The People's Choice Midnight Madness Award goes to.....Ladies And Gentlemen, Brian Mulroney directed by Matthew Rankin
The last Sunday of the Toronto International Film Festival always sees the announcing of the awards. It has become synonymous with the kickoff of the fall awards season. It has been well documented the number of time that the tiff People's Choice Award has gone onto to Academy Award nominations.
The Platform Prize goes to the film Angh directed by Theja Rio
The International People's Choice Award goes to Elsinore directed by Simon Stone
The People's Choice Documentary Award goes to Darlene Love: I Know Where I Have Been directed by Barry Avrich
And the People's Chice Award of the 2026 Toronto International Film Festival goes to.....
La Bola Negra directed by Javier Calvo & Javier Ambrossi
Prior to the Fantastic Fest World Premiere of Girl In The Night I was able to have a conversation with writer & director Luka Marčetić and actor Lara Wolf about all aspects of making their superhero movie in Slovenia. Here is our conversation:
Luka Marčetić “I am deeply interested in people who are mostly quiet,
shy, and to a point enjoy solitary existence. These people often go
unnoticed in everyday life, yet they possess a unique strength in their
quietness. I always wanted to put them in roles of vulnerable heroes and
antiheroes. This is a story about boredom and the search for friendship
in very strange circumstances.”
Film Synopsis: The aimless life of a lonely kleptomaniac takes an
unexpected turn for the worse when he steals a bicycle from a mysterious
girl who spends her nights fighting crime. To cut through the mundanity
of his night shifts, Rok keeps himself busy by stealing chocolate bars
at the gas station where he works. One night, he meets a mysterious girl
with severe bruises on her face. She only appears at night, is all
about fighting crime, and claims to possess superpowers. If he wants to
meet her again, Rok will have to come up with a cunning plan – so he
decides to steal her bike.
Death Has No Master has just received it's North American premiere at this years edition of Fantastic Fest.
On August 1, 1498 Christopher Columbus would land at the Paria Peninsula in what is now known as Venezuela. He would claim this land - at first he believed it was an island - for Spain. History has noted that Columbus saw the the Kalinago and Arawakan wearing pearl ornaments. This would begin subsequent decades of further Spanish encroachment on this region. For pearls and the continuing of a system Columbus called repartimiento, otherwise known as slavery. Indigenous people were forced to work on the mines, farms of their lands and some people were kidnapped to Spain as slaves.
In 1922 oil was discovered in Venezuela.
On January 3, 2026 the Trump administration authorized a predawn raid in Caracas the U.S. military arrested Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. Now many months later through dubious deal-making U.S. oil giant Chevron is expanding oil operations in Venezuela. "Chevron's history in Venezuela spans more than a century, and our expanded position reflects our confidence in the country's deep resource potential." CEO Mike Wirth said in a prepared statement days ago.
In Jorge Thielen Armand's timely new film Death Has No Master, Caro (Asia Argento) father has recently passed away. Caro travels from Italy to Venezuela with the intention of sell her childhood home. Once she arrives at the plantation mansion she discovers a bunch of people living on the property, lead by Sonia (Dogreika Tovar) who has been subletting rooms to others.
At first Caro and Sonia come to an understanding that they will co-exist in the mansion. As time passes and it becomes known that Caro is intending to sell the property and thereby displace Sonia her son Maiko who Caro vehemently calls Michael and everyone relying on this space for habitation the tensions begin to flare and serial into violence.
A direction that struck me as a viewer is at first I was concerned with Caro's well-being. As the film progresses and her true colors and intentions emerge that dynamic shifts for Sonia, Maiko and everyone else. The character of Yoni (Arturo Rodriguez) who worked for Caro's father is there alongside her until he is not.
I was first struck with the look of the film and could not quite place when the movie was set. As the story progresses we learn that the film is rooted in the present day. I found the look of the film crafted by cinematographer Felipe Guerrero and Jorge was incredible. Not having the film visually look immediately and readily be placed in the present day underlines the centuries of colonial invasion and genocide.
Psychiatrist Robert Jay Lifton first used the term "psychic numbing" in 1967 to describe how rescue workers and survivors after the Hiroshima bombing shut off their emotions to cope with overwhelming horror. When large scale tragedies occur such as genocide as we are seeing in Gaza many people cannot comprehend that many people being killed, injured, maimed or displaced. Death Has No Master succeeds in taking these large scale concepts of colonialism and genocide and placing them in the level of individual actions and repercussions.
