Canadian comedy actor, producer and writer Seth Rogen on Sunday night declared it “ominous” to receive a career achievement award from the Toronto Film Festival at 44 years of age.
“Does TIFF know something I don’t know? You got a letter from my doctors?” he questioned while on stage at the Royal York Hotel in Toronto. Rogen received a Career Achievement honor at the Tribute Awards at TIFF while in town to tout two movies — Babies, directed by his wife Lauren Miller Rogen, and Tangles, an animated film which Rogen and Miller Rogen produced.
Rogen thanked his wife for allowing him to piggy back on her success in bringing her film to TIFF in which he stars alongside Anna Kendrick. “Thank you all, you can go home now,” he finished off.
Oscar-winner Helen Mirren was also on hand to receive a Groundbreaker Award as she brings the thriller A Talent For Murder to Toronto for a world premiere. She paid tribute to the late Dolly Parton and Gloria Steinem after their recent passing is still in the news. “It’s so hard to change culture, but these two women did that. And I dedicate this Groundbreaking Award to them,” Mirren said to wide applause.
Also Sunday night, Korean auteur Lee Chang-dong picked up the Ebert Director Award as his latest film, Possible Love, his first in eight years, arrived in Toronto after a rapturous world premiere in Venice. “People sometimes think I’m a younger filmmaker than I actually am, possibly because I haven’t made very many films and, as you can see, my hair is still quite black. But the truth is, I’m quite old,” the Korean director insisted.
Chang-dong added he should make films more often, “as people will think I’m a younger filmmaker.” Netflix has set a theatrical release in Korea, U.S. and other select territories for Possible Love.
Oscar–winning actor Penelope Cruz, accepting a Special Tribute Award as she is on the ground touting two movies in Toronto, the Spanish drama epic La Bola Negra by Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi, and Florian Zeller’s Bunker, both of which premiered in Cannes.
Cruz cited Bunker for “looking at the shocking inequalities, the individualism, the fear of others, the temptation to retreat into ourselves, and the growing anxiety for the future of our planet.” She also praised La Bola Negra for being about “humanity, about empathy, about seeing the other person as a human being and not as an enemy. It’s also a love letter to cinema, poetry and art.”
French screen icon Isabelle Huppert was presented with another Performer Award on Sunday night as she stars in director Marc Fitoussi’s All About Corrine, which has a North American premiere in Toronto on Monday. “My films for many years, their beauty, their history, their cruelty sometimes, have had an extraordinary attention to human beings,” she told the TIFF audience. “For an actor, that’s a beautiful thing.”
Rosalind Eleazar, star of Chris Rock’s A24 drama Misty Green, when accepting her own Performers Award recalled being at TIFF for the first time in 2019, with The Personal History of David Copperfield. And after that glitzy premiere, Eleazar rang her mother in London, England early in the morning to share her memorable experience.
“And I promised myself if I came again, she’d come as well. So she’s here with me,” Eleazar said as she pointed to her mother in the Royal York Hotel audience and thanked her for her support over the years.
CODA filmmaker Sian Heder nabbed the Impact Award for Being Heumann, which stars Ruth Madeley as disability rights activist Judy Heumann in the bio-drama about the leader of a historic 1977 protest campaign. “When there’s so little representation out there for a particular community, every piece of work that comes out feels like it needs to make up for decades of being misrepresented,” Heder said when accepting her trophy for her latest film, which opened the Toronto Film Festival on Sept. 10 during a gala world premiere.
Fellow director Bassam Tariq picked up the Rising Talent Award as he brings his latest movie, the John Cho-starring action film Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother, to Toronto for a world premiere. “I’ve always seen myself as a worker. As a worker, you’re always in service in something bigger than yourself. And for me, the hope is I’m always in service to the truth and in the service of compassion,” he said.
In other prize giving, cinematographer Adam Pietkiewicz accepted the Artisan Award as he was honored in Toronto for his work on Angh, from director Theja Rio. “He trusted me with my vision, and I’m incredibly grateful that he did. We had an abundance of belief and probably a slightly unhealthy amount of optimism,” Pietkiewicz said in tribute to director Rio for their collaboration.
Proceeds from the Tribute Awards go towards the festival’s year-round talent development programs that encourage diversity, equity and inclusion in filmmaking. The gala fundraiser also allows A-listers to raise their latest performances and movies as possible award season contenders.
