TIFF Tribute Awards Go Virtual With Kate Winslet, Chloé Zhao — and Shawn Mendes

The 32nd annual NewFest — the New York Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Film Festival — is headed online amid the coronavirus pandemic as it opens with Francis Lee's Ammonite, starring Kate Winslet, and closes with Faraz Shariat's Berlinale award-winning film No Hard Feelings. The fest opener Ammonite, also starring Saoirse Ronan, will receive a drive-in screening at the Queens Drive-In at Flushing Meadows Corona Park.

Chloe Zhao's Nomadland picked up the top People's Choice honor on Sunday at the pandemic-era Toronto Film Festival, which wrapped on Saturday. The Frances McDormand-starrer was named the top audience prize winner in Toronto, which is often a barometer of future Academy Award nominations.

And there we have it. After going home with the Golden Lion award at the Venice Film Festival earlier this month, Chloé Zhao‘s “Nomadland” just took the coveted People’s Choice Award at the Toronto International Film Festival 2020.

Clayton Davis As we try to squint our way to see what the next seven months hold, TIFF and Venice unveiled the first crop of awards contenders for the 2020-2021 year. At the top of that list is Chloé Zhao’s “Nomadland,” which took the Golden Lion on Saturday evening.

On Tuesday night, when it was time for Beans director Tracey Deer to accept a TIFF Tribute Award at the Toronto Film Festival's virtual awards gala, and she began to thank her mother, the Canadian Indigenous filmmaker's eyes suddenly welled with tears, and she drew in a deep breath. "Mom...

Last spring, the global coronavirus pandemic had the Toronto Film Festival organizers grappling over some big decisions: go virtual or remain an in-person festival this September. So TIFF co-heads Joana Vicente and Cameron Bailey in May turned to Randy Lennox, president and CEO of Canadian media giant Bell Media, to help take TIFF past that fork in the road to where Hollywood and its audiences increasingly live: online.

Variety Staff Follow Us on TwitterDespite the remoteness that is a virtual Toronto International Film Festival, we will always come together to celebrate the cinema. To quote TIFF Tribute Awards presenter Martin Scorsese, “This remarkable art form has always been and always will be more than a diversion”Watch the TIFF Tribute Awards on Variety’s Facebook page with award recipients Kate Winslet, Shawn Mendes, Anthony Hopkins, Mira Nair and Chloe Zhao.

Rebecca Davis editorDirector Chloe Zhao’s 2017 film “The Rider” has been approved to screen in China via a limited theatrical release through the country’s National Alliance of Arthouse Cinemas, the org said on Tuesday. A specific release date has not yet been set.Zhao is fresh off her win of the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival, where her road movie “Nomadland,” starring Frances McDormand, garnered her sweeping acclaim and the top prize.

With A-list stars not walking up red carpets at the Toronto International Film Festival into physical screenings amid the pandemic, Kate Winslet, Anthony Hopkins and other winners of TIFF Tribute Awards gathered virtually to talk about the importance of festivals for the entertainment industry.

Kate Aurthur editorDuring an interview at Variety’s virtual studio at the Toronto International Film Festival, Kate Winslet — who stars in the festival’s lesbian romance “Ammonite” — elaborated on the regrets she recently expressed about working with directors Woody Allen and Roman Polanski.

VENICE, Italy -- Chloe Zhao’s “Nomadland,” a recession-era road trip drama starring Frances McDormand, won the Golden Lion for best film Saturday at a slimmed-down Venice Film Festival, which was held against the backdrop of the coronavirus pandemic.Zhao and McDormand appeared by video from the United States to accept the award, given virus-related travel restrictions made reaching the Lido in the Italian lagoon city difficult if not impossible for many Hollywood filmmakers and actors.“Thank you

Frances McDormand and Chloe Zhao are two names you’ll probably be hearing throughout the upcoming awards season!

Chloe Zhao’s “Nomadland”, a recession-era road trip drama starring Frances McDormand, won the Golden Lion for best film Saturday at the Venice Film Festival, held against the backdrop of the coronavirus pandemic.

With a much different than usual Venice Film Festival now come to a close, it’s time for the annual awards ceremony that marks the beginning of the awards season, whatever that means in this strange year.

Guy Lodge Film CriticOne day after premiering and receiving the most rapturous reviews of any film in competition, U.S.-based Chinese director Chloé Zhao has won the Golden Lion award at the Venice Film Festival for her film “Nomadland,” a documentary-influenced road movie starring Frances McDormand as an itinerant widow traveling across America.

When it comes to mood and milieu, writer-director Francis Lee prefers something bare, austere and quiet. In fact, it was the harmonious union of these severe qualities that furnished his 2017 feature debut, “God’s Own Country,” with a daring edge and lyrical spirit.

Marta Balaga Joining the press conference of “Nomadland” via Zoom on Friday, presented in Venice in the main competition before its Toronto bow, director Chloé Zhao and Frances McDormand – “It’s McDormand, not McDonald. M-C-D-O-R-M-A-N-D.

Todd McCarthy Go-her-own-way director Chloé Zhao closes out her exceptional trilogy about the dispossessed and left-behind in the modern American West with Nomadland, a cool, contemplative look at contemporary American outcasts whose foothold in society grows more precarious with every passing year.

There is a golden rule about the Oscars that will remain relevant whether there is a global pandemic, significant changes to the Best Picture inclusion standards or if the theatrical distribution system completely collapses. Simply, when it comes down to it, Academy voters are ruled by emotion.