thenationofartists.com

By Elliot V. Kotek
(Sept. 13, 2010)

It’s been a crazy couple of days at TIFF — yesterday’s back-to-back interviews in our media lounge included Dustin Milligan, Amanda Crew and Richard de Klerk (“Repeaters”), “Bunraku’s” Josh Hartnett and Guy Moshe, Oscar-nominee Fridrik Thor Fridriksson (“Mamma Gógó”), Debs Gardner-Paterson (“Africa United”), and documentary filmmakers Risteard Ó Domhnaill (“The Pipe”) and Shlomi Eldar (“Precious Life”).

Ron Perlman came by with Kevin McKidd for photos by Scott McDermott. Ron had his cigar in hand, apparently a crutch he rarely leaves home without.

We dropped down to the Creative Coalition’s event for George Hickenlooper’s “Casino Jack” — Hickenlooper was there, as was thesp and theater director Kevin Spacey. Hickenlooper addressed the assembled cocktailers, sharing tales of his remembrances of the enlisted men fighting to avoid the road to Vietnam and the education he absorbed from being around a father who, despite his brilliance politically, perhaps wasn’t there emotionally.

The CAA event was filled to the rafters — in addition to Ryan Kwanten, Romain Duris, Maggie Q and a variety of directors and producers, Harvey Weinstein was on hand, reportedly picking up rights to Abe Sylvia’s “Dirty Girl” the same night for a cool $3 million.

The “Dirty Girl” director and young lead Jeremy Dozier came by the studio today, still reeling from their successful evening. It was great to have young actor Kodi Smit-McPhee pop in with his “Let Me In” director, Matt Reeves of “Cloverfield” fame. Gil Bellows and Kathleen Robertson came by with fellow Canadian actor John Pyper-Ferguson and their “A Night for Dying Tigers” director Terry Miles. Cannes’ favorite Canadian filmmaker Denis Villeneuve dropped in to talk about “Incendies” fresh from the film’s standing ovation at Telluride and rousing reception at Venice. And Oscar-nominee Milcho Manchevski shared his thoughts on his latest film, “Mothers.”

Next up on the agenda is a couple of hours of hard-earned zzzzzzzz before being back in the studio tomorrow morning to interview “What’s Wrong with Virginia’s” writer-director, Oscar-winner Dustin Lance Black … Stay tuned and check out our reviews!!!