Cameron Bailey, CEO, TIFF, is delighted to announce the first honourees of this year’s Tribute Awards: Academy Award®–winning directors and legends Pedro Almodóvar and Spike Lee. One of the world’s foremost filmmakers and provocative storytellers, Almodóvar will receive the Jeff Skoll Award in Impact Media presented by Participant, and Lee, a cultural icon who has influenced generations of filmmakers, will receive the TIFF Ebert Director Award. The 2023 Tribute Awards presented by Bulgari will take place on Sunday, September 10, 2023 during the 48th edition of the Toronto International Film Festival at Fairmont Royal York Hotel. Now in its fifth year, the TIFF Tribute Awards have served as an awards-season bellwether, with past honourees Michelle Yeoh, Brendan Fraser, Jessica Chastain, Roger Deakins, Sir Anthony Hopkins, Joaquin Phoenix, Taika Waititi, and Chloé Zhao going on to win awards on the international stage.

“It’s a true thrill to acknowledge Pedro Almodóvar as the distinguished recipient of the Jeff Skoll Impact Media Award for 2023,” stated Bailey. “Pedro has been coming to TIFF for years, and each time is better than the time before. His artistic vision, bold storytelling, and unwavering commitment to pushing the boundaries of cinema have had a profound impact. He challenges societal norms, champions diversity, and illuminates the human experience with sensitivity and grace. We applaud his contributions to cinema and celebrate his ability to inspire and provoke audiences worldwide.”

The Jeff Skoll Award in Impact Media presented by Participant recognizes leadership in creating a union between social impact and cinema. Past recipients honoured in the prestigious category include Buffy Sainte-Marie in 2022, Alanis Obomsawin in 2021, and Mira Nair in 2020.

“The TIFF Ebert Director Award recognizes filmmakers who have exemplified greatness in their career,” continued Bailey. “A foremost storyteller of our era, Spike’s body of work from She’s Gotta Have It, to Do the Right Thing, to Mo’ Better Blues, to his most recent film at TIFF 2020, American Utopia, Spike has inspired audiences and made a lasting impact on the art of filmmaking.”

Named after legendary film critic Roger Ebert, the Award has gone to celebrated visionaries such as Martin Scorsese, Claire Denis, Ava DuVernay, Wim Wenders, and the late Agnès Varda. Past recipients who received the Award since the TIFF Tribute Awards were introduced include Sam Mendes (2022), Denis Villeneuve (2021), Chloé Zhao (2020), and Taika Waititi (2019).

Bulgari returns as a major sponsor and official jewellery partner of this year’s Toronto International Film Festival, also presenting the Share Her Journey Groundbreaker Award at the 2023 Tribute Awards. The partnership between TIFF and Bulgari highlights a shared commitment to arts and culture.

The Awards night serves as TIFF’s largest annual fundraiser, having raised $1.3 million in 2022. This year, the Tribute Awards gala will support the Viola Desmond Cinema campaign, which was launched through the Every Story Fund in 2022. For more information visit tiff.net/tribute.

Pedro Almodóvar Biography
Pedro Almodóvar was born in Calzada de Calatrava, Spain and left for Madrid at 17 to study cinema and direct film, but it became impossible when the National School of Cinema (in Madrid) was closed by the Franco government. As a result, Almdóvar was [mostly] self-taught, making a number of short films from 1974–1978. His first feature film, Pepi, Luci, Bom and Other Girls on the Heap, debuted in 1980. He launched his production company El Deseo with his brother Agustín in 1986, and has since produced, written, and directed his own and other directors’ films. Some of his films have been adapted into plays (All About My Mother) and even into musicals (Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown). The Oscar-winning filmmaker has received numerous accolades over his five-decade career, including one of Spain’s top prizes for outstanding achievement, the Prince of Asturias Award (2006), and honourary degrees from Harvard University (2009) and Oxford University (2016).

Spike Lee Biography
Spike Lee is a graduate of Morehouse College, Class of 1979, with a B.A. in Mass Communications. He also is a Graduate of the Numero Uno, NYU Graduate Film School, and a classmate of Ernest Dickerson and Ang Lee 1982. He is also a tenured Film Professor and Artistic Director at NYU Graduate Film School.

It’s been a relief getting a breather finally and we actually are finding time to see some movies! We saw Joker which filled two theatres completely at an industry screening and it was enthralling seeing Joaquin Phoenix go all in! While it does a number on you, it is well worth getting shaken for.

