thenationofartists.com

By Elliot V. Kotek
(Sept. 17, 2010)

One word: Ed Harris. Okay, so it’s two words. But seriously, four-time Oscar-nominee Ed “Jackson Pollock” Harris and his wife, fellow Oscar-nom Amy Madigan, sauntered into the Moving Pictures lounge for a chat. It’s clear that Harris doesn’t mind but doesn’t quite love the whole posing-for-press thing, but he paid us a great compliment on his experience in our studio.

Charlotte Rampling, Bill Pullman and highly awarded Cannes and Sundance filmmaker Jonathan Nossiter stopped by to gab about a strange ’80′s type film they’d made, “Rio Sex Comedy.” Rampling directed the photo shoot (which also included actors Fisher Stevens and Irene Jacob) for the film that discusses the political moods of the shanty towns (“favelas”) in Brazil as well as the competing psychologies behind plastic surgery.

Gregg Araki has been one to watch for some time now, always defying commercial callings to deliver genre-bending films. “Kaboom” premiered in competition at Cannes and played up here in Toronto, and the filmmaker had a lot of interesting things to say in our interview. I still feel that audiences are awaiting another “Mysterious Skin” from the helmer, but in the meantime it seems the filmmaker will continue to push out curious cinematic offerings every two to three years. “Saw” franchise pioneers Leigh Wannell and James Wan came by just after the sale of their new film, “Insidious,” which brings to mind the market nature of TIFF.

Thus far, “Rabbit Hole,” “Barney’s Version,” “Incendies,” “Super,” “Dirty Girl,” “Submarine,” “Beautiful Boy,” “Cave of Forgotten Dreams” and “Insidious” have sold to distributors, marking a successful festival for our northern neighbors. With the festival only just past its first week now, deals should continue to wrap before the final flights home.