Well, he at least appeared to break it — it wasn’t immediately clear whether the mic actually broke or if it was a comedic bit from Waititi.

Waititi was introducing his newest movie “Next Goal Wins” when the funny moment’s followup was captured by TheWrap’s Sharon Waxman.

The director continued on with his intro and is seen commenting, “It’s very important to show ourselves on screen … I hope you enjoy the film, and before we start I would like to acknowledge the land that we’re on and the people who are from this land.”

Other films at TIFF also included land acknowledgments, but they were usually not read by a filmmaker but rather in a video before each film.

The movie — which stars Michael Fassbender, Elisabeth Moss and Oscar Kightley — tells the story of the 2014 World Cup attempt by American Samoa’s soccer team, which came 12 years after the team lost 31-0 in a 2002 qualifier.

The film’s TIFF synopsis acknowledges that stunning defeat and clarifies, “The nation of American Samoa (population 45,000) was never going to be an international football powerhouse, but a 31-0 loss to Australia put them in the record books in the worst possible way.

Fassbender plays Dutch-American manager Thomas Rongen, who arrives in the leisurely-paced land to try to teach local players the discipline needed as they make a qualifying run for the 2014 World Cup.

“But even if the outcome — chronicled in a documentary by Mike Brett and Steve Jamison — is known, the pleasure comes from watching the characters on the pitch, Indigenous Samoan players who mostly sucked, mostly knew it, and still played their hearts out,” the description continues.

“Next Goal Wins” will be released on Nov. 17.

The post Taika Waititi Punches a Mic Talking Colonialism at TIFF Premiere for ‘Next Goal Wins’ (Video) appeared first on TheWrap.

Speaking with TheWrap at the Toronto International Film Festival on behalf of “Dalíland,” the festival’s closing night film, director Mary Harron (“American Psycho”) and writer John Walsh said that the real Dalí was something of a “tremendous coward.” And though Kingsley had always played strong, fearless roles, they were worried about whether or not Kingsley could flash a more eccentric, fearful side.

“And then we watched…’Iron Man 3,'” Harron and Walsh said. “He was brilliant. But we hadn’t seen that aspect of his range. And we said, ‘Wow, it’s so loose and funny and goofy,’ and that was Dalí, a very kind of loose character.”

For those who don’t remember 2013’s “Iron Man 3,” Kingsley portrays the villain “The Mandarin,” except we soon discover that “The Mandarin” is a fictional character, a made up terrorist created and portrayed by Kingsley’s real persona, a goofy, cowardly, washed up actor. In that moment, Harron saw the same cowardice needed to portray Dalí late in his life.

“He was terrified of everything, really,” Harron said, referring to the surrealist artist. “Incredible courage creatively, but, like, terrified of germs, huge hypochondriac, scared of many things. Couldn’t pay a taxi on his own. He could barely press the button in an elevator and would get other people to do everything. And then we realized that a great actor like Sir Ben is really universal. They can play strong and weak.”

“Dalíland” focuses on the later portion of Dalí’s life, an under-appreciated chapter of his life story but one in which Dalí demonstrated he was still on top of the social ladder, throwing massive parties and social events at the St. Regis hotel in New York and showing he was ahead of his time. The movie depicts his working relationship with Alice Cooper and model Amanda Lear, who in the film is portrayed by a trans actress and whose gender identity became the subject of much media attention thanks to rumors Dalí himself encouraged.

But rather than make a movie strictly about an artist, as Harron had done with her film “I Shot Andy Warhol,” she and Walsh, who is her husband, wanted to make a movie about a “crazy marriage” full of “screaming fights and drama.”

“Which is not like ours,” Harron joked. “Our marriage is pretty boring, pretty placid.”

See more from TheWrap’s interview with Mary Harron and John Walsh above, and you can watch

TheWrap’s interview with Ben Kingsley also out of TIFF here.

Studio sponsors include GreenSlate, Moët & Chandon, PEX and Vancouver Film School.

