Big surprises at the Toronto International Film Festival as usual. Forget the popular titles such as ‘The Danish Girl’, ‘Spotlight’, ‘The Martian’ and ‘Equals’. Films that won the big awards at TIFF this year have barely got a marquee. ‘Room’, ‘Desierto’, ‘Hurt’ and ‘Closet Monster’ took home the awards. Last year Elevation Pictures had the People’s Choice winning picture ‘The Imitation Game’ which went on to win screenwriter Graham Moore an Academy Award for his first screenplay. ‘Room’ and ‘Closet Monster’ are both Elevation Picture films and have scooped up two coveted TIFF awards: ‘Room’ the Irish-Canadian feature won The Grolsch People’s Choice Award; and ‘Closet Monster’, a debut feature from Canadian writer/director Stephen Dunn, won Best Canadian Feature. The big films will continue to gather attention, but the refreshing thing about film festivals like Venice and Tiff is that you can always expect the unexpected. Film gems will be discovered that without the hype of a festival such as TIFF would have much more difficulty getting noticed. We had 80 titles on our TIFF15 watch list this year, a testament to the high calibre of films and filmmakers given attention over the eleven days of the festival. Hats off to independent filmmaking.

People’s Choice Award 2015

‘Room’ is based on the internationally acclaimed novel by Irish-Canadian Emma Donoghue who also adapted screenplay. Directed by Lenny Abrahamson (Frank, 2014), this tense, often claustrophobia inducing film takes a magical view of the world told from the viewpoint of young Jack’s (Jacob Tremblay) eyes. It is a love story that perserveres even under the most gruelling circumstances. ‘Room’ stars Brie Larson, Joan Allen, William H. Macy and young Jacob Tremblay. Ma (Brie Larson) and Jack have been held in captivity for five years, Jack’s entire young life. Uniquely filmed from the tender young eyes of Jack the film follows his introduction to the real world once Ma manages to escape. The real star of the movie is Jacob Tremblay who delivers a truly remarkable performance. The film has also been nominated for the Best Pic at the London Film Festival. Look for it in theatres Oct.16th.

Lenny Abrahamson is an Irish filmmaker who’s touching comedy ‘Frank’, about a shy, young musician starring Michael Fassbender, who spends most of the movie with a large fake head on and Domhnall Gleeson, was featured on Netflix. ‘Frank’ showed Abrahamson’s extraordinary talent for a unique approach to storytelling with an unusual perspective.

FIPRESCI Prize Special Presentations

Desierto is a tense thriller directed by Jonás Cuarón, co-writer of Academy award winning film ‘Gravity‘. The film co-wrtten by Cuarón and Mateo Garcia and set in the Sonoran Desert is a harrowing story that follows the unexpected trials of a group of Mexican immigrants trying to illegally cross the border. A fairly simple journey becomes a nightmare as they become locked in the cross hairs of border guard Sam’s (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) shotgun. Sam has his loyal Belgian Malinois dog by his side and is unrelenting in his single minded determination to hunt down and kill every last illegal migrant. Sam knows the terrain of the desert in his sleep and holds all the cards when it comes to winning this gruelling man hunt. Moises (Gael García Bernal) must use all his cunning and pray for some incredible luck in order to survive and escape.

Award winning cinematographer Damián García (El Narco (2010), Güeros (2014), La vida precoz y breve de Sabina Rivas (2012) provides a spectacular canvas of the desert revealing its expansive natural theatre as well as the tiny details so vital to survival or as clues for the trackers. Toronto Platform Prize

‘Hurt’ is the story of Steve Fonyo, who at 18 years old did what Terri Fox tried to do but in the end could not. Like Terri Fox, Steve lost a leg to cancer and decided to run across the country to raise funds and awareness for cancer research and the victims it harms or kills. The film looks at what happened to Steve Fonyo since this heroic deed in 1984 and 1985. Its a great wakeup call to the easy way in which cancer fundraising efforts are focused on getting the money out of people’s pockets and what happens in the aftermath. Steve Fonyo was awarded the Order of Canada for his efforts but then when things got tough, his life became marginalized and he sunk into drug abuse and petty crime. The Federal Government stripped his medal from him — no helping hand was offered. The film finds him living on the outskirts of society in Whalley, BC, down on his luck but still with that spark not yet extinguished that galvanized him to run across Canada in the first place.