Less sightings today, but here are a few we had. Hover cursor right on each album to navigate.

JUDY – Premiere

HARRIET – Afterparty

Also, a huge congratulations to Mike, who won our TIFF ’19 Tenth Anniversary Prize Pack!

(Photo credit: Mr. Will Wong)

Review by David Baldwin for Mr. Will Wong

Salvador Mallo (Antonio Banderas) is an aging Film Director living with a wide variety of ailments and regrets. He wants to continue to make new films, but cannot find the strength or reason to do so. After one of his most popular films is re-released, he encounters long forgotten friends and memories, and starts to depend a bit too much on heroin.

From the very first frame, Pain and Glory feels like a lived-in and deeply personal experience. You can practically see Director Pedro Almodóvar excising his skeletons and reliving his childhood in real time. The visuals are luscious and splendid, the use of colour is exceptional and brilliant, the Cast is terrific, the score is affecting and…well, you get the point. This is an absolutely gorgeous film to watch and a genuinely sumptuous visual feast. And the glue holding the whole enterprise together is Banderas, putting in career best work as Almodóvar’s big screen conduit. His work here is emotional and transcendent, commanding the attention of everyone around him. It is a largely understated and quiet role, but the intimacy Banderas brings to it makes it feel so much grander. Do not be surprised if the Academy take notice.

PAIN AND GLORY screens during TIFF at the following times:

Friday September 6, 5:30pm @ Ryerson Theatre
Saturday September 7, 2:45pm @ Scotiabank Theatre

Mongrel Media + Mr. Will want to give Readers in Canada a chance to win Run-of-Engagement Passes across Canada to see TIFF ’16 selection JULIETA, the latest from visionary Filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar.

Synopsis:
Just as Julieta (Emma Suarez) and her partner, Lorenzo (Dario Grandinetti) are planning to leave Madrid for Portugal, she has a chance encounter with Bea (Michelle Jenner), her daughter’s best friend. The unexpected meeting is a shock to Julieta, who hasn’t seen her daughter Antia since she was 18 and leaving for a religious mountain retreat.

When Antia was never heard of again, Julieta reported her daughter missing and even hired private detectives to find her. However, Bea tells her she recently saw Antia vacationing with her children at Lake Cuomo. She reveals that Antia knows her mother is in Madrid, so Julieta decides to stay put, hoping her daughter will contact her.

Trailer:

To enter to win, simply click “like” on this Post at MR. WILL ON FACEBOOK.

Mongrel Media release JULIETA Friday, December 23, 2016.

(Photo/video credit: Mongrel Media)

Review by George Kozera for Mr. Will Wong

Wunderkind auteur, Spanish Oscar-winning director Pedro Almodovar returns to TIFF ’16 with JULIETA, a melodramatic female-centric Film that focuses on guilt and grief. Adapted from short stories written by Nobel prize winner, Alice Munro, the Movie opens in Madrid with Julieta (Emma Suarez) about to move to Portugal with her lover until a chance meeting with her estranged daughter’s best friend. Abandoning her plans, she stays behind in Madrid and starts to write a Memoir trying to figure out why her daughter no longer wants anything to do with her, which Almodovar presents via a series of flashbacks with Adriana Ugarte playing the younger Julieta.

Much like legendary Hollywood Director George Cukor, Almodovar excels in bringing-out outstanding performances by actresses and JULIETA is no exception. The two ladies playing the title character, as well as Rossy de Palma in a supporting role as a housekeeper that channels the character Mrs. Danvers in the Hitchcock classic Rebecca, are compelling and keeps the interest in this Movie throughout. What the Movie lacks is focus and subtlety. The story and musical score is so melodramatic and off-putting that it borders on a parody, cliché-ridden Ross Hunter production. I miss the Almodovar Movies of the past – they were audacious, salacious and bodacious.

JULIETA screens at TIFF:

Sunday, September 11, 2016 at 6:00 PM VISA SCREENING ROOM

Tuesday, September 13, 2016 at 12:15 PM TIFF BELL LIGHTBOX 2

Umm… can we go to Cannes? The lineup for the prestigious Film Festival has been revealed and this year 49 titles from 28 countries will be making their way to the Croisette May 11-12, 2016.  The Festival is seen as a precursor to some of the Films that will be seen Awards Season as contenders and also in our City, TIFF this September?