The post How ‘Iron Man 3’ Inspired Ben Kingsley’s Performance as Salvador Dalí in ‘Dalíland’ (Video) appeared first on TheWrap.

In Shekhar Kapur’s “What’s Love Got to Do with It?” that path looks a little different than what some audiences are used to, as two childhood friends, portrayed by Lily James and Shazad Latif, go on an adventure to find love via arranged marriage.

“What’s Love Got to Do with It?” premiered on September 10, 2022 at the Toronto International Film Festival, where Kapur and several cast and crew members stopped by TheWrap and Shutterstock’s Interview and Portrait Studio to discuss the film with TheWrap’s editor in chief Sharon Waxman.

“[The film] is around the idea that the greatest mystery in the world [is] love,” Kapur said. “But what we keep looking for is intimacy. It’s about the huge confusion around these two words. People looking for love, people looking for intimacy, in the confusing new world of Tinder and all the other apps.”

“And it’s about the conflict between two cultures, one that says, actually, love happens after passion and the other culture that says, you have to get together, you have to start loving each other and getting to know each other, and then passion comes.”

Joining Kapur in the studio were James, screenwriter Jemima Khan, and actors Asim Chaudhry, Jeff Mirza and Shabana Azmi.

“It challenges all your preconceived ideas. At the core of it, it’s like this human instinct of, ‘How do you find your person?'” James said.

The actress went on to reference a line from the film and a recurring them of two people needing to feel a “spark” between them.

“It’s walking into love or falling into love,” she said. “And it’s like, okay, you feel passionately in love with someone and then maybe it fades out and this other version where you walk into love and the passion follows.”

For the full conversation about “What’s Love Got to Do with It?” click on the video above.

Studio sponsors include GreenSlate, Moët & Chandon, PEX and Vancouver Film School.

The post Lily James and Her ‘What’s Love Got to Do With It?’ Castmates Dive Into Life’s Greatest Mystery: Love (Video) appeared first on TheWrap.

Marcel Mettelsiefen and Tamana Ayazi capture the lead-up to these events in their documentary “In Her Hands,” which held its world premiere at the Toronto film festival. The director duo and Ghafari sat down at TheWrap and Shutterstock’s Interview and Portrait Studio at TIFF to talk about how the film came together and Ghafari’s journey.

Ayazi and Mettelsiefen first began working together in 2017, when the Taliban and the U.S. government entered into peace negotiations.

“We knew that this [was] the right time to start filming because we knew that something will happen to the country, but we didn’t know what,” Ayazi told TheWrap’s Editor and CEO Sharon Waxman.

Their goal quickly became to depict “both visions of a divided country,” said Mettelsiefen. “That’s why we wanted to have the Taliban perspective, to really understand what drives the people — 75% of the population — into the hands of such a movement, knowing, obviously, that we want to have in the focus a strong woman.”

They found their subject in Ghafari, with her now-husband Bashir Mohammadi and bodyguard/driver Massoum serving as representatives of the Afghan people. As for the Taliban, Mettelsiefen said it was surprisingly easy to gain access to interviews and footage.

“I think the interesting part was that they felt so comfortable that they were going to win the war that they started to let journalists in,” he recalled. “The difference was that there had been a lot of journalists going in and would come back with news pieces of 15 minutes and we said, ‘No, we want to go back and follow a character.’”

Doing so allowed the filmmakers to show what Afghan women were up against.

Looking back, Ghafari recounted her personal journey — from her monumental leadership to seeking asylum in Germany, where she now lives — in the context of Afghanistan’s history.

“It’s been more than 50 to 60 years that Afghanistan is just burning in a fire, that we were not part of burning that fire,” she said, adding: “We never [had] a choice.”

Ghafari was only six years old when the Taliban was replaced by new leadership, and she went on to earn an education and become mayor with the dream of opening doors for more women.

