Halle Berry To Keynote 2020 Toronto Film Festival

With her directorial debut 'Bruised' scheduled to premiere at the 2020 Toronto Film Festival, Halle Berry will also participate in a candid conversation entitled 'In Conversation with Halle Berry', which will happen virtually on Friday, September 11th.

Halle Berry is set to take part in a candid conversation as part of the Toronto Film Festival's In Conversation With... series, organizers said Monday.

On Sept. 11, the Oscar winner will appear virtually as Berry discusses her feature directorial debut, the MMA drama Bruised, which will have a world premiere in Toronto. Berry will also star in the feature as a disgraced MMA fighter, Jackie "Justice."

Toronto organizers also announced that Canadian documentary and TV drama director Tracey Deer will receive the TIFF Emerging Talent Award, presented by L'Oréal Paris and supported by MGM, at the 2020 TIFF Tribute Awards on Sept. 15. Deer is bringing her debut narrative feature, Beans, to Toronto for a world premiere.

Ahead of TIFF, sales outfit WaZabi Films picked up the world rights, excluding Canada, to Deer’s Beans, about a Mohawk girl on the cusp of adolescence who must grow up fast and become her own kind of warrior during an armed stand-off known as the 1990 Oka Crisis.

And the Toronto fest named as its 2020 TIFF Rising Stars Sheila Atim (Bruised), Rainbow Dickerson (Beans), Tanya Maniktala (A Suitable Boy) and Madeleine Sims-Fewer (Violation).

Earlier, Toronto tapped Kate Winslet, Anthony Hopkins and directors Chloe Zhao and Mira Nair for tributes at its upcoming 20th edition. TIFF's online plans also include industry conference sessions, networking events and digital showcases of film titles by national cinema agencies.

Planning for a first-time online industry conference follows the physical edition of the Toronto Film Festival, set to run Sept. 10 to 19, being sharply reduced in size and scope due to the coronavirus pandemic.

TIFF plans to screen around 50 film titles during its first five days in physical theaters, and at drive-in and outdoor cinema venues. Toronto will also host virtual red carpets, press conferences and industry events amid the COVID-19 outbreak.

Halle Berry Reveals First Official 'Bruised' Still

Blood, sweat and tears! All of that can be expected when Halle Berry's directorial debut 'Bruised', premieres at the Toronto International Film Festival next month.

In the upcoming story of redemption, the Academy Award winner plays Jackie “Justice,” a disgraced MMA fighter that lost at the one thing she’s good at. When her six-year-old son comes back into her life, she decides to fight for him to give him a good life and starts training to become the champion she was meant to be, and featival co-head Cameron Bailey has touted it one of the "very best performances of her career". The script is by Michelle Rosenfarb and the movie will be produced by John Wick producer Basil Iwanyk.

Halle Berry Hints At New Romance With Instagram Photo

After nearly three years as a single woman, Halle Berry may have new love in her life. The 53-year-old actress shared a photo with a bottle of wine and a mystery man's feet next to her own, which she simply captioned "sunday,funday". See the post below:

View this post on Instagram

sunday,funday❤️

A post shared by Halle Berry (@halleberry) on Jul 19, 2020 at 6:10pm PDT

Halle Berry Backs Out Of Transgender Role Amid Backlash

Halle Berry has closed the door on the opportunity to play a transgender character after mounting backlash from the community, and it should be noted that the Academy Award winner was never officially cast in the film. Read more of the story and her response below:

Variety: Halle Berry has pulled out of a role in an upcoming film in which she’d play a transgender character after facing backlash online.

In an Instagram live interview on Friday, the actor said she had been preparing for the role, but had not been officially cast.

“[It’s] a character where the woman is a trans character, so she’s a woman that transitioned into a man. She’s a character in a project I love that I might be doing,” Berry had said. She added that she wanted to take a “deep dive” into “that world,” likely referring to the trans community.

However, Berry faced backlash online after misgendering the character multiple times during the interview. “Who this woman was is so interesting to me, and that will probably be my next project,” she said.

On Monday night, she issued an apology and pulled out of the role, saying “the transgender community should undeniably have the opportunity to tell their own stories.”

