In 2014, two major studios – The Weinstein Co and Focus Features – stationed their press offices for the Toronto Film Festival at the TRUMP INTERNATIONAL HOTEL. This year, both production companies chose other venues; some observers say this snub is part of larger de facto boycott of Donald Trump by Hollywood. The tycoon’s controversial US presidential bid, and racially insensitive comments, have rubbed many in Tinseltown the wrong way.
But that’s just one aspect of how the Toronto Film Festival is getting political in 2015. Many of the films having their premieres are true-life dramas that confront hard facts head-on – such as the child soldier epic Beasts of No Nation, starring Idris Elba, and Our Brand Is Crisis, with Sandra Bullock as a US political strategist helping the reelection bid of the president of Bolivia. Trumbo looks at the Red Scare in Hollywood, and how people in the film industry were “blacklisted” if they were suspected of having communist sympathies. And Truth stars Robert Redford as Dan Rather in the midst of the journalistic scandal regarding George W Bush that ended his career with CBS News.
But the Toronto Film Festival in 2015 also has its share of entertaining films about the music industry, such as I Saw the Light, starring Tom Hiddleston as Hank Williams, and new documentaries about Keith Richards and Janis Joplin.
BBC Culture deputy editor Christian Blauvelt, film critic Noah Gittell and BBC World News presenter Tom Brook discuss these and other hot topics from the festival.
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