37th Toronto International Film Festival Coverage: Day Nine
September 14th, 2012 – by Ian Evans
Shannon and Jared Leto at the Artifact premiere. ©2012 DigitalHit.com. All rights reserved. Photographer: Ian Evans
Day nine and the 2012 edition of TIFF is winding down. A lot of the US press has headed home, but there are still tasty morsels for film lovers of every stripe to taste.
We headed down to Roy Thomson Hall to cover the premiere of Peter Webber’s Emperor, which stars Tommy Lee Jones and Matthew Fox. The film takes place after World War II has ended. Jones plays General Douglas MacArthur, Supreme Commander of the occupying forces in Japan. The Emperor has surrendered, given up his claims of divinity, and now MacArthur must decide if he should also face trial and possible execution for war crimes. Peter Webber said he wasn’t aware of this aspect of the postwar situation in Japan, even though he thought he knew his WWII history. So he was intrigued by the story and happy to be given the job telling it.
After Emperor, we headed up to Ryerson University to cover the premiere of the documentary Artifact. Actor Jared Leto and his brother Shannon, both members of the band Thirty Seconds to Mars, brought this very personal documentary to TIFF. The film details the brutal lawsuit the band found itself in with their label EMI. They sued for unpaid royalties and tried to exit their contract while the label counter-sued for breach and tried to make an example of the band to scare off other musicians. At the same time the doc also shows the band as they worked on their next album “This is War.”