Toronto directing panel swaps ghost shoots, an animated Musk and hitman action
An animated Elon Musk, a Muslim hitman and a 26-day ghost story shared one stage in Toronto.
Deadline and the Directors Guild of America, the union that represents film and television directors, brought Curry Barker, Siân Heder, Alex Gibney, Rachel Morrison and Bassam Tariq together for the Art of Directing panel at the Toronto Film Festival. The conversation took place at the Bisha Hotel, according to Deadline, which reported on the panel on 17 September.
Barker was marking an anniversary. He returned to Toronto a year after his horror film Obsession had its world premiere, its first public screening, at the festival. That film was later picked up by Focus Features and earned more than $500,000 at the global box office, the total from cinemas worldwide, Deadline reported.
He did not wait long for the next one. His new film Anything But Ghosts, a Focus Features and Blumhouse Atomic Monster production co-starring Aaron Paul, was built from a 130-page script and shot in 26 days. Barker both directs the film and stars in it as the lead character.
Gibney brought a different challenge. His new documentary Musk, about tech businessman Elon Musk, needed its subject to take part. Musk turned down Gibney's interview request with a post calling the film-maker "a douche."
So Gibney's team gathered every audio and video recording they could find of Musk speaking and built an animated stand-in for the film's central interview. The avatar plays in two shots. One looks straight to camera. One looks off to the side.
Tariq arrived with action. He was in Toronto with the Orion action film Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother, starring Mahershala Ali as an American Muslim hitman. The character goes to war with two men, a mentor godfather-type figure inside his mosque and a far-right cult leader in the style of David Koresh, played by John Cho. The production ran for 30 days and packed in five action set pieces. It opens in cinemas on 25 September.
The panel also turned personal. Morrison, Tariq, Barker, Heder and Gibney each told the story of earning their Guild card, the membership that allows directors to work under union rules, in clips shared from the event. Barker, Heder and Gibney also discussed their most recent projects and how they approached them.
What makes this stand out is the contrast in scale. One director animates an interview he could not get. Another shoots five action scenes in a month. A third directs himself. Same job title, very different puzzles.
