Showing posts with label In Conversation With. Show all posts
Showing posts with label In Conversation With. Show all posts

Sunday, September 10, 2017
















Some actors segue to directing to make their show business careers more well-rounded, but for Angelina Jolie, “It was an accident, I wanted to learn more about the War in Yugoslavia” said the Oscar winner referring to her 2011 feature directorial debut In the Land of Blood and Honey. The actress was present tonight at a Toronto International Film Festival In Conversation With panel.

“I never thought I could make a movie or write one, it was never part of my plan,” said Jolie who’s here at TIFF with two movies: Her Netflix movie First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers about author and human rights activist Loung Ung’s life under the rule of the deadly Khmer Rouge, as well as her animated production The Breadwinner which follows an Afghan girl who must disguise herself as a boy in order to provide for her family.
“For me it wasn’t just about becoming a director,” said Jolie about taking the craft under her belt, “I believe our world is stronger for diversity and I love to learn about cultures and I love to work with artists from other parts of the world. It’s the greatest way to deeply learn and know each other is to create together. In my humanitarian work, I’m passionate about that. They’re my heroes, the people I’m involved with. They’ve taught me to be a better person, a better mother, what to live by, what to value. If I can do films that bring their stories to life, I think those are important stories.”

In addition, regarding First They Killed My Father, Jolie said she made the film for her son Maddox, who she adopted following a UNCHR mission in Cambodia as well as working there during the first Tomb Raider movie. Maddox is credited on the film as an EP. Jolie said she wanted her son to have a perspective of what his birth parents endured.
Jolie was moved by Ung’s book, and it was important for her to be as faithful to the source material, telling the story through the eyes of a child and how her point of view matures from the ages of five to nine in regards to the war in front of her. The film was shot in Cambodian. In addition, she partnered with the country’s most prolific director Rithy Panh who serves as a producer on the movie. “If he said no, I’m not sure I’d made the film. You can’t do that. Together we talked the intention…what the film would mean for Cambodia if we did it this way or that way.”
Jolie screened the film many months ago in Cambodia to great success, even spurring town hall discussions with grandparents talking to their grand children about the genocide that occurred. She even played the film at Olympic Stadium where many of the horrors occurred. “The people who watched it were ex Khmer Rouge, the Royal family,  I wasn’t sure of the reaction, but it was a moving experience.”




Angelina Jolie had the perfect test audience when it came time to prepare for her role in Maleficent.
The actress, who recently confirmed she’s stepping back in front of the camera for an upcoming sequel to the 2014 megahit, revealed she was initially intimidated by the thought of playing Sleeping Beauty’s nemesis.
“When I knew I was going to Maleficent I thought, ‘I have to train, I’m not good enough. I’m not ready,’ ” she said during a discussion of her career at the Toronto International Film Festival on Sunday.
Knowing that the villain needed to have a commanding presence on screen, Jolie went to a voice coach to help give her character an extra edge.
“I thought, ‘I’m not really sure I could do what needs to be done for her,’ ” she said. “[The coach] had me play around with throwing my voice as big as it could go.”
But when it came to finalizing Maleficent’s voice and mannerisms, Jolie turned to her six kids.
“The accent and everything about her was discovered when I was giving my kids baths,” she said. “I think I tried 17 different things on them. They would say, ‘What are you doing? Mom, stop talking so weird.’ One day I just got really nutty and did [the voice] and they fell over laughing. I did it all night long and I finally found it.”
The 2014 movie was a rousing success, raking in more than $750 million worldwide. Her return to the Disney villainess would mark her first onscreen appearance since her 2015 role in By the Sea.
Jolie also talked about how her late mother, Marcheline Bertrand, influenced her decision to become an actress.
“I grew up around film and I grew up in a town where film was so important that it’s all anyone talked about. It was the thing to be. When I was growing up, I