2008 Toronto Film Festival: Day 6

September 10, 2008 by Liam
Filed under: Movie News

What I always try to do at the Toronto International Film Festival is cover as much as possible. Movie reviews. Interviews. Red Carpets. Parties. And today, I took in my first Festival Press Conference of the year for Gavin O’Connor’s Pride and Glory. The movie stars Edward Norton, Colin Farrell and Noah Emmerich as members of a police family whose moral code is tested when one of sons (Norton) investigates a case involving his brother-in-law (Farrell). The movie also stars Jon Voight.

In attendance were Norton, Emmerich and Gavin O’Connor who, in addition to directing, co-wrote the screenplay with Joe Carnahan. I had the opportunity to ask a O’Connor a question about the delay of the film by New Line and how it feels to finally have audiences see the movie. He spoke about how really all he can do as a filmmaker is to shoot the film and hope the “business” side of things sort themselves out. He also spoke about what a blessing it was to have somebody at Warner Bros. (who are now releasing the movie) who believed in the film and who championed it’s release.

Following the press conference, I made my way to the InterContinental Toronto for a couple of interviews for the movie Fifty Dead Men Walking. The movie, based on a true story, stars Jim Sturgess as Martin McGartland, who passed information about the IRA to the Brits in the late 1980s/early 1990s. I had the chance to sit down with Sturgess, co-star Ben Kingsley and director Kari Skogland. The three talked about the movie and how it succeeds in blurring the perception of who’s right and who’s wrong in Northern Ireland.

One of the fun things about doing interviews is sitting in the hotel and watching people standing around. Today I saw Jessica Biel, Emma Roberts, Tim Robbins, Catherine Keener, Charlie Kaufman, Shohreh Aghdashloo and Charles Martin Smith. I’m sure there were others, but I just tried to keep my head down and not look like a fan.

Following my interviews, I made my way to a couple of movies including Slumdog Millionaire and Religulous. Expect reviews to be online shortly.

I finished the night by heading to “Greenhouse @ 99 Sudbury” for a party for the movie Che. I stopped in, grabbed a couple of photos of Benicio Del Toro, had a few beers and made my way home. Not a bad day.