We’re now into the back-half of the festival and indeed these things do tend to be front-loaded, but there’s plenty to catch up with and you never know what might surprise. 

“At the same time, this process is like dating,” Jia Zhang-ke joked to Variety. “You see all 12 and then you know which one you fall in love with … of course, I will be in trouble if I fall in love with six!” We’ll find out which film gets the first ever TIFF Platform prize of $25,000 September 20 from the jury of Jia, Claire Denis, Agnieszka Holland. 

On the industry side of the ledger, buyers are apparently pinning their stars more and more to packaged but unfinished projects rather than buying finished films. I guess if you can’t see it, it remains an unblemished hypothetical?  

The late Roger Ebert loved Toronto and TIFF so the continuing tradition of presenting the Golden Thumb Award is neat. Martin Scorsese received it previously, but this year Chaz Ebert and TIFF’s Cameron Bailey gave it to Selma director Ava DuVernay. 

"Guilty pleasure alert,” says The Hollywood Reporter of Jocelyn Moorhouse’s film The Dressmaker, which purports to be the high-style camp vehicle for its star that I had hoped rather than some dry Out of Africa drama as the marketing made it seem. 

On the Scene

Toronto Life has been doing an admirable job trawling stars social media accounts for photographic evidence of their time in Toronto. Instagram and Twitter abound but h/t to the guy with the Facebook status mentioning he ran into Donald Sutherland in the bathroom of Real Sports. 

Johnny Depp showed up late and smoked an e-cigarette at the Black Mass press conference yesterday. Shia LaBoeuf, a strong contender to out-oddball Depp, will be on-hand this afternoon for the Man Down press conference at 1 p.m. 

In the Spotlight

Well this is not the star-studded, frou-frou laden premiere of Black Mass but if you want a quieter and more accessible chance to see Johnny Depp play gangster ‘Whitey’ Bulger, this screening is it. Scott Cooper’s film seems to be roundly praised as really good of its type and has a wonderful cast. The whigs and costumes though… 

Princess of Wales Theatre. 300 King St W. 2:45 p.m. 122 minutes

Dark Horse

Not really a dark horse perhaps, but Anomalisa is getting some of the warmest reviews of anything at the festival. It comes from maestro Charlie Kauffman and is done in stop-motion dealing with a motivational speaker “crippled” by life’s doldrums. That’s either a sales pitch to you or it isn’t I suppose. 

Princess of Wales Theatre. 300 King St W. 9:00 p.m. 90 minutes