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The Toronto Film Critics Association has named RaMell Ross’s narrative debut Nickel Boys as its best movie of 2024, adding to the film’s award season prominence.

In voting on Sunday, Toronto film reviewers also gave the drama about a friendship between two young African American men navigating a reform school in Jim Crow-era Florida the best director prize for Ross, who also shared the best adapted screenplay honor with Joslyn Barnes.

The best picture runner-ups were Sean Baker’s Anora and Brady Corbet’s The Brutalist. Nickel Boys, an adaptation of Colson Whitehead’s 2019 novel, debuted at Telluride and stars Ethan Herisse, Brandon Wilson, Hamish Linklater, Fred Hechinger, Daveed Diggs and Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor.

In the acting categories, the best lead performance crown was shared by Marianne Jean-Baptiste for her role in Mike Leigh’s Hard Truths and Mikey Madison for Anora. And the best supporting performance honor was split...

Mathyas in Shepherds. Sophie Deraspe on her star Félix-Antoine Duval: 'When I prepared with him prior to shooting, I think the most important thing I told him is, “You cannot prepare that much, but the thing that you can do is to let your mind and heart and body and spirit open up to what can happen”' Sophie Deraspe's Shepherds (Bergers) transports us to the south of France where young Canadian Mathyas (Félix-Antoine Duval) has relocated from Montreal on impulse, with the romantic dream of becoming a sheep herder and writing a book about it. Based on the semi-autographic Where Are You From, Shepherd? it relates his experience of attempting to find his feet in the shepherding world at the same time as embarking on a relationship with a young bureacrat he meets, Élise (Solène Rigot), who makes an impetuous decision of her own.

This gentle drama, which has a strong documentary feel,...

Zurich Film Festival has revealed a second wave of Gala titles, which includes films starring Tilda Swinton, Sebastian Stan, Nicole Kidman, Pierce Brosnan and Samuel L. Jackson.

Among the 10 added titles are four world premieres, two international premieres and one European premiere.

Zurich will screen, among others, Ali Abbas’ “The Apprentice,” starring Stan, Pedro Almodóvar’s “The Room Next Door,” starring Swinton, and Halina Reijn’s “Babygirl,” starring Kidman.

Richard Gray’s Western “The Unholy Trinity,” starring Brosnan and Jackson, has its world premiere.

The other world premieres are “Frieda’s Case” by Maria Brendle, “Aiming High – A Race Against the Limits” by Flavio Gerber and Alun Meyerhans, and German epic adventure “Hagen.”

“The fact that we have the opportunity to present so many world and European premieres goes to show that the Zff holds a strong position in the international calendar,” Christian Jungen, artistic director of the festival, said.

French Canadian filmmaker Sophie Deraspe is currently taking big gulps of the French Alps for her sixth feature film currently in production. Saint-Narcisse thesp Félix-Antoine Duval toplines Berger – the book-to-film adaptation of D’où viens-tu, berger? micro_scope folks Luc Déry, Kim McCraw and Élaine Hébert are producing the project along with the Avenue B folks Caroline Bonmarchand, Xenia Sulyma and Sébastien Perret. Supporting players include Solène Rigot, Younes Boucif, Bruno Raffaelli, Véronique Ruggia, Michel Benizri, Guilaine Londez and David Ayala.

Set to conclude filming early next month, this will be ready for 2024. One noteworthy member of the tech squad is Viking filmmaker Stéphane Lafleur who also moonlights as a notable film editor.…...

Canadian provocateur Bruce Labruce sends his hero on a zany quest for his long-lost twin that blends humour and camp with real pathos

Taking self-love to new heights, Canadian provocateur Bruce Labruce’s zany 70s-set family affair drips with blasphemous, outrageous delights. The tongue-in-cheek opening leaps straight out of a retro softcore magazine: clad in tight jeans and biker jacket, hunky Dominic (Félix-Antoine Duval) discreetly eyes a mischievous young lady at the laundromat before the pair disrobe and writhe around on a table like rabbits in heat. As strangers gather to stare at the salacious hanky-panky, Dominic is suddenly snapped out of his daydream.

The scene might simply be a sticky reverie, but it also establishes how Saint-Narcisse portrays sex as a spectacle, a sensual yet comical tableau served to titillate and amuse all at once. With the swagger of Marlon Brando in The Wild One, Dominic hops on his...