September
9
TIFF: Setting the Buzz
There are two main hubs of activity at the Toronto fest. At the press and industry screenings at the Varsity cinemas, you can move from one line to the other all day and all night; people requiring fuel line up for sandwiches and coffee at the small cafe at the bottom of the escalator.
Just walking between one and the other along Bloor or Cumberland, you bump into folks you know. ThinkFilm's Mark Urman was looking chipper today, having nabbed the Helen Hunt film Then She Found Me, which was deemed too tricky to be commercial enough for the studio specialty distribs. (Fox 2000 had initially developed the project, but let it go.)
The Four Seasons Hotel, or Hollywood Toronto, is lined with onlookers hoping for glimpses of the likes of Juno star Michael Cera, who was toting his bag out to the limo en route to Berlin. He looked happy to be heading for some quiet time: Jason Reitman's Juno is quite the festival hit, which makes the Superbad star the next "It Boy" after Shia La Beouf.
The Four Seasons lobby is the place to ask folks like producer Ted Hope what's happening with the acquisition of Alan Ball's controversial pedophile drama Nothing is Private, which is challenging for distributors and needs some press support to give it some traction. A sampling of non-distrib folks I've spoken to liked it but felt pummeled by its clear-eyed look at some difficult material. One studio marketing exec commented that she had never thought to see so much discussion of girls' periods in two movies in one year. (The other is Superbad.)
Still in the works is a deal for Groundswell/Participant's The Visitor from director Tom McCarthy, which has gone over well in many quadrants.
Subscribe to this blog's feed
TrackBack
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.typepad.com/services/trackback/6a00d8341bfc7553ef00e54eeee79a8834
Listed below are links to weblogs that reference TIFF: Setting the Buzz :
Comments