New Goal for Films at Toronto: To Be Seen

August 28, 2008

LOS ANGELES — In the past the Toronto International Film Festival helped to set up Hollywood’s awards season.

Abbot Gensler/Sony Pictures Classics
Philip Seymour Hoffman and Samantha Morton in “Synecdoche, New York,” directed by Charlie Kaufman.

This year it may be more about solving the industry’s problems.

Set to begin on Sept. 4, the 33rd Toronto film festival has devoted some prime spots to movies that are not so much jockeying for position in the forthcoming Oscar race as fighting to be seen at all. Even with strong credentials, several featured pictures have been sideswiped by corporate consolidation, a weak market for independent films and producers’ wariness of an audience that has often shunned the difficult.

“Pride and Glory,” a New York City police drama that will be shown at an evening gala on Sept. 9, for instance, was shot more than two years ago by the director Gavin O’Connor (“Miracle”), with Colin Farrell and Edward Norton in lead roles. Warner Brothers, flush with films like this one after ingesting its corporate sibling New Line Cinema, is hoping Toronto will generate excitement for a much-delayed Oct. 24 release.

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Posted in Arts and Culture, Film & Film Making