Nomadland Tops TIFF / Oscar 2021-First Attempt-Best Director / At the Drive-In

 NOMADLAND TOPS TIFF

TFF #47 selection Nomadland won the Toronto International Film Festival's People's Choice Award as that festival came to a conclusion over the weekend.  The film, directed and written by Chloe Zhao and starring two time Oscar winner Frances McDormand, has been a significant critical success as it was also this year's Golden Lion winner for the Venice Film Festival.

Past TIFF People's Choice Award winners have gone on to be serious players during Oscar season and often times have included films from The SHOW,  Here's a rundown of the past few years of TIFF People's winners and runners-up with TFF films in BOLD:

2007: Winner: Eastern Promises, RU: JUNO 

2008: Winner: SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE, RU: More Than a Game

2009: Winner: Precious, RU: Mao's Last Dancer

2010: Winner: THE KING'S SPEECH, RU: THE FIRST GRADER

2011: Winner: Where Do We Go now, RU: Starbuck

2012: Winner: Silver Linings Playbook, RU: ARGO

2013: Winner: 12 YEARS A SLAVE, RU: Philomena

2014: Winner: THE IMITATION GAME, RU: Learning to Drive

2015: Winner: ROOM, RU: Angry Indian Goddesses

2016: Winner: LA LA LAND, RU: Lion

2017: Winner: Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, RU: I. Tonya

2018: Winner: Green Book, RU: If Beale Street Could Talk

2019: Winner: Jojo Rabbit, RU: MARRIAGE STORY

2020: Winner: NOMADLAND, RU: One Night in Miami

I have linked coverage of the TIFF awards here from Next Best Picture as well as The Hollywood News.

OSCAR 2021-FIRST ATTEMPT-BEST DIRECTOR

Last week, I started aiming this boat toward Oscar season with my first take on predicting films for Best Picture nominations.  Today we move to the Best Direction category with a reminder that it's a weird year and no one is entirely certain which films will actually screen before the deadline that The Academy moved to-Feb, 28, 2021.  Consequently, this first list will have some film's marked with an * meaning that, at least for the moment, I'm thinking that that film could have its release after Feb, 28th. TFF #47 films are in Bold

1) Chloe Zhao/Nomadland

2) David Fincher/Mank

3) Steven Spielberg/West Side Story*

4) Denis Villenueve/Dune*

5) Paul Greengrass/News of the World*

6) Spike Lee/Da 5 Bloods

7) Regina King/One Night in Miami

8) Christopher Nolan/Tenet

9) Aaron Sorkin/The Trial of the Chicago 7

10) Ron Howard/Hillbilly Elegy*

Other possibles: Francis Lee/Ammonite, Elizabeth Hittman/Never Rarely Sometimes Always, Florian Zeller/The Father, Wes ANderson/The French Dispatch*, Tom McCarthy/Stillwater*.

AT THE DRIVE-IN

As you almost certainly know, Telluride #47 appeared, much like Brigadoon, seemingly from out of nowhere to provide drive-in screening s recently of two of its 29 TFF #47 selections.

On Sept. 2nd, partnering with the Mill Valley Film Festival, Liz Garbus and Lisa Cortes' voting rights documentary: All In: The Fight for Democracy screened at the West Wind Solano Twin Drive-In in Concord, CA.  One of the patrons who attended is a friend of the blog and shared a photo or two of the evening:

Then on Sept. 11th, TFF screened Chloe Zhao's Nomadland turning the venerable Rose Bowl into a drive-in theater.  Director Zhao and star Frances McDormand were on hand.  Eagle-eyed friend of the blog, Jim Brooks forwarded a YouTube video that was posted by the film's distributor, Searchlight, on Sept. 14.  I have linked that here for your perusal:

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