We met Sohphie Nélisse, the young rising Canadian Star who plays Liesel Meminger in the movie “The Book Thief” opposite Geoffrey Rush. This is the French-Canadian teen’s second major film role, her debut performance was in the Canadian film, “Monsieur Lazhar” for which she was awarded a Genie for Best Supporting Actress (The Geminis and the Genies have since amalgamated to become the Canadian Screen Awards). Her performance in “The Book Thief” has also received a number of awards, a Satellite Award for Best Breakthrough Performance, Best Performance by a Youth in a Lead or Supporting Role from the Phoenix Film Critics Society, and a Spotlight Award at the Hollywood Film Festival.

The young starlet does an impressive job holding her own alongside well established Hollywood talent, Geoffrey Rush and Emily Watson. No small task as her role in “The Book Thief” required her character to have a German accent. Based on the best selling novel, “The Book Thief” tells the story of a young girl living in Germany during WWII, who steals books to prevent them from being burned by the Nazi’s. “The Book Thief” was also nominated for both and Oscar and a Golden Globe for Best Original Score.

–Astrid Handling

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Few people knew when the cast of Dallas Buyers Club strolled down the red carpet at the 86th Academy Awards seeking 6 Oscars that this movie almost did not get made.

Matthew McConaughey, desperately gaunt, having dropped 45 pounds for the lead role as Ron Woodroof (the role that would turn out to be his first Oscar winning role) was the only star attached to the project in early September 2012. The brilliant Canadian director, Jean Marc Vallée (“Young Victoria”, “Cafe de Flora”) was on board along with a highly experienced production team but the promised budget had disappeared. McConaughey’s window of opportunity for filming this movie was rapidly closing, it would get down to a mere 3 days before production would have had to be called off. In an exclusive interview with executive producer Joe Newcomb (Truth Entertainment) we discovered how a leap of faith would change everything.

It all started with a visit to Charlie Sheen’s

In the summer of 2012, Craig Borten’s script for Dallas Buyers Club had suffered at least 137 deaths. Borten and his team, with a determined faith in the telling of Ron Woodroof’s remarkable story had doggedly pursued his dream. Borten’s commitment stretched back more than 20 years to Sept. 1992 when he had interviewed Woodroof on his deathbed. The script had been shopped around Hollywood so long it began to stale. But when Borten brought co-writer Melisa Wallack on board the script gained a renewed strength.

Dallas Buyers Club would be Newcomb’s first foray into the complex world of movie making, and he says it would never have happened if it were not for his great friend and Chicago White Sox slugger, Adam Dunn. Joe Newcomb is not a dreamer. Newcomb is a very successful Texas business tycoon who believes that one bad decision can wipe out all the good ones. He views making movies as a tough business, and it was an industry he was not involved with before September 2012.

In the summer of 2012 Dunn had enticed Joe, who was once a major league pitching prospect for the Toronto Blue Jays, out to L.A. to see a White Sox game. The next day Dunn brought Joe to a surprise meeting with Charlie Sheen, who is also an avid baseball fan. Sheen was keen on making “Major League 3” at the time but as it would turn out, Sheen’s commitment to FX Channel for ‘Anger Management’ meant Sheen would later have to shelve ‘Major League 3’. Talk turned to Newcomb’s architecture company and shortly afterwards Newcomb found himself back in L.A. once again with the infamous actor. This time Sheen offered his help in getting Newcomb involved with the film business and introduced him to some key players including Oscar winner David Ward (The Sting, Sleepless in Seattle).

“I mean it happened fast”

Things moved quickly. Back in Texas, Newcomb received a call and then the script for Dallas Buyers Club. It would be the second script Newcomb had ever read, and even though he was no expert on scripts, he knew right away it was very powerful. Just as the script caught Joe’s attention, a recent article in People Magazine lying on his bedside table also caught his eye. It was all about Matthew McConaughey and the massive weight loss he underwent in order to play Ron Woodroof in Dallas Buyers Club. A furious spate of googling followed. Intrigued, Newcomb decided to meet in New Orleans with director Jean Marc Vallée. Vallée’s passion was overwhelming.

Newcomb says the combination of passion, an incredible script and the commitment of a A-list actor and director, McConaughey and Vallée, were the ingredients that led him, a self-described hard-core businessman, to take the leap of faith. At this time, none of the other actors were cast, including Jared Leto, whom Newcomb was unfamiliar with. Leto had not made a movie in 6 years but had been busy with his alternative rock band ‘30 Seconds to Mars’, touring and heading the charts.