Alan Zweig won Best Canadian Feature Film at the 2013 Toronto International Film Festival for ‘When Jews Were Funny’, the Genie Award for Best Feature Length Documentary for ‘A Hard Name’ (2009), I, Curmudgeon received a Silver Hugo at the 2005 Chicago International Film Festival. He often focuses the camera on the subject he knows best, his own life experience.

Best Canadian Feature Film (Canada Goose)

Closet Monster, a coming-of-age story with a few dramatic twists, is the feature debut for Stephen Dunn who has written and directed the film. It stars Connor Jessup (Blackbird, Boy), Aaron Abrams, Joanne Kelly, Aliocha Schneider, Sofia Banzhaf, Jack Fulton, Mary Walsh and the voice of Isabella Rossellini.

Oscar Madly (Connor Jessup), a high school student from a small town in New Foundland, is an aspiring special-effects makeup artist. He is not only wrestling with questions of his own sexuallity, but is fearful of the social restrictions imposed by this small town. He suddenly finds he is overwhelmed with an attraction for handsome Wilder (Aliocha Schneider) whose carefree hedonistic, rebellious character is irresistible. Oscar is terribly inhibited by the memory of a brutal hate crime he witnessed as a small boy that has left an indelible mark on him and by his repressive parents. He struggles to come to grips with how to escape his narrow minded parents (Aaron Abrams, Joanne Kelly), the small New Foundland town and his repressive school environments. Gemma (Sofia Banzhaf) is his closest friend along with his hampster (voiced by Isabella Rossellini).

Elevation Pictures, founded by Teddy Schwarzian in 2013 is now a leading Canadian film and television distribution companies premiered 8 films at TIFF15 Room, Hyena Road, Closet Monster, Into The Forest, Legend, River, The Witch and Zoom.

Look for full updates on Tiff and Venice on @TheAwardsBuzz

Moira Romano

A Turing test is a series of questions between a person and a machine. If the persons realise they are talking to a machine, the test is failed. If they do not realise they are talking to a machine, then the test has been passed. Caleb (Domhnall Gleeson) has been selected to take part in such a test with Ava (Alicia Vikander), a new kind of robot. Isolated in the frozen north, with only his reclusive boss Nathan (Oscar Isaac) and the silent Kyoko (Sonoya Mizuno) as human company, the tests begin to take a disturbing turn, leaving Caleb unsure of who to trust.

Alex Garland makes his directoral debut with Ex Machina, after providing scripts for Dredd, 28 Days Later and Sunshine, among others. And what a debut it is. Refusing to shy away from questions about the nature of humanity, gleefully mixing the hard science fiction, thriller and even romance genres together, Ex Machina is a disturbing, excellent film with a cast that shines. Some chilling standouts are Caleb’s breakdown involving a mirror and a razorblade, and the big reveal about what Nathan has really been working on. Dark, disturbing, and smart, with a genuinely surprising and unflinching ending. Go watch it.

Donal O’ Connor

Based on the 2010 book written by science historians, Naomi Oreskes and Erik M.Conway, “Merchants of Doubt” explores the shady dealings of big corporations and their purported experts who try to cast doubt and delay governmental action on issues like climate change; often ones that work in direct competition with their money making agendas. “Merchants of Doubt is the follow up to documentarian, Robert Kenner’s 2009 eye-opening food documentary, “Food Inc.” .While “Merchants of Doubt” doesn’t pack the same infuriating punch that “Food Inc.” did it still will make you cringe at the inner workings of some of the world’s largest corporations that are presented as the dastardly villains of contemporary America.

Superbly crafted and researched “Merchants of Doubt” is documentary for anyone who wants a lesson on the history and inner workings of Corporations VS Science and subsequently wants the veil of scientific skepticism lifted from their susceptible eyes.

