34th Toronto International Film Festival Coverage: Day Five
It’s Day Five. We’re halfway through the Festival.
The brilliant Ricky Gervais joined Jennifer Garner and Rob Lowe for the press conference for his latest project, The Invention of Lying. The film takes place in an alternate reality where people cannot lie to each other. Ricky’s character discovers that he can, in fact, lie and uses this ability to better his situation and, when his mother is about to die, to create the concept of God and Heaven. If some of the folks south of the border will have problems with TIFF’s opening film, Creation, I can only imagine what they’ll think of this one.
All eyes were on Colin Farrell as he arrived for the première of Ondine, but thoughts of his Triage altercation with a photographer were quickly forgotten as he was joined on the carpet by fellow Irishmen Bono and The Edge, who are in Toronto for a couple of U2 concerts and a taping of Elvis Costello’s Spectacle.
Naomi Watts, Jimmy Smits, and Kerry Washington strolled the carpet at Roy Thompson Hall for the movie Mother and Child. The film, directed by Rodrigo Garcia who brought us Things You Can Tell Just by Looking at Her, examines the multi-faceted themes of parenthood through the various characters’ lives and how they intersect.
Over at the VISA Screening Room, Julie Christie and Bill Nighy welcomed the crowds for Glorious 39. The film, from writer/director Stephen Poliakoff, examines the strains upon a British family when their support for appeasement prior to WWII is discovered.
We also took in Tanner Hall at the Isabel Bader Theatre. Writer-directors Tatiana von Fürstenberg and Francesca Gregorini bring us the coming-of-age story of four girls in a rustic boarding school. The première brought us the answer to the question “How much money can fit on one red carpet?” as it was attended by the wife and widow of two Beatles, billionaire Barry Diller and his wife Diane von Fürstenberg and assorted other monied New Yorkers. The young cast and the filmmakers were exceedingly generous with the press, giving them ample time for pictures and interviews.
Leaves of Grass written and directed by Tim Blake Nelson had its première attended by a couple of proud and famous parents. The film, which stars Edward Norton and Keri Russell, also features a performance by Lucy DeVito. Her proud parents, Danny DeVito and Rhea Perlman, joined their daughter on the carpet at the Ryerson Theatre.
Heading over to the Elgin, or should I say the VISA Screening Room, we attended the première of Partir with Kristin Scott Thomas and again caught up with Ricky Gervais, Rob Lowe and Jennifer Garner, this time for the première of The Invention of Lying.
We ended the night with the lovely ladies of Bitch Slap, which was part of the Midnight Madness series. The actresses, America Olivo, Erin Cummings and Julia Voth , posed and posed and posed for our cameras. Lucky us.