The end is nigh! The final weekend is coming and with that we will know who will take home the $25,000 TIFF Platform Jury Prize and all the other honours including the festival's People's Choice Award.
After mentioning that the red carpet for London Fields would be one to watch today, it turns out there won't be one.

“We have recently learned of a legal matter that has arisen between the director and the producers of the film London Fields. We have worked to make our festival a public showcase for creative expression through the moving image, however with uncertainty surrounding the creative vision of the version of the film scheduled to be screened on September 18, we feel it is only appropriate that we remove this film from the Festival lineup…" was the festival's reasoning for yanking the film from the lineup.

The film's producers were not happy with the call and criticized director Matthew Cullen for causing a stir over final cut. 

On an even more serious note, Toronto Star editor Shree Paradkar describes what it is like to watch a film made about a tragedy in your own family. Paradkar's niece is the murdered girl at the heart of the film Guilty (Talvar), which stars Irrfan Khan and screened at TIFF last week. It looks at the controversial investigation in Noida, India which made the girl's parents suspects in the murder.

On the Scene

Dev Patel, a couple of Sutherlands and Ryan Reynolds were all out and about yesterday at TIFF.

Jeremy Irons was on-hand to talk about his career at an event hosted at the Four Seasons.

A certain guitarist from The Rolling Stones also showed up yesterday to promote a doc by Morgan Neville on his life and new solo album. Apparently the vodka and orange soda were waiting for him. Keith Richards: Under the Influence is said to be a bit too fawning for its own good but might still rope in music lovers.

Unlike Donald Sutherland, Richards wasn't up to weigh in on politics. He apparently had enough of that with Margaret Trudeau.

In the Spotlight

I don't know if it has a shot at any of the major prizes, I hope I'm wrong, but Robert Eggers's first feature The Witch has made a lot of observers lists for best film at this festival. It focuses on a family of  New England settlers in the 17th century dealing with potentially supernatural forces that haunt the forest that borders their home. The Shining meets Nathaniel Hawthorne? 

Ryerson Theatre. 43 Gerrard Street East. 6:15 p.m. 90 minutes

Dark Horse

We haven't put the spotlight much on Midnight Madness thus far and a Friday night is a great time for it, so why not? Takashi Miike's workload is extraordinary. He continuously churns out multiple films each year. That said, his more well known works, Audition, Ichi the Killer and 13 Assassins are a little ways back now and his current oeuvre is a bit more spotty. Still for a Midnight Madness option, Yakuza Apocalypse probably fits the bill. I mean it does feature vampires, gangsters and natural disasters all in one package…

Ryerson Theatre. 43 Gerrard Street East. 11:59 p.m. 115 minutes