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Source: Deadline
The 2021 Venice Film Festival hadn’t even finished wrapping up before the next in a long line of prestigious, closely-paid-attention-to film festivals commenced. On September 9th, just a few days prior to the ending of the Venice event, the Toronto International Film Festival began with the world premiere of “Dear Evan Hansen”, a film adaptation of the popular Broadway musical. What followed were nine additional days of various film screenings and panels, with the festival concluding on September 18th after giving its attendees access to a variety of unique offerings of the highest possible quality. Unlike Venice, which had opted to hold most of its events in person, TIFF organizers opted for a hybrid approach this year. Citing the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic as a major concern, organizers arranged to have both physical and digital screenings when it came to showcasing its selection of films both feature and shorter length. Regardless of how these films could be viewed, the majority of them proved to be engaging experiences, and before the festival finally came to an end, the best of the best were announced and awarded. Considering how well past TIFF winners have done later along in their respective awards seasons, there’s a very strong chance that many of this year’s winners will go on to repeat similar successes.
Easily the biggest winner of the Toronto International Film Festival was “Belfast”, a black-and-white drama based in part on the life of its director Kenneth Branagh, which was given the TIFF People’s Choice Award (with runner-up prizes going to Canadian drama “Scarborough” and “The Power of the Dog”, starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Kirsten Dunst). This win serves as a major indication that “Belfast” will go on to be one of the frontrunners of the upcoming film awards season, as the majority of this award’s past winners have gone on to receive a Best Picture nomination at the Academy Awards. In fact, the recipient of the previous year’s People’s Choice Award, Chloe Zhao’s “Nomadland”, ended up winning the Best Picture Oscar. Whether or not “Belfast” will go on to achieve this exact same feat is not yet certain, but its success at TIFF does imply that the film has a bright future ahead of it.
Alongside the main People’s Choice Award were the People’s Choice Documentary and the People’s Choice Midnight Madness awards, both of which are also considered to be highly coveted honors. In the case of the former, “The Rescue”, which focuses on the Tham Luang cave rescue that took place in 2018, was named the winner. Accepting the award were directors Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin, the husband-and-wife duo behind the 2019 film “Free Solo”, which won the Best Documentary Feature award at that year’s Oscars ceremony. The latter, meanwhile, went to the most recent Palme d’Or winner, Julie Durconau’s “Titane”, adding further to the French film’s success and making it a potential contender for Best International Feature Oscar.
Although “The Power of the Dog” was only named a runner-up when it came to the festival’s Best Picture equivalent, its leading actor would come out on top and receive the festival’s Best Actor equivalent. For his performance in the film (as well as “The Electrical Life of Louis Wain”, another film screened at the festival), Benedict Cumberbatch was named a recipient of the TIFF Tribute Actor Award, as was Jessica Chastain for her performance in “The Eyes of Tammy Faye”. In addition, the TIFF Ebert Director Award went to Denis Villeneuve for his work on the highly anticipated science-fiction epic “Dune”, and musician Dionne Warwick was given a Special Tribute Award for the documentary “Dionne Warwick: Don’t Make Me Over”.
Even though not every film submitted and screened at the Toronto International Film Festival could receive some form of awards recognition, festival organizers have still expressed great delight in the line-up of films they had to showcase, especially considering how much bigger it was compared to the scaled-down offerings of last year’s festival (though still not quite as big as that of 2019). When announcing the award winners at the end of the festival, co-heads Cameron Bailey and Joana Vicente proved to be very enthusiastic about what they had to offer for this year’s event.“2021 brought an exceptional selection of films that excited Festival audiences around the world,” they claim. “Our lineup showcased beloved auteurs alongside fresh voices in filmmaking, including numerous women powerhouses. TIFF welcomed guests, press, industry, international stars and directors back to the city and into cinemas. The sweeping range in cinematic storytelling from around the world is a testament to the uniqueness of the films that are being made. We’re so grateful and proud of this year’s Festival.”
With so many films included as part of this most recent TIFF selection, it’s not hard to see why Bailey and Vicente are so delighted. Over a hundred films, including all those previously mentioned, could be accessed by those attending the festival. The major Gala Presentations saw such films as “Last Night in Soho” from writer/director Edgar Wright; “One Second” from Chinese filmmaker Zhang Yimou; and “The Survivor”, directed by Barry Levinson. Other Special Presentations allowed for the screenings of highly respectable titles from across the globe, including “Ahed’s Knee”, one of the titles considered for the Palme d’Or; “The Middle Man”, a co-production between the nations of Canada, Denmark, Germany, and Norway; and “Where is Anne Frank”, a film from “Waltz with Bashir” director Ari Folman.
These films were only a small collection of what this year’s Toronto International Film Festival had to offer, and despite the unusual circumstances in which they had to be screened in, all of them found a way to present themselves to the world and find their respective audiences. This year’s festival will certainly be hard to top, but hopefully, next year’s event will have an even greater number of films of similar high quality and global appeal.