Among the highlights are Woody Allen‘s latest, Café Society, which re-teams once again Kristen Stewart and Jesse Eisenberg. The Film is about a young man in the ’30s who goes to Paris looking to work in Film, but he falls in love and is swept away by the café society. It opens the Festival.

Unlike other years, no Closing Night Film was announced. Like TIFF, they will re-screen the winner of the prestigious Palme d’Or.

American Honey from Andrea Arnold (Transparent), is a British Film about a group of young people who travel the U.S. selling magazine subscriptions and the antics they get into. Shia Labeouf and Riley Keough star.

Elle is the latest from Paul Verhoeven (Showgirls, Basic Instinct) and it centers around a video game company executive who gets attacked in her own home. She devotes her energies into finding her assailant and what results is much like an unpredictable video game.

Canada is well-represented by festival darling Xavier Dolan‘s latest, It’s Only the End of the World. It centers on a man who returns home to tell his family he’s dying. It stars Vincent Cassel, Marion Cotillard and Léa Seydoux.

Visionary Pedro Almodóvar returns to the festival circuit with his latest Julieta, which follows the life of a woman on the verge of madness and her life 30 years prior when things were grand.

Loving from Jeff Nichols follows an interracial couple who go to prison for being in love in 1958. Ruth Negga and Joel Edgerton star.

Jim Jarsmusch returns with his latest, Paterson, about a bus driver who dabbles in poetry. Star Wars: The Force Awakens’ Adam Driver stars.

Sean Penn directs The Last Face, starring Charlize Theron and Javier Bardem, both aid workers who fall in love in a war-torn Liberia.

Park Chan-wook (Oldboy) returns with The Handmaiden, about an heiress who falls for a thief.

Nicolas Winding Refn is developing a reputation for stylish, unconventional and polarizing Films and he returns with The Neon Demon, starring Elle Fanning as a supermodel whom is preyed upon by her rivals.

Personal Shopper stars Kristen Stewart as a young woman working as a shopper for a celebrity. Olivier Assayas directs.

Screening out of competition, meaning they are not competing for the Palme d’Or, are Jodie Foster‘s New York-filmed Money Monster starring Julia Roberts, George Clooney and Jack O’Connell. Steven Spielberg‘s eagerly-awaited Roald Dahl adaptation, The BFG also premieres. The Nice Guys by Shane Black, stars Ryan Gosling and Russell Crowe – a pair of almost-cops who bend the rules surrounding a missing girl’s investigation.

(Photo credit: Warner Bros.)

I cannot resist a good campy Film, but camp and Pedro Almodóvar together in one? Sold.  After a series of darker, dramatic Films, it’s refreshing to see one of our fave Directors branch all-the-way-Gay and comedic here, having a bit of fun!  Right in time for Pride Week!

Mongrel Media & Mr. Will Wong would love to give Toronto and Vancouver Readers a chance to attend an Advance Screening of I’m So Excited.  Screenings take place Thursday, July 4, 2013 at Toronto’s Varsity Cinemas and Vancouver’s 5th Avenue Cinemas, 7:00 PM.

Official Synopsis:
A passenger flight is on its way from Spain to Mexico, when it experiences landing gear problems, thanks to a goof-up by two ground workers (Antonio Banderas and Penélope Cruz in cameo roles). Chances are the plane could crash. So how do the stewards (Javier Camara, Carlos Areces, Raul Arevalo) stave off the fear?

For starters, they knock out economy class with drugs. Then they distract business class by breaking out the booze, and breaking into a song-and-dance performed to the Pointer Sisters’ titular Hit. As things loosen up, the cabin becomes a hotbed of sex and spilled secrets.

Watch The Trailer:

To enter to win, simply click “like” on this Post at Mr. Will Wong on Facebook specifying which City you’re requesting passes for. Double your chances by sharing on Facebook or Re-Tweeting the below:

http://www.mrwillwong.com/imsoexcited @MRWILLW wants us to #win double passes to see #IMSOEXCITED by #PEDROALMODOVAR.  In theatres 7/5/13. #Toronto #Vancouver

Mongrel Media releases I’m So Excited in Toronto and Vancouver on Friday, July 5, 2013 and Friday, July 19, 2013 in Montreal, with additional Canadian Cities to come throughout the Summer.

(Photo/video credit: Mongrel Media)