The Taliban’s takeover in mid-2021, which led to Ghafari’s forced exit, were devastating on many levels.

“It’s like building up [to the] 10th floor of a beautiful building, then decorating [it all] shiny and then [putting] all the colors and décors and all the things,” she explained. “And then you’re standing at the first [floor] and watching all these 10 floors and enjoying what you did, you know, and suddenly you see each floor is coming down.”

She continued, “When it’s at the first, ground floor, you just need to come out, because it’s your life and your family’s life.”

And yet, as seen in the film, Ghafari summons the courage to go back into Taliban-controlled Afghanistan: “It’s my country, it’s where I belong to, it’s my home.”

With millions of citizens fleeing Afghanistan, Ghafari said she can’t stand by while the Taliban claims to represent her country.

“That country needs change,” she added. “And that change only can come from inside the country.”

“I don’t believe that being a victim is enough to be our whole lives,” Ghafari continued. “We are just not giving up. We are here to stand once again. And that’s why me and Tamana are here to represent that wonderful country and the courageous women of that country.”

Studio sponsors include GreenSlate, Moët & Chandon, PEX and Vancouver Film School.

The post ‘In Her Hands’ Subject Zarifa Ghafari on Serving as Afghanistan’s Youngest Mayor and Standing Up to the Taliban (Video) appeared first on TheWrap.

“I love his work and also I love the opportunity — I welcome the opportunity to stretch my comprehension and intelligence,” he told Senior Film Reporter Brian Welk. “It’s exhausting and exhilarating at the same time, and I felt that having an opportunity to portray Dalí, and I say ‘portray’ because in a sense, I’m a portrait artist, but I don’t have any paints, so I don’t work with stone or clay. I work with my voice, my imagination and my body. That’s all I have.”

The film also stars Barbara Sukowa as Dalí’s wife Gala, Ezra Miller as a younger version of Dalí, Christopher Briney as Dalí’s fictionalized young assistant James Linton, Andreja Pejic as Amanda Lear and Suki Waterhouse as Ginesta. Opening briefly in 1985, cutting to 1974 New York and Spain and then back to 1985 where it ends in Spain, the film takes us on a journey through Dalí’s parties, artistic process and personal life.

“It’s a portrait of a portrait artist himself,” Kingsley said. “And how does a self-professed genius who genuinely was a genius — how does he say goodbye to life? For him, it was very, very difficult. He felt that geniuses must be immortal. He felt that he was — he believed his own mythology — that he was immortal. And I was I was intrigued to discover, because I had no idea before I embarked on the film, how it would treat his demise. But as an acting exercise, I welcomed it. I welcome that terrible tension between his mortality and the fact that he was dying, covered in burns and very, very ill and frail in hospital.”

Directed by Mary Harron, the film focuses on the segment of Dalí’s later life in which his relationship with Gala unravels and he approaches death, which the artist himself thought about extensively.

“I knew from the beginning that I was blessed with Mary’s trust. Therefore, because of that trust, I could take as many risks, given the parameters of the script. I could take as many risks. I could take parallel risks to the risks that Dalí took as a painter,” Kingsley said. “Therefore, she allowed me to give a performance that was not careful. She allowed me to give a performance that could get eccentric and messy and unpredictable.”

The film is not told from Dalí’s point of view, but from that of James Linton, the assistant, who looks up to Dalí, gets lucky enough to work with him and then becomes disillusioned with him.

“I believe that an actor can be only as good as the company that actor is allowed to keep. And the cast that Mary presented around our Dalí was like a prism where you could see Dalí reflected in different mirrors,” Kingsely said. “Therefore he shifted his persona according to whom he was addressing, whom he was with, whom he was seducing, whom he was battling. And she cast it so well that my attempt at displaying Dalí multifaceted was made completely organic and intuitive because the people with whom I was interacting were so perfectly cast: Chris and Andreja and Barbara, everyone. Everyone drew out of me automatically because they were so immersed and committed to their particular color on the palette, if you like. I responded accordingly. So really, I must thank them.”