“Over the weekend I had the opportunity to discuss my consideration of an upcoming role as a transgender man, and I’d like to apologize for those remarks. As a cisgender woman, I now understand that I should not have considered this role, and that the transgender community should undeniably have the opportunity to tell their own stories,” she wrote. “I am grateful for the guidance and critical conversation over the past few days and will continue to listen, educate and learn from this mistake. I vow to be an ally in using my voice to promote better representation on-screen, both in front of and behind the camera.”

Berry’s comments caught the attention of the Twitter account for the Netflix documentary “Disclosure: Trans Lives on Screen,” which was released last month and examines Hollywood’s portrayal of transgender people and their stories.

The doc’s account asked that Berry watch the film to “understand how cis actors like yourself acting in trans roles has major cultural consequences offscreen.”

After Berry’s apology, the account thanked her for “listening and learning.” The LGBTQ rights organization GLAAD also responded, saying “We are pleased that Halle Berry listened to the concerns of transgender people and learned from them. Other powerful people should do the same. A good place to start is by watching ‘Disclosure’ to learn about trans representation in media.”

In recent years, cisgender actors have faced controversy over playing transgender characters. In 2018, Scarlett Johansson was cast as a transgender character in the film “Rub and Tug,” sparking backlash from trans rights groups and activists. A week later, she exited the role.

Halle Berry's MMA Drama 'Bruised' To Premiere At TIFF 2020

Last month, the Toronto International Film Festival announced that their 2020 festival would be scaled back in light of coronavirus and revealed the first films scheduled to premiere at the festival including the MMA drama 'Bruised', which is the directorial debut from Academy Award winner Halle Berry. Read more about the plans for the festival below:

Variety: It’s safe to say that the 2020 edition of the Toronto International Film Festival won’t be like any of the 44 editions that preceded it. We are living in the age of the coronavirus, after all.

Because of this new pandemic reality, this year’s TIFF will be a hybrid of physical screenings and virtual events. It unspools between Sept. 10 through Sept. 19 and will include screenings of roughly 50 films during its initial five days — that plan is subject to approval by city and provincial health officials.

Some of these films include “Ammonite,” directed by Francis Lee of “God’s Own Country” renown; “Another Round,” from Danish auteur Thomas Vinterberg (Denmark); “Concrete Cowboys,” an adaptation of the novel Ghetto Cowboy from director Ricky Staub; “Bruised,” the directorial debut film of Oscar-winner Halle Berry (USA); and “True Mothers” by Japanese filmmaker Naomi Kawase. More titles will be announced over the summer.

TIFF generates more than $200 million in annual economic activity for Toronto and Ontario, which helped spur the festival’s organizers to come up with a plan for operating safely during COVID-19. Other film festivals such as Tribeca or Cannes have been cancelled, postponed or reconstituted as virtual events.

Earlier this week, TIFF laid off 31 full-time staff positions because of closures related to coronavirus. The organization said it expects there to be a 50% reduction in revenue from 2019, putting a severe financial strain on its operations.

For the first time in its history, TIFF will launch a digital platform for the festival. Over the 10 days, the platform will host digital screenings, as well as numerous talks and special events.

“The pandemic has hit TIFF hard, but we’ve responded by going back to our original inspiration — to bring the very best in film to the broadest possible audience,” said Cameron Bailey, artistic director and co-head of TIFF. “Our teams have had to rethink everything, and open our minds to new ideas. In countless video calls over the past three months we have rebuilt our festival for 2020 drawing on our five decades of commitment to strong curation, support for filmmakers and engagement with audiences.”

For its 45th year, TIFF will be welcoming 50 celebrated filmmakers and actors as TIFF ambassadors. It’s a group that will include Ava DuVernay, Taika Waititi, Anurag Kashyap, Nicole Kidman, Martin Scorsese, Nadine Labaki, Alfonso Cuarón, Riz Ahmed, Rian Johnson, Jason Reitman, Isabelle Huppert and Claire Denis.

“We could never have anticipated the global seismic changes we would be facing in 2020,” said Joana Vicente, executive director and co-head of TIFF. We tapped into the original spirit of the Festival from when it began in 1976 as our guiding light. The distilled edition of TIFF 2020 reflects a deep love of film, passion for our loyal audiences, commitment to the industry and a whole lot of heart.”