Using magician, Jamy Ian Swiss and his slight of hand tricks as a framework for the film, “Merchants of Doubt” illustrates the level of deception and misdirection that magicians use to manipulate their audiences to see only what they want to see. Kenner contrasts this with issues that have been constantly debated over the last two decades: Tobacco and climate change. Using his magician and his industry of manipulation as a parallel narrative he takes the audience on a journey through a history of modern deception focused around America’s spin doctors and pseudo-scientists who have been attempting to warp the scientific findings around climate change. “It’s a film about deception” says Kenner “It’s about understanding how we’re being deceived across multiple industries…but really it’s about the biggest deception of all-which is the destruction of the planet for profit.”

In the 80′s and 90′s Big Tobacco were all about manufacturing doubt with the general public regarding the safety of cigarettes despite having studies from the 50′s and 60′s proving the addictive and health risks they posed. You can tell Kenner finds the spin tactics ludacris as he pokes fun at top executives from William Morris who presented arguments in the late 80’s that smoking too much could be harmful to your health “But then again, so could eating too much applesauce” said their PR reps. One thing “Merchants of Doubt” has in abundance is the ability to laugh at antics of these destructive and manipulative organizations.

Transitioning from Tobacco issues, Kenner shifts the focus the crux of the film and issues like climate change and the environment. Focusing on the Fossil-fuel lobby group, “Americans for Prosperity” founded by the big oil tycoon the Koch Industries. Owning operators, launched a campaign to create skepticism about the reality of climate change; from shifting the focus from science to politics they were able to spin almost an entire nation into thinking that global warming is a myth and a construction of “watermelon” communists (Green on the outside, red on the inside) As Kenner has stated, this deception worked, despite there being a literal consensus from Environmental scientists stating that “yes in fact, the earth is heating up and yes, it is mankind’s fault.”

I had the opportunity to screen this intelligent issue driven documentary in Toronto and in California at the Palm Springs Film Festival and while Toronto audiences seemed engaged and captivated they were vastly different from the American crowd of Democrats who literally hissed at the screen when big oil players like the Koch Brothers appeared on screen.

Overall, Kenner presents a complicated issue in a clear and concise manner that never lacks it’s moments of perfectly executed comedic timing. Highly recommended!

Lauren Schell

Interstellar is a throwback and obvious homage to Kubrick’s ’2001: A Space Oddessy’. While some popular criticisms of the film entertain the notion that the suspension of disbelief required to fully engage in the film is too great, I found the opposite to be true. The film explores several moral dilemmas while engaging in scientific theory with a highly respectable degree of credibility. While some scenes may be a bit of a stretch on our imagination, the character development, which starts early in the film and runs deep is continuous throughout and drives the story. It serves to feed our curiosity and imagination the nutrition needed to believe in alternate galaxies and the ways of life that are being explored. As an audience we are coaxed as is Cooper into believing there is an answer to the ecological dilemma facing the entire planet.

The screen performances early on in the film left me awkwardly groping for something in the cinema experience. Cooper, played by Matthew McConaughey, is a struggling single father, desperate in the face of an ecological collapse on a global scale. Scenes of Cooper and Murph, played by Mackenzie Foy, taut with tension and stress had me at times wondering what Nolan was really getting at. This came full circle and was revealed upon the actual propulsion of the story into space and space exploration. This came as a welcome relief to the claustrophobic emotional tension in Cooper’s family struggling to survive on a drought plagued farm in the American midwest.

You find yourself sitting on the edge of your seat dying for the next moment of Nolan brand dramatic intensity, buffered by the love interest and interplay between Brand, played by Anne Hathaway, and Cooper. Amidst the interstellar grandeur, Nolan keeps us rooted. The mechanisms through which these insights reveal themselves approach a degree of disbelief. Time dilation, wormholes, and other planets are all displayed to great effect on the big screen. Nolan has been careful to support these sci-fi scenes by popular science, solid research and theory. Professor Kip Thorne, the science advisor and executive producer of Interstellar is a world renowned theoretical physicist and great friend of Stephen Hawking. Not only was the black hole in the film generated using a super-computer for a very realistic interpretation of celestial bodies, most of the rest of the science theory in the film is supported by the scientific community. It was a real pleasure to find I was one step ahead of my Astronomy class just for having seen the film. Nolan doesn’t just stop at the scientific level, characters are developed to a degree reminiscent of our encounter with HAL and the monolith in Kubrick’s ‘A Space Oddessy’, but unlike Kubrick, Nolan brings resolution to this film. He’ll likely not be rewarded for giving us so much. Interstellar has won multiple international awards including the 2015 Oscar and BAFTA for Best Achievement in Visual Effects and won AFI Movie of the Year.