Studio sponsors include GreenSlate, Moët & Chandon, PEX and Vancouver Film School.

The post Ben Kingsley Took Risks With His ‘Eccentric and Messy and Unpredictable’ Performance as Salvador Dalí (Video) appeared first on TheWrap.

Millepied, Barrera and Mescal stopped by TheWrap and Shutterstock’s Interview and Portrait Studio at the Toronto International Film Festival to speak with TheWrap’s Editor in Chief Sharon Waxman about adapting the tragic love story about a femme fatale for modern audiences while remaining true to Carmen’s character.

“This [is a] story that we’ve seen over and over and over about, you know, people crossing the border to freedom to seek safety, to seek a better life, running away from danger,” Barrera said. “The reason that I wanted to tell it this way is because telling it through song and dance, in such a poetic, different way, is something that I’ve never seen done before.”

The heroine in the new film, Barrera said, retains the “essence of the same character.”

“Carmen is an iconic character,” the actress continued. “I think everyone in the world knows of the existence of the story and the opera, even if they haven’t seen it or heard it. They know that Carmen exists. So it’s this … in a way femme fatale; she’s all freedom and sensuality and unapologetic.”

Though the movie partially takes place in Mexico, for Covid reasons, it shot in Australia. “Authenticity was always very important even though the film has this dreamlike quality,” Millepied said. “I think that’s why it works so well still that we didn’t shoot in Mexico, but all the work that I did, and I think the care for it really counted.”

For Mescal, who plays an ex-Marine suffering from what the actor identifies as “undiagnosed PTSD,” his character was meant to be “somebody who is there to facilitate Carmen’s journey through the film.” “It was kind of placing myself within the story to allow Carmen to escape, be free and experience a different life,” Mescal aid.

“Carmen” also pushed the “Normal People” actor to delve into a full body experience of acting as he took up playing guitar, boxing and dancing for the first time on a set. Despite her “innate talent,” Barrera was also not professionally trained as a dancer but “transcended into this really unbelievable, convincing, beautiful dancing,” according to Millepied.

The dancing, it turns out, also helped the stars connect. “That’s how the chemistry was born because we were getting to know all of our body, all of our movement, trusting each other,” Barrera said. “He had to lift me — he had never done lifts before — and he had to do all these crazy things … We were just trusting each other and that was a beautiful way to go into a character.”

Studio sponsors include GreenSlate, Moët & Chandon, PEX and Vancouver Film School.

The post ‘Carmen’ Stars Paul Mescal and Melissa Barrera on Updating the Classic Opera as a Modern Immigration Tale (Video) appeared first on TheWrap.

Country music legend Tucker scored her first major hit, “Delta Dawn,” in 1972, when she was 13 years old and since then, has painstakingly crafted a career despite the ups and downs that come with fame. But it had been 17 years since Tucker had released an album of original music, but with fellow country singer/songwriter Brandi Carlile by her side, she returned to the studio. And at the very last moment, so did a film crew.

Director Kathlyn Horan stopped by TheWrap and Shutterstock’s Interview and Portrait Studio at TIFF to discuss “The Return of Tanya Tucker — Featuring Brandi Carlile” with TheWrap’s editor-in-chief Sharon Waxman, and explained how she came to be involved in the project.

Carlile knew Horan from their previous work, on a music video and a documentary about a women’s prison, and told her that she was heading back to the studio with Tanya. “She had talked to Rick Rubin about his work with Johnny Cash and Rick told Brandi, ‘Make sure you document this,'” Horan said. “She told me what was happening. And I said, ‘100 percent. I’m in. When do we start?’ And she said, ‘Tomorrow?’ I showed up in the studio the next day and started rolling.”

“I’ve been in a lot of music studios,” Horan continued. And one of the most magical, mesmerizing things, musically and personally, is the intimacy we were allowed to capture. It was amazing. Tanya let us follow her everywhere. She said at some point, ‘Don’t do anything unless it’s on camera,’ which is a great thing for a documentarian to hear.”

