Yesterday I was told by a friend from Toronto that festival head Cameron Bailey was thinking of going digital with the Toronto International Film Festival, that is if we are still not recovered from the COVID-19 pandemic by September. At first, I thought that was a strange way of going about things, especially since TIFF is a festival platform that is, first and foremost, a major launchpad for big studio Oscar contenders. I doubt that studios like Sony, Warner Bros, A24 and Disney would want to risk piracy by premiering their films via a screener link platform.
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The short version: "Woman Unknown" was a compromise. The jury deadlocked over "Possible Love" and "NAZA," not able to com to terms, fell back on their #3, May el-Toukhy's film.