Paul Thomas Anderson’s film Inherent Vice (based on the book of the same title by Thomas Pynchon), is as much of a mouthful as the definition of the term itself; a hidden defect in goods and property which of itself is the cause of its own deterioration and damage. It’s like a ‘sloppy joe’ made by the greatest Parisian chef; messy, discombobulated, but with an exceptional flavour and depth that draws you helplessly back for more. It is a film drenched in irony and tension, every character experiences a sort of internal decay, and is either in a state of repenting or a self-destructive haze (sometimes both).

The plot centers around Larry “Doc” Sportello (Joaquin Phoenix), a private investigator and frequent rider of the “ganja bus”, who is attempting to solve three cases. The first is an alleged plot to lock up local real-estate mogul Mickey Wolfmann (Eric Roberts) in an insane asylum so his wife (Serena Scott Thomas) and “spiritual guide” can take his money. The second case involves finding a member of the Aryan Brotherhood (Christopher Allen Nelson) who owes a member of the Black Guerilla Family money. The third case revolves around finding an ex-heroin addicts husband (Owen Wilson). All three sub-mysteries take many twists and turns, but the main plot appears to be Doc’s search for his ex-girlfriend Shasta Fay Hepworth (Katherine Waterston), who is Wolfman’s mistress.

The thinnest description of the plot I could give took up an entire paragraph which indicates that this movie is slightly hard to follow. Inherent Vice is so entrenched in its own themes and motifs that sometimes plot seems put aside wayside in favour of dialogue and interaction steeped in the numb, dopey haze that was so prevalent in the years following that 70’s ‘summer of love’. What sits at the center of this spider-web is corruption on a global scale, and the attempt to unmask the ‘inherent vice’ that exists within American culture and the understand the dream that accompanies it. While an artistic triumph, I am confident that after multiple viewings plot-holes would be revealed too large to ignore. But this movie is as experiential as it is thought-provoking, it expects you to sit back and simply enjoy the ride without questioning and thats alright because its better that way.

With great performances by a star-studded cast, including one of Josh Brolin’s finest on-screen personas to date, this movie will make you nervous, ecstatic and pensive; sometimes all at once. And if there’s anything the public likes, as gossip magazines have shown us, its a hot mess. Another reason to see this movie is so that one can marvel at the politics of Hollywood that allowed one of the top three films of this year to be nearly completely snubbed at the 2015 Oscars with only two nominations. Surprisingly for costume design and adapted screenplay although it could have been included in the now expanded ‘Best Picture’ category which has only 8 nominees but can have 10. Stars Joaquin Phoenix, Josh Brolin, Eric Roberts, Serena Scott Thomas, Christopher Allen Nelson, Owen Wilson, Joanna Newsom, Benicio Del Toro, Reese Witherspoon and Martin Short. Rated R for drug use throughout, sexual content, graphic nudity, language and some violence

Darcy Smith

Check out our interview with Paul Thomas Anderson on the making of The Master

The Biopic is tricky territory for filmmakers. Eddie Redmayne’s depiction of Stephen Hawking as he succumbs to the ravages of Lou Gehrig’s disease to such a degree that he can eventually only communicate through a computer monitoring the muscle movement in his eye is utterly convincing. But even Redmayne’s startlingly accurate depiction of science hero and living legend Stephen Hawking will not save “The Theory of Everything” from the legions of critics weighing in on the “accuracy” issue. Friends past and present, and a host ofothers, even remote acquaintances will opine with entitlement and authority. Oscar winning director James Marsh (Man on Wire 2008 Academy Award for Best Documentary) and screenwriter Anthony McCarten are mostly faithful to their source, Jane Hawking’s book “Travelling to Infinity: My Life with Stephen”. Artistic license is taken with the depiction of certain episodes and events in Hawking’s meteoric rise to fame as the 21st century’s very own Einstein, some that ring a little untrue.