Filming began in January 2019 and continued through January 2020, following Tucker and Carlile through the release of the album “While I’m Livin'” in August 2019 and the 62nd Annual Grammy Awards, where Tucker won both Best Country Album and Best Country Song. She shared the awards with Carlile, who served as producer and co-writer.

But perhaps more important than the latest leg of Tucker’s career is all that came before it. After achieving fame so young, she then faced years of intense media scrutiny of her personal life (her exes include Glen Campbell) and substance abuse.

“Specifically, one of the reasons I think [Tanya’s] story is interesting is because she was marginalized in a lot of ways in her journey. She didn’t adhere to the ways a woman was supposed to behave in country music,” Horan said. “I think her personal life overshadowed her.”

“One of the reasons that I know Brandi loves her and why I love her is that [Tanya] gave us permission to be a lot freer and be ourselves. When I was young and listening to her, she was a hero to me in a lot of ways, because she didn’t follow the rules. And she’s 100% herself,” Horan said.

“The Return of Tanya Tucker — Featuring Brandi Carlile” will be released in New York City and Los Angeles on October 22, followed by a wider release across the country.

For the full conversation about “The Return of Tanya Tucker — Featuring Brandi Carlile,” click on the video above.

Studio sponsors include GreenSlate, Moët & Chandon, PEX and Vancouver Film School.

The post What It Was Like Filming Country Legend Tanya Tucker’s Comeback Alongside Brandi Carlile (Video) appeared first on TheWrap.

“We’ve just scratched the surface with an introduction to this guy,” Robinson told TheWrap’s senior film reporter Brian Welk. “He was an incredibly virtuosic violinist, composer and fencer. He was very politically active in the latter half of his life…He was sort of a cultural icon of the time.”

Williams said he was drawn to Robinson’s script because of Chevalier’s parallels to his own life, namely his Caribbean origins and creation of a new identity for himself after leaving home at a young age. When it came to casting the virtuoso, he said hiring Kelvin Harrison Jr. was a “no-brainer.”

“His previous work speaks for itself, with the level of commitment and dedication and focus he brings to any role,” Williams said. “It’s a very demanding role, and to find a way to not only find a version of this character that not only felt rooted in its time and place but was also contemporary…that was going to require someone who was going to roll up their sleeves and commit to portraying that character.”

Watch the full interview in the clip above.

Studio sponsors include GreenSlate, Moët & Chandon, PEX and Vancouver Film School.

The post ‘Chevalier’ Filmmakers Shine a Light on a Brilliant Black 18th-Century Composer Admired by Marie Antoinette (Video) appeared first on TheWrap.

Lelio and co-screenwriter Emma Donoghue stopped by TheWrap and Shutterstock’s Interview and Portrait Studio at TIFF to chat with senior film reporter Brian Welk about the layered psychodrama, which follows Lib (Florence Pugh), a 19th-century Irish nurse called upon to investigate the fasting ritual of a child who has not eaten in months. It kickstarts an uneasy meld of religious fervor and social politics that threaten Lib’s young charge. (Donoghue also wrote the novel by the same name on which the film is based and shared writing duties with Lelio and British playwright Alice Birch.)

“It was a book urgently about today…I found the story very unique, rarely seen on screen,” said Lelio, who indicated that growing up in a religious-fueled dictatorship in Chile helped shape his perspective. “About the collision between science and magical thinking, science and faith, reason and superstition, irrationality… You could use that sentence to summarize what were going through politically, globally.”

Donoghue, whose book “Room” became an indie film hit and scored an Oscar for lead Brie Larson, thought the current climate upped the book’s urgency. “COVID actually made it even more relevant… There were people having fundamental clashes with their loved ones about an election or a vaccine,” she said. “I knew that Sebastian would bring a contemporary, thoughtful energy to it and not make a traditional period piece. Find a genius and cling on to him!”

