenberg, a veteran editor making his directorial debut, with whom he worked for five years to get Unstoppable made.

Zhao Tao, who received a special tribute award in part as a longtime acting muse for Chinese auteur Jia Zhangke, said her honor was timely: “TIFF is giving me encouragement when I needed it most. Thanks to Toronto for your generosity.” Proceeds from the Tribute Awards go toward the festival’s TIFF Every Story Fund, which encourages diversity, equity and inclusion in filmmaking.

Viggo Mortensen helped introduce David Cronenberg to accept the Norman Jewison Career Achievement Award, and while doing so, decried that the Canadian director had never been nominated, much less won an Academy Award for his body of work. “That is truly remarkable and to me an astounding fact, but I don’t think he cares much about that,” Mortensen said of Cronenberg’s Oscar ambitions.

Cronenberg is at TIFF this year for the North American premiere of his latest film, The Shrouds, which bowed in Cannes. “Just want to let you know, I think I should tell you, I am exactly the same age as Joe Biden,” he revealed.

Elsewhere, Canadian director Durga Chew-Bose accepted the TIFF Emerging Talent Award. She brought to TIFF the Chloë Sevigny-starring adaptation of Françoise Sagan’s classic novel Bonjour Tristesse for a world premiere.

Chew-Bose noted that her father died two days before she started shooting her movie. “I was named after a girl in a movie, and now I’ve made a movie, something my father perhaps always knew would happen,” she said.

French songwriting and composing duo Camille Dalmais and Clément Ducol came on stage at the Royal York Hotel to accept the TIFF Artisan Award for composing the soundtrack for Jacques Audiard’s Emilia Pérez. And in another poignant moment, Ducol dedicated his TIFF honor to his own late father, who was also a composer, for giving his son “the inspiration while he was alive and enormous strength after he was gone.”

Mike Leigh was toasted with his own Tribute Award as he returned to TIFF with the world premiere of Hard Truths. “This a triple special honor. I’ve lost count of the times I’ve been at TIFF. It’s a great audience festival, which is why I like it particularly,” Leigh said.