World Movie News: The Last 24 Hours
Toronto crowns its People’s Choice winner tonight, with dark horse I Play Rocky crashing a race between The Debut, Wild Horse Nine and Elsinore, a belated farewell to Das Boot actor Ralf Richter, and happy birthday to screen legend Sophia Loren.
Morning all — TIFF’s closing night is finally here, results due later today, plus a German acting loss from earlier in the week I should have caught sooner. Here’s what happened in the world of movies during the last day.
TIFF heads into tonight’s People’s Choice ceremony with a genuinely open field: After a week and a half of buzzy premieres, tonight’s ceremony has at least four real contenders. The one to watch is Peter Farrelly’s I Play Rocky, dramatising Sylvester Stallone’s journey to bringing Rocky to the screen — a film that’s had no real presence in this newsletter until now, but having generated the strongest word of the entire festival straight off its world premiere. It joins three names we’ve been tracking for weeks: Martin McDonagh’s Wild Horse Nine, carrying its Venice momentum straight into Toronto; Simon Stone’s Elsinore, which has kept building since its rapturous Telluride reception and pushed Andrew Scott firmly into the Best Actor conversation; and Jesse Eisenberg’s The Debut, which some predictions actually have as the single biggest favourite of the four, on the strength of Julianne Moore’s performance. Whichever wins inherits genuine Oscar pedigree — 22 past winners have gone on to Best Picture nominations, seven converting into wins, with last year’s Hamnet riding the honour to eight nominations and a Best Actress win for Jessie Buckley. Results expected later today, with tomorrow’s edition leading with the winner.
A belated farewell to Ralf Richter: It’s also worth flagging, a few days late, the death of German actor Ralf Richter, who died overnight between the 14th and 15th aged 69, his family and team confirming he passed at home. Richter was best known internationally for Das Boot, Wolfgang Petersen’s 1981 ground-breaking submarine classic, alongside the beloved German comedy Bang Boom Bang. A genuine gap in the German film and TV landscape, and one that deserved a mention here sooner.
Happy Birthday to Sophia Loren: Rounding things off, happy birthday today to screen legend Sophia Loren, who turns 92 — one of the last true survivors of golden-age European cinema, and still very much a towering presence in film history.
That’s your lot for today — with TIFF’s winner landing later tonight, expect tomorrow’s edition to lead with the results. Until next time.
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