But this is really Redmayne’s stage. Its hard to now imagine any other actor pulling off the physicality of Hawking’s downward curve from Lou Gehrig’s disease and the unlikely reality of surviving into his 73rd year as one of the most popular and productive Scientist’s of our time. Redmayne’s performance captures Hawking’s singular force of determination to live a full life despite his physical incapacity. The narrative also captures the unconditional yet thoroughly conflicted sacrifice from Jane Hawking. Married some 30 years to Hawking, the unique peculiarities of Jane’s (Felicity Jones) relationship to Stephen in fact shapes the narrative. This is where the film may have fallen short in an attempt to sanitize some of those complexities, opening up this biopic to the all too familiar charge of “inaccuracy”. Stephan Hawking and Jane fell deeply in love and Jane’s devotion to Hawking is unquestionable even as the circumstances of their relationship rapidly and without any warning dramatically changed. She maintains the household single handedly, bears him three children, nurses him and remains his most ardent supporter and adviser in establishing his brilliant career. She reticently sets aside her own academic aspirations out of necessity, endures criticism from her in-laws and denies for sometime the physical attraction to musician and family friend Jonathan Helyer-Jones (Charlie Cox). Amidst all this anxiety and unrequited passion (though Hawking confides to his friends that his disease has not curbed his libido or his ability to act on it) in the film, Jane and Stephen part amicably with an alluded and anti-climatic understanding that their relationship has, like a fading star, collapsed into a ‘black hole’ of insensitivity. Jane’s book tells of a much more acrimonious split with Stephen — surprise, tears and resentment abound. Stephen suddenly left Jane for his nurse Elaine Mason (Maxine Peak). Hawking divorced Mason in 2006 amidst controversial and bizarre rumours of physical abuse. He has remained close with Jane and family ever since. In the film Hawking’s randy behaviour is intimated but glossed over, as is his inability to match the devotion of his wife Jane. For all its strengths, like many biopics the film has just a little too much reverence for its subject at the cost of other supporting characters.

Despite the familiar reverence of the biopic, in many ways this is a very honest and satisfying film, and courageously done with the approval of Stephen and Jane, who visited the set during filming. What is just as interesting as Hawking conquering his illness and the story behind his ingenious observations, is Jane’s refusal to martyrdom. Her doctrinaire devotion to Hawking is plagued by doubt that is freely expressed. And Charlie Cox’s (Boardwalk Empire) excellent turn as Jonathan Hellyer-Jones gives us a much more honest perspective into the Hawking’s relationship. We see Jonathan’s sincere care and love for both Jane and Stephen that can only occur in the predicament where a remarkable need exists. The emotional fragility of all three characters is on full display and that they are able to sustain this three-way relationship for as long as they did becomes the most intriguing aspect of the film narrative. Screenwriter McCarten and director Marsh chose to handle the subject with a sensitivity and restraint that ultimately respects the characters. If only a ‘partial’ truth, the film and cast capture the essence of these characters. Redmayne, Jones and Cox deliver such remarkable portrayals of Stephen, Jane and Jonathan, that all three cast members should be strong candidates for SAG’s, BAFTA’s, Golden Globes and Academy Awards.

Eddie Redmayne will participate in a special on stage conversation about his acting career as part of the 26th Palm Springs International Film Festival (PSIFF). The event is already sold out. TALKING PICTURES – CONVERSATIONS WITH THE BRIGHTEST TALENTS IN CURRENT CINEMA Saturday, January 03, 9:00 AM Annenberg Auditorium Palm Springs CA. The Theory of Everything was a special presentation at the Toronto International Film Festival 2014 (TIFF). The Theory of Everything has been nominated for 10 BATA’s and 5 Oscars including in the categories for Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Music, Best British Film. Director James Marsh is also nominated for the BAFTA David Lean award for Direction.

Highly recommended.The Theory of Everything took home the awards for Best Picture and Best Actor at the 2015 BAFTAs.

Alfredo Romano