Newcomb committed to the film and only realized 4 or 5 days later how crucial the financing was to get the movie going at all. “There was really no time”, he said. “I just opened up my credit card account for them”. The time lines were so tight that Newcomb apparently financed the filming on his Black Visa card while he was still working out the terms of the deal sheet. The movie was finally made for a mere 5.6 million dollars, a dramatic reduction from the initial 30 plus million dollar budget attached to the film.

More than 50 awards later including 3 Oscars, 2 Golden Globes and 2 Spirit Awards the world is a richer place for this remarkable movie. Watch our exclusive interview with Joe Newcomb about his involvement with Dallas Buyers Club and his tips on the making money in the fickle and treacherous business world of entertainment.

Moira Romano

The 86th Academy Awards shone the light on a little film with a huge heart awarding “The Lady In Number 6: Music Saved My Life” the Oscar for Best Short Documentary. On the red carpet in LA at the pre Oscar event for Canadian filmmakers we met director/writer Malcolm Clarke and producer Nicholas Reed. They were distressed at the recent passing of Alice Herz-Sommer on Feb. 13th 2014, the ‘lady’ at the center of their documentary. Alice passed away just a week before the Oscars at the remarkable age of 110. She was the oldest known survivor of the Holocaust. They confessed they had developed such a wonderful rapport with this incredible woman over the course of making this film.

“One of the most inspirational and uplifting stories of the year”

The Lady In Number 6: Music Saved My Life although not financed with Canadian money has a full Canadian team and was produced by Frederic Bohbot and Nicholas Reed with a Montreal based crew. Malcolm Clarke said when he was first asked to make a movie about the Holocaust he was reluctant to revisit this subject but a trip to London, England to meet Alice completely changed his mind.

The 38-minute documentary spotlights Alice Herz-Sommer, a classically trained pianist who was sent to a Nazi concentration camp in 1946. She shares her secrets to longevity, her love of life and her approach to taking a positive attitude no matter how difficult things may seem. The documentary is available on Netflix.

Moira Romano

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It is with great sadness and shock that the world heard of Philip Seymour Hoffman’s death on Sunday Feb. 2nd, 2014 in NYC. Hoffman died of a heroine overdose. The hugely talented actor and director on both screen and stage leaves a great legacy behind him. The sheer magnitude and quality of the work he accomplished in a life ended too suddenly, shows a man driven by hard work and perfection. He is one of only seven actors to have won The Oscar, BAFTA, Critics’ Choice Award, Golden Globe Award and SAG Award for the same performanc as Truman Capote in ‘Capote’ (2005). Premiere Magazine ranked this performance as the 35th out of the top 100 greatest performances of all time.

Philip Seymour Hoffman’s break through role came under the direction of Paul Thomas Anderson in ‘Boogie Nights’ (1997) starring alongside Julianne Moore. He has been in all of Anderson’s films after this except for ‘There Will Be Blood’ (2007). He acted along side Julianne Moore in ‘The Big Lebowski’ (1998) and ‘Magnolia’ (1999). In a strange twist of fate Heath Ledger lost the Best Actor Oscar to Philip Seymour Hoffman in 2005, but then in 2008 went on to win an Oscar posthumously for Best Supporting Actor for his performance as the Joker in ‘Dark Knight’ winning over Seymour Hoffman’s nomination for his role in ‘Doubt’. Most recently, Hoffman was nominated for an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor in Paul Thomas Anderson’s “The Master”, opposite Joaquin Phoenix and Amy Adams. Here he discusses the film at the Venice International Film Festival (2012) press conference with Joaquin Phoenix and director Paul Thomas Anderson.

Philip Hoffman Seymour has been nominated for an Oscar 4 times (The Master, 2012; Doubt, 2008; Charlie Wilson’s War, 2007 and Capote, 2005). Constantly in the public eye with major hits including ‘Moneyball’ (2011), The Ides of March (2011) and ‘Jack Goes Boating’ (2010), where he also marked his directorial debut. Here is the press conference at the Toronto International Film Festival (2011) for ‘Moneyball’ along with Brad Pitt.

