Spinal Cord Injury Doc ‘Full Circle’ Spotlighting Snowboarder Trevor Kennison, Alpinist Barry Corbet Acquired By Abramorama

EXCLUSIVE: “The UK’s role in the media multiverse” will take up plenty of airtime at the RTS Cambridge Convention, according to Theresa Wise, as the great-and-the-good of the TV industry prepare to gather for the biannual get-together.

TORONTO – “American Fiction,” the directorial debut from Cord Jefferson, is genuinely a very, very funny movie. And that’s hyperbole on our part.

The Drew Barrymore Show was met with wide backlash, including from the Writers Guild of America (WGA), who picketed outside CBS Broadcast Center as taping resumed this week.Alyssa Milano told The Associated Press that it was “not a great move” on Barrymore’s part, while Bradley Whitford also spoke out against the decision.“Drew Barrymore would like you to know that undermining union solidarity at the most crucial moment in Hollywood labor history makes her the victim,” he wrote on Twitter. “This has been, like, a super tough week for her.”Barrymore initially defended her decision in a widely-shared video, where she insisted the return of the show would comply with the terms of the strike.

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.

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.

EXCLUSIVE: Ryan Donowho (The O.C.) is set to topline Art of a Hit (fka Excelsis), an indie psychological horror film directed by Gaelan Draper that will begin shooting in France this month under a SAG Interim Agreement. Rounding out the cast are Rob Raco (Riverdale), Charlie Saxton (Hung), Tim Jo (This Is Us), Allie MacDonald (Under the Silver Lake), James Earl (White Men Can’t Jump), and David Valdes (Speechless). Draper and Saxton co-wrote and are co-producing under their Dewey & Bug banner.

EXCLUSIVE: Screen Media has announced its acquisition of all North American rights to Helen’s Dead, a mystery comedy starring Dylan Gelula (Dream Scenario), Emile Hirsch (Into the Wild), Tyrese Gibson (Fast X), Annabelle Dexter-Jones (Succession), and Oliver Cooper (Red Oaks). Set to hit theaters in at least the top 10 markets, the film will open day-and-date on November 3.

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

Drew Barrymore has been dropped as host of the upcoming National Book Awards ceremony, a day after her talk show taped its first episode since the Hollywood writers strike began.

Brazil has selected Kleber Mendonça Filho’s documentary Pictures of Ghosts as its entry for Best International Feature Film at the 96th Academy Awards.

EXCLUSIVE: Greenwich Entertainment is maintaining a brisk pace of acquisitions. A day after picking up North American rights to the TIFF premiere documentary Sorry/Not Sorry, the independent distributor announced it has partnered with Kanopy to acquire U.S. and Canadian rights to the feature doc Subject. 

Aerosmith have been forced to postpone a portion of their farewell tour after frontman Steven Tyler sustained a vocal cord injury.The rock band kicked off the extensive run of North American dates – dubbed ‘Peace Out’ – in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on September 2, and they’ve since played gigs in Pittsburgh and Elmont.The tour was due to resume in Toronto today (September 12), but Aerosmith have now pushed back the next six shows.“I’m heartbroken to say I have received strict doctor’s orders not to sing for the next thirty days,” Tyler said in a statement on social media yesterday (September 11).“I sustained vocal cord damage during Saturday’s show that led to subsequent bleeding. We’ll need to postpone a few dates so that we can come back and give you the performance you deserve.”All previously purchased tickets will be honoured for the new dates.

EXCLUSIVE: In one of the first acquisition deals at Toronto, Greenwich Entertainment today announced it has picked up Sorry/Not Sorry, the documentary about the Louis C.K. sexual misconduct scandal and its aftermath, hours after the film’s TIFF world premiere.

Palestinian-French actress Hiam Abbass and her filmmaker daughter Lina Soualem touch down at the Toronto International Film Festival on Monday with documentary Bye Bye Tiberias.

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.

Clayton Davis Senior Awards Editor With “American Fiction,” Cord Jefferson, best known for penning television episodes of “Succession” and “Watchmen,” helms one of the finest directorial debuts seen since Sam Mendes’ “American Beauty.” In the style that feels like an audacious blend of the screenplays of Alexander Payne’s “Sideways” and Nicole Holofcener’s “Can You Ever Forgive Me,” he shepherds an audacious dramedy anchored by a career-best and Oscar-worthy performance from star Jeffrey Wright. After debuting at the Toronto International Film Festival, it’s a movie that could be a contender for the coveted TIFF Audience Award, and it would be deserved.

Daniel D'Addario Chief TV Critic In December 2020, Cord Jefferson sat down with the novel “Erasure,” by Percival Everett, and saw his life reflected back at him. “It was like someone had written down a Christmas gift for Cord,” he says.

Adam Benzine Guest Contributor Controversial hacker and Wikileaks associate Jacob Appelbaum is the subject of a secretive new documentary screening Sept. 10 for buyers in Toronto. Appelbaum headlines “Nobody Wants to Talk About Jacob Appelbaum,” from Canadian filmmaker Jamie Kastner (“The Skyjacker’s Tale”).

What to do with a broken violin peg, or a leaky euphonium? For students in the Los Angeles Unified School District, such a predicament doesn’t mean catastrophe. They have at their disposal a repair shop where a quartet of dedicated individuals attend to damaged instruments, restoring them to exemplary condition.

Austin Sipes, student symposium coordinator for the Telluride Film Festival, checked in this year’s class that had traveled far and wide to participate in what he termed as a “life-changing” immersion into the intricacies of filmmaking.