‘American Fiction’ Review: Cord Jefferson Delivers A Funny & Insightful Feature Debut [TIFF]

Jamie Foxx has paid tribute to his Django Unchained co-star Keith Jefferson, after he tragically passed away aged 53. Keith, who played Pudgy Ralph in the hit 2012 film, had been battling cancer. Actor Jamie, 55, shared the heartbreaking news of Keith's passing on social media on 5 October, as he paid tribute to his late friend.

Carole Horst Tucked in the beautiful countryside north of San Francisco, Mill Valley has been home to artists, musicians, filmmakers, writers, and all sorts of dreamers. Thus it makes sense that the local film festival, celebrating 46 years, has programmed the best of the fest circuit and buzzy premieres — and mixed it up with art and music events. The event runs Oct.

Michaela Zee After winning this year’s Toronto International Film Festival’s people’s choice award, “American Fiction” has pushed back its limited release to Dec. 15 and will expand in theaters on Dec. 22.

EXCLUSIVE: Cord Jefferson’s feature directorial debut, American Fiction, is changing up its release plan from Nov. 3rd limited opening to Dec. 15.

Clayton Davis Senior Awards Editor “Poor Things” can win things. That’s a nugget of information we gleaned at the conclusion of Venice, Telluride and Toronto, the three major fall festivals. For starters, Yorgos Lanthimos’ sci-fi dramedy collected the Golden Lion at Venice.

Loki Season 2 is coming!

Trends change and ebb and flow, but in years past, winning the Toronto International Film Festival audience award used to be a surefire way to mean you were getting an Oscar nomination for Best Picture and, and many instances, winning the big Academy Award prize. And while the winning element of that trend has somewhat waned in recent years, the power of the prize is still there.

The People’s Choice Award from the just-wrapped 2023 Toronto Film Festival has gone to American Fiction . First Runner Up is Alexander Payne’s The Holdovers. Second Runner Up was Hayao Miyazaki’s The Boy And The Heron . The Documentary Award went to Mr. Dressup: The Magic Of Make-Believe, ,and the Midnight Madness winner was Dicks: The Musical.

Brent Lang Executive Editor “American Fiction,” Cord Jefferson’s satire of race and media, captured the Toronto International Film Festival’s people’s choice award, bolstering its Oscars chances. TIFF’s people’s choice award is considered to be among the best predictors of eventual awards success, though the 2023 festival hosted a weaker lineup than most years due to the writers and actors strikes that saw some prominent contenders skip a Canadian premiere. In the past, winners of the prize such as “Green Book,” “12 Years a Slave” and “Nomadland” went on to be named best picture at the Academy Awards.

SHAYDA

TORONTO – There always seems to be this assumption in Hollywood that when the end of the world comes it will be quick. A nuclear holocaust will destroy the environment in hours or a massive space object will send civilization back into the dark ages in an instant.

EXCLUSIVE: Filmmaker Cord Jefferson has, in recent years, made two life-changing decisions.

Brent Lang Executive Editor It’s been a Toronto Film Festival like few others. The writers and actors strikes meant that many A-listers opted not to touch down in Canada this year, depriving the gathering of film lovers of the star-studded red carpets and Q&As that make Toronto so memorable. Even if this year’s festival was starved for glamour, it was still a good opportunity to get a clearer picture of the awards race — and to check the pulse of Hollywood at a tumultuous time for the industry.

The passing pleasures of watching the fine young actors Jessie Buckley, Riz Ahmed and Jeremy Allen White can’t make up for the increasing distaste that develops from contact with Fingernails, an irritating and, finally, ridiculous examination of relationship matchmaking carried far too far. Greek director Christos Nikou won unanimous critical plaudits for his compellingly eerie debut feature Apples, which dealt with amnesia patients, and here again he appears drawn to troubled and mysterious states of mind that develop in the quest for love, commitment and some sense of security in modern life. The film debuted at the Telluride Film Festival and screened at the Toronto Film Festival.

TORONTO – Considering the explicit gravity of her previous films, “The Burial” is an unexpected detour for filmmaker Maggie Betts. Likely considered a dramatic comedy by most, the MGM release centers on a 1995 lawsuit where a Mississippi small businessman, Jeremiah Joseph O’Keefe (Tommy Lee Jones), took the Loewen Group, a Canadian funerals services company, to court.

Peter Debruge Chief Film Critic Does it count as a white savior movie if the white character is the one who needs saving? In “Next Goal Wins,” the world’s top-grossing indigenous director, Taika Waititi, retells the story of how American Samoa went from having the world’s worst soccer team to, well, not the worst. While a white man was involved, the movie — which suggests how a film like “Cool Runnings” might be made with 30 years’ more cultural enlightenment — is mostly about how their coach (Michael Fassbender) needs an attitude adjustment. Come to think of it, that’s essentially the formula for most white savior movies.

Taika Waititi returned to TIFF tonight with his underdog soccer story about the American Samoa team, Next Goal Wins, which received great cheers and a heartfelt response.

TORONTO – The accomplishments of Nicholas Winton were lost to history for almost forty years. The last time the Brit had spoken about his work rescuing Jewish refugees in Czechoslovakia was when he ran for local council in 1954.

Peter Debruge Chief Film Critic In Cord Jefferson’s idea-dense “American Fiction,” no one wants to publish literary professor Thelonious Ellison’s latest novel. Thelonious — or “Monk” to his friends — has delivered a modern reworking of Aeschylus’ “The Persians” (hardly bestseller material to begin with), but all the industry can see is the color of his skin.

In Cord Jefferson cinematic adaptation of Percival Everett’s Erasure, American Fiction emerges as a hard-hitting commentary on identity, storytelling, and the microaggressive terrains of the publishing industry. With a powerhouse ensemble, led by Jeffrey Wright and supported by the likes of Tracee Ellis Ross and Sterling K. Brown, the film aims to deconstruct the publishing world as it relates to myriad facets of Black lives.