Philip Hoffman Seymour received three Tony Award nominations; for Sam Shepard’s “True West” (2000), Eugene O’Neill’s “Long Day’s Journey Into Night” (2003), and Arthur Miller’s “Death of A Salesman” (2012). He recently attended the Sundance Film Festival (2014), to promote his new films ‘A Most Wanted Man’, a spy thriller based on John le Carré’s novel, and the crime drama ‘God’s Pocket’, based on the 1983 novel by Peter Dexter. He was currently shooting two Hunger Games Mockingjay movies in Atlanta, Georgia with Jennifer Lawrence, Liam Hemsworth and Julianne Moore. He has worked with many of the most recent notable actors in the entertainment industry seeking roles that would challenge his considerable talent. Philip Hoffman Seymour is the father of three young children, a son and two daughters and also leaves behind his partner of many years, Mimi O’Donnell.

Read our review of The Master.

Read our review of Moneyball.

– Moira Romano

Gloria is a Chilean-Spanish drama film by Sebastián Lelio and was Chile’s official entry for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar nomination and the Independent Spirit Awards. Surprisingly “Gloria” did not make the final Oscar cut which is testimony to the high calibre of films entering the Academy Awards competition. The film premiered in competition at the 63rd Berlin International Film Festival where Paulina Garcia (Gloria)’s powerful performance won her the Silver Bear for Best actress. It is a beautiful story about finding love at any age. Totally uplifting. We chatted with Paulina during the 2013 Toronto International film festival and she proved to be equally engaging in real life:

Read full review of Gloria here.

Jennifer Baichwal is co-director with Edward Burtynsky of the award winning documentary “Watermark” (2013). She is also the director of “Manufactured Landscapes” (2006) shown at Sundance Film Festival. Both films feature Burtynsky’s photography. Baichwal who holds a Masters degree in Theology, is also a philosopher, environmentalist, activist and teacher. Jennifer Baichwal shares her experiences with us in an interview during TIFF in Toronto. She talks about her life as a filmmaker, she gives some sage advise to aspiring filmmakers and discusses how she began her association with Edward Burtynsky. Originally an academic, Baichwal says once she discovered the seductive power of filmmaking she realized it would be her vocation in life. Her husband, producer and cinematographer Nick de Pencier, who is also her business partner at Mercury Films Inc. worked on both projects with her. She discusses how “Manufactured Landscapes”, a meditative art film and “Watermark” came to be made with her husband, cinematographer Nick de Pencier and Burtynsky.

“Watermark” was the second time Baichwal had the opportunity to worked with Edward Burtynsky. She says they originally met when she was invited to take a look at the possibility of making a film about the subject of Edward Burtynsky’s extraordinary photography. She was shown about 200 or more hours of black and white footage taken by another photographer who had joined Burtynsky on a previous expedition to India and Bangladesh. The footage included Burtynsky’s visit to sites such as the 3 Gorges Dam in Bangladesh and the boat breaking sites in India. The footage was not suitable to turn into a film but Jennifer says it inspired her to take on the project.

Baichwal discusses her surprise at the very positive response “Manufactured Landscapes” received, especially with young audiences. The film was intended as a meditative art film and meant to encourage people to see things differently, but quickly she discovered that it resonated with audiences who saw the greater impact of its message as a call to action. Baichwal suddenly found herself in the role of an activist. Making the film was a very rich experience and the team wanted to work together again. A trip to California by de Pencier produced the perfect inspirational footage for the next project. It would focus on human’s great demand for water and how this demand had visibly changed massive landscapes on the planet.

Burtynsky wanted to participate more in this new project and so Baichwal says it was decided he would co-direct. She found the making of “Watermark” to be a very rich experience. It was a film that would be philosophically based rather than narratively based. She describes it as being constructed like beads on a string, each little existential moments where you as a viewer get to be in places you would not normally be able to go, such as rice paddies, the construction sites of the 3 Gorges Dam, the Xiluodu Dam, a sacred bath the Ganges and the huge abalone farms off China’s Aegean coast. The abalone farms are the biggest aquaculture areas in the world and have existed for thousands of years, appearing like a floating city in the middle of nowhere. They are totally sustainable. Baichwal says that looking at the Imperial Valley in California, a totally man-made, vast agricultural landscape in the desert, it begs the question “why can we not do this (sustainable agriculture) here?”. The Imperial Valley exists only because of the Colorado River and the diversion of its water, otherwise where all this agriculture is would be a desert. As a result for the past 40 years the Colorado River has not reached the ocean. But this say Baichwal, may be the substance of another documentary not “Watermark”.

“Watermark” is nominated for a 2014 Canadian Screen Award for Best Documentary Feature and is the winner of 2013 Rogers Best Canadian Film Award. It was a TIFF gala presentation and is available through Mongrel Media. Photos of Edward Burtynsky’s work are courtesy of Nicholas Metivier Gallery, Toronto, Canada.

Moira Romano