Both artists knew that the role of Lib required a focused performer to anchor such a delicate drama (which Netflix will stream beginning Nov. 16). Donoghue had not originally envisioned someone as young as the twenty-six-year-old Pugh. “I had imagined the character as older, but even though she’s so young, she has the quality of strength and earthiness. There’s nothing “girly” about her,” she said.

Lelio heartily agreed on the “Don’t Worry Darling” actress’s innate gifts (she nabbed an Oscar nomination for 2019’s “Little Women” at age 24). “You see her onscreen in “The Wonder” and you see an actress giving a battle in front of your eyes and winning in a way that’s natural and effortless,” the filmmaker said. “She has that miraculous lightness to the approach, as if there wasn’t any work behind it. As you can tell, I love her.”

For the full conversation about “The Wonder,” click on the video above.

Studio sponsors include GreenSlate, Moët & Chandon, PEX and Vancouver Film School.

The post ‘The Wonder’ Director Sebastián Lelio on the ‘Miraculous Lightness’ of Star Florence Pugh (Video) appeared first on TheWrap.

“The Lost King” tells the story of Philippa Langley (Sally Hawkins), a self-guided historian who seemingly stumbles upon the remains of Richard III, only to be thwarted by various forces that doubt her discovery, much of them in academia.

Frears and Coogan stopped by TheWrap and Shutterstock’s Interview and Portrait Studio at the Toronto International Film Festival to discuss what drew them to work together on this unique project, which also rejoined them with “Philomena” composer Alexandre Desplat, co-writer Jeff Pope and producer Christine Langan.

“You’re always on the lookout to tickle Stephen’s fancy,” Coogan said. “I had lunch with Philippa eight years ago and knew the bare bones — forgive the pun — of the story. But then she gave me her version, which was much more compelling, with unexpected twists and turns.”

They both knew they’d need a dynamic female lead to navigate the heroine’s journey of the underestimated Philippa, who conjures up Richard III in her mind’s eye — a figment of imagination played by Harry Lloyd. Hawkins is no stranger to making unusual screen characters come to life.

“I’d seen her in the film where she fell in love with the aquatic alien, a fish,” Frears said. (“‘The Shape of Water,'” Coogan interjected.) “Well, if she can fall in love with a fish, she can fall in love with a dead king,” Frears continued, laughing.

“There’s an eccentricity about Sally which is similar to Philippa’s,” added Coogan, who plays Philippa’s ex-partner. “She had an oddness about her. She really captured her essence.”

“It’s a feminist film,” Frears added. (The director has made several films with tough women at their center: Anjelica Huston in “The Grifters,” Glenn Close in “Dangerous Liaisons,” as well as his many collaborations with Dench, which also include “Mrs. Henderson Presents” and “Victoria & Abdul.”)

Frears and Coogan debuted their film at an oddly prescient time, given that Queen Elizabeth’s passing happened in the same week as the “Lost King” premiere. The film is somewhat critical of the British royal family, which has a complicated relationship to the hotly-debated merits and behavior of Richard III. Let’s not forget that Frears also directed “The Queen” in 2006, in which Helen Mirren famously portrayed Elizabeth II in an Oscar-winning performance.

“All my life I’ve been very skeptical about the monarchy, but at the same time, have had enormous affection,” Frears said. “It’s such a complicated, double-layered feeling.”

“She’s subjugated herself to the service of Great Britain,” Coogan said. “But it was sort of a gilded cage, really, that she lived in for 70 years of being Queen — not the life I would have envied, but she put the hours in and commands universal respect for that.”

For the full conversation about “The Lost King,” click on the video above.

Studio sponsors include GreenSlate, Moët & Chandon, PEX and Vancouver Film School.

The post Steve Coogan on the ‘Unexpected Twists and Turns’ of the Real-Life Story Behind ‘The Lost King’ (Video) appeared first on TheWrap.