On September 30 in Canada is now known as National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. A day to reflect upon Canada's systemic violence towards the indigenous people within Canada such as the residential school system which was prevalent well into the 1990s. Canada has a long history of in particular gold mining in Venezuela. At the time of this writing the United States while having Indigenous People's Day is observed in 17 states and D.C. is not a Federal recognized Day. A first step to reconciliation is to formally recognize the past violence towards first peoples. I live in Texas where the Texas Education Agency (TEA) has voted to further white wash Texas history in classrooms.
Perhaps these wealthy nations need to do more to address their global impact and not just within boarders that were drawn by colonizers and labelled, 'home". A film such as Death Has No Master which further draws attention to these issues is very welcomed in our quest for actual reconciliation and not a day of platitudes.
Here is my interview with director Jorge Thielen Armand:
The Ones Who Grieve, the new film by director Quarxx has received it's world premiere at Fantastic Fest 2026.
The Ones Who Grieve begins with a man working in a wood shop carving masks. He slowly and methodically chips away at the wood. The material begins to lift up and curl and eventually is pulled away. Given enough force, will and persistence the wood yields to the desire of the carver. This process is repeated until the eyes, the mouth form.
The wood carver is Jacob (Thierry Frémont). Jacob is a very stout, religious man. His faith is unyielding and his guiding force, He is also the patriarch of a family of three, his wife Emilie (Isabelle Anciaux) and his daughter Zélie (Zélie Rixhon). He rules his family with an iron fist. He imparts on his daugheter that of utmost importance is, "The love of God and your family." Jacob is played by Frémont with great intensity as a man who warped faith guides his pathos no matter how far his actions veer from actual scripture.
In rural 19th century France a disease has taken root among humans. It is called the Black Veil. The person suffering from malady has their eyes become black and they can no longer speak. Jacob has been appointed or self-appointed as the village "masker". He prepares the affected body for death in an effort to save the soul. This involves sewing the eyes and the mouth shut and affixing a wooden mask - the masks he carves - onto the person's head. The person is then taken out into the woods among the animals. The person is not killed because as Jacob says, "Thou shall not kill."
Zélie tries to navigate her father's world while finding her own. This is the crux of the film. A battle of wills. Force versus freedom. Time after time in history we have see religious belief used as a cudgel and not as compassion. Jacob is a great many things, his hypocrisy is front and center.
The violence that Jacob brings to the victims of the black veil, people advancing progress and his own family is visceral. As someone who written about cinema for over two decades and has seen all manners of the destruction of the body - the way Quarxx and his team treat the brutality of Jacob's determination to rule the world as he sees fit is unnerving. I believe one of the highest compliments you can pay a filmmaker is to say that images they have crafted in their film has stayed with you. This is such the case with The Ones Who Grieve.
Ultimately the film is about systems and the people who wield power within these structures and the people who are navigating these individuals and trying to persevere themselves from such wanton destruction. As Quarxx has said about his lead character, "Zélie is not a passive victim. She is a body and a mind in resistance, even when that resistance is silent, internal, almost invisible."
That being said, defeating a system of oppression and the perpetrators who operate within these constructs may not be so easy to overcome in the end.
Displaced
from their home by U.S. military action during the early days of the
Iraq War, the Khachaturian family finds refuge with relatives, gathering
their three generations together under one roof. But when another
bombing erupts nearby, they decide to return to their home across the
city. As they navigate the war-torn streets of Baghdad, the family is
trapped in a firefight between U.S. Marines and insurgents, and one
Marine’s split-second decision devastates the family. Years later,
haunted by his time in Iraq and aided by a New Yorker journalist, the
Marine seeks to reconcile with the Khachaturian matriarch and her
surviving family members. Anchored by moving, unforgettable performances
from Boyd Holbrook, Hiam Abbass, and Kenneth Branagh, Atonement is a
powerfully human story about the immeasurable costs of war, exploring
universal questions about guilt, redemption, and the nature of
forgiveness.
Death of a Yellow Bird is about to have it's world premiere at Fantastic Fest 2026. Written and directed by Cody Calahan (Undertone)
After
refusing treatment, a terminally ill man returns to his childhood home
searching for closure. While there he discovers, buried in the earth,
the family’s long lost VHS camera. Inside the camera he finds a video
tape of home movies. But as he watches, something disturbing begins
bleeding through the static. And before long, a disembodied voice. At
first, he suspects it’s his medication, but soon discovers a lurking
presence, turning his isolated childhood home into a waking nightmare.
With his days numbered and the hauntings escalating, he must solve a
dark family secret before his past consumes him.
The Ones Who Greive is about to premiere in Austin, Texas at this years edition of Fantastic Fest.
Writer & Director Quarxx had a conversation with Robert Aaron Mitchell about the filmmaking process to realize his latest film. Here is that conversation:
