Toronto Film Festival 2024: Stars shine at movie fest

The flesh-and-blood Pharrell Williams walked the red carpet on Tuesday with the star of his new animated biopic – a Pharrell Williams made of Lego blocks – as Piece by Piece made its international premiere in Toronto.

The animated feature, voiced by Pharrell and fellow pop stars Gwen Stefani, Kendrick Lamar and Jay-Z, takes the audience on an unconventional journey through the musical virtuoso’s upbringing and vibrant career by casting Lego pieces as the characters in his life story.

Pharrell, a recording artist, producer and songwriter, said: “Lego really helps to universalise the story so that it can be received by anyone that comes from a marginalised community.”

Pharrell has won 13 Grammy Awards, including three for Producer of the Year. Reuters

Emilia Perez defies easy categories

Selena Gomez (Photo by Reuters)

Selena Gomez and her co-stars in Emilia Perez – a genre-bending mix of pop opera, off-beat comedy and crime drama – set the Toronto International Film Festival abuzz this week, walking the red carpet in support of a movie that already took top honors at Cannes.

Set in modern-day Mexico, the Spanish-language film by French director Jacques Audiard tells the story of a drug cartel kingpin, played by Karla Sofia Gascon, who enlists a flashy lawyer, played by Zoe Saldana, to help him undergo surgery and disappear.

Years later, the former drug lord re-emerges as Emilia Perez, posing as a sister and hoping to reunite with her children and wife, as portrayed by Gomez.

Gomez, who over the years has evolved from a teen idol to a singer and actress with a long list of accolades to her credit, told Reuters she was grateful to work with Audiard, whose directorial credits include 2012’s Rust and Bone.

“I just really was dying to work with someone who would take me out of my comfort zone but in a way that was through storytelling,” Gomez said. Reuters

Bruce Springsteen talks mortality in new film

Bruce Springsteen (Photo by Getty Images)

Road Diary: Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band, which made its premiere in Toronto this week, gives fans a glimpse at the band’s creative process against the backdrop of the current world tour, which had to be interrupted because of the nearly 75-year-old rock star’s health.

The documentary, directed by Thom Zimny and narrated by “The Boss” himself, captures conversations and the band’s bond that resonates in their music, while Springsteen touches upon age, the present and mortality. In the film, Springsteen’s wife and E Street bandmate, Patti Scialfa, reveals that she was diagnosed with multiple myeloma, a form of blood cancer.

“There’s a philosophical thing about a person who’s going to be 75 in two weeks — mortality. The film captures that… It’s not a genre film. It’s a Bruce film,” longtime manager Jon Landau said.

“Every night is real. He gets out there and he tries to put his mind, body and soul right in the moment… And he feels like if he’s experiencing it, then the audience will experience it,” Landau added.

The film begins with rare images of the band members barely out of boyhood, then contrasts that immediately with a present day challenge, their first tour in six years as they entertain thousands of fans across continents.

The ongoing tour across North America and Europe is scheduled to go on until July 2025 after dates were postponed as Springsteen dealt with a peptic ulcer that took him off the road for a while. Reuters

Piano Lesson premiere turns into a family affair for Denzel

Denzel Washington and his family celebrated the screening in Toronto of Oscar hopeful The Piano Lesson, the latest Hollywood adaptation of an August Wilson play in which the entire clan was involved.

Washington’s younger son Malcolm makes his feature directorial debut and elder son John David stars in the movie, which tells the story of a family struggling to make peace with its past and confront the legacy of slavery.

Washington himself is a producer of the film, and his wife, Pauletta, and daughter Olivia have small roles. His daughter Katia is an executive producer.

“I’m happy, a proud father,” Washington said in a Q&A session after the screening.

For 33-year-old Malcolm, who received a warm ovation at the film’s conclusion, “this was such a beautiful time for us all to come together, but it became something much bigger than our own family.”

“This is a story of ancestry, of lineage, and dealing with the August Wilson canon at all; you’re tying yourself into a much larger lineage there.”

The Piano Lesson, written in 1987 and set in the 1930s, is part of Wilson’s so-called Pittsburgh Cycle, a series of 10 plays that aimed to explore the African American experience in the 20th century.

It debuted at the Telluride festival in Colorado before making its way over the border for a splashy international premiere in Canada’s largest city. The film will stream on Netflix on November 22.

The Toronto International Film Festival runs through Sunday. AFP

Angelina Jolie and Salma Hayek rock the red carpet

Salma Hayek (left), Angelina Jolie and Demian Bichir

Angelina Jolie and Salma Hayek sent movie fans into a frenzy at the Toronto International Film Festival on Sunday when the two megastars walked the red carpet for Without Blood, a parable about the cycle of violence, revenge and memory.

The movie, which is Jolie’s fifth credit as director, explores the horrors of war through an encounter between a victim and perpetrator long afterwards.

As her leading lady, Jolie cast Hayek, a close friend. Demian Bichir, who like Hayek starred in Mexican telenovelas before appearing in Hollywood productions, plays her counterpart in Jolie’s meditation on the impact of war.

Jolie and Hayek developed a close bond when they both appeared in Marvel Studios’ Eternals, a 2021 action fantasy, and their friendship has endured.

Without Blood — adapted for the screen by Jolie from Italian author Alessandro Baricco’s novel of the same name — is set in the aftermath of an unidentified conflict.

Written, directed and produced by Jolie, and shot at Rome’s Cinecitta Studios, most of the film takes place in a single room, punctuated by flashback scenes. Reuters

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