Director Alexander Payne has entered the Oscars hunt with his new film "The Holdovers," a poignant 1970s-set dramedy about a cantankerous prep school teacher and a troubled student that screened Monday at the Toronto film festival. "Unlike musicians and stage actors, in film, we don't get to have that immediacy of communication between us and the audience," Payne told spectators at the Princess of Wales theater in Toronto. Though Sessa was the star of the drama club, "he'd never been in front of a camera," Payne told filmgoers in the post-screening question and answer session. The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) is a key part of the fall festival lineup, along with Venice and Telluride. Movies hoping to build early Oscars momentum typically hold premieres at one or several of the major industry events.

Source: The Star September 12, 2023 14:11 UTC