Versatile Pictures

Get to know our 2026 Lifetime Achievement Awardee, Stanley Nelson, acclaimed director and visionary storyteller. Don't miss this opportunity to be a part of this landmark event.

📅 Feb 11, 2026
🕢 7:30 PM EST
📍 Isabel Bader Theatre

Celebrating his impact, legacy, and excellence.

#EthanHawke says he’s never felt afraid to speak his mind “until the last couple of years.” “There’s a fear in the air that I’ve never felt before — and it’s not America,” Hawke told Variety on Monday night at Sundance. “To be an artist in a free country is a privilege. I don’t feel that way anymore. And that has to change.” Hawke is promoting his new film “The Weight” at the Sundance Film Festival’s final year in Park City, the location where he first debuted “Before Sunrise” and many of his iconic collaborations with director Richard Linklater. He says the festival’s ethos shaped his early desire to “tell the truth and not be greed-oriented.”

EARLY REVIEW: Sam Raimi finally made a new horror movie, and it rules. Send Help!

link to the full review in the comments

We're just getting started. Thanks to everyone who braved the cold for this impromptu gathering, keeping our tradition going strong. Staying fired up to press on, no matter what. Storytellers will always be here, no matter what.

A particular one haunts it now by being a smash hit when it arrived on Netflix. Read more. 👇

The Curse of the Open Heart

There are days my veins hum  
with frequencies not my own  
thousands of receptors raw and unshielded  
pulling in the static of the world  

I am a satellite for sorrow  
downloading grief like a duty  
as if healing others  
Is written into my pulse  
my heart keeps expanding  
stretching past its safe borders  
taking on the anguish of friends  
the trembling of strangers  
whose names I will never know  

they call us bleeding hearts  
as if compassion were a malfunction  
as if caring too deeply were a glitch  
but tell me how do you mute  
the cries that tremble from the news
when bombs fall on children  
and the world tells me to scroll  
to shop to ignore  
gaslighted by glitter  
we are told to dream in purchases  
while the earth quietly cries  

no rest for those who feel too sharply  
each headline slices each story lingers  
and I become paralyzed  
stuck in the amber of overthinking  
heavy hearted  
barely breathing between the empathy waves  

still I cannot shut it off  
this is both my burden and my bloom  
a curse sewn into kindness  
a heart that beats for many  
and breaks for all  💜

No way! 😮 Jamie Foxx explains why Ed Sheeran slept on his sofa for 6 weeks.

I have spent so much of my life everywhere but here. My mind is always racing ahead or drifting back, rarely anchored in the moment. And yet, somewhere in that whirlwind, I have been fortunate to meet and connect with incredibly talented filmmakers from every corner of the globe. Those connections keep me grounded, and for that, I will always be grateful, especially to the CaribbeanTales organization for opening that door.

In Barbados, as the tide rolled in and out, I could almost see my thoughts and dreams etched into the sand. The story of always striving, always reaching, and somehow falling just short. That same rhythm echoed on distant fields and arenas - the Oilers giving their all only to fall in the finals again, the Jays taking us on a wild ride to Game 7 after decades of waiting, the Whitecaps battling hard yet bowing out to the Floridians. I felt their heartbreak because it mirrored my own.

About impermanence, winning and losing are often part of the game but truth be told we as artists are not playing that game, we do what we do because we have no other option. To join the machinery of mindless churn, would be soul destroying. For there is an incessant drive to say something and share it to the world.

After three rejections from Telefilm and their kind, you would think I would tire of pushing against locked doors. But no, not even close. If anything, the fire burns fiercer. I believe in something I call HAQ. What is mine will find its way to me. And when it does, there will be no stopping it. Accepting a no has never been an option. Time to get those long johns and start preparing for Edmonton 🥶🛩️

Paul Thomas Anderson on Robert Altman Paul Thomas Anderson reacts to the work of Robert Altman.Source: Altmanhttps://www.imdb.com/title/tt2404171/Source: A24https://a24films.com/Source: WTF with ...

Tomorrow Nov 27 at 10 am to 5 pm at the Noel Ryan Auditorium In the Sixth largest city in Canada:

Be there or be square!

What more is there is to say we live in interesting times. If you missed yesterday's opening film, I genuinely feel bad for you. Movies travel from far reaches of the planet to our doorstep in this wonderful city of Toronto, and in this attention deficit world we have excuses and a tendency to look a gift horse in the mouth.

The superlatives fall short when speaking of the exquisite nature of the venue and the fact that pulled it off for the red carpet opening for the film Pyre with in attendance shows the conviction of their vision. A thought provoking tale on our relationship with aging and community.

My last plea is please don't get caught sitting in your pj's this week when we have so many wonderful movies playing at the festival and a symposium that will be like a boot camp of film school in a box.

Enough said. Off to do the needful as they say!

Thrilled to see so many fantastic films lighting up the screen at the Mosaic International South Asian Film Festival right here in Mississauga! Feeling grateful and proud to have been involved either directly, officially through consultations, or by special thanks in not one not two but four of these wonderful films this year. Please Check out all the incredible stories and detailed schedule at www.misaff.com and come support your peers in a world-class film festival experience.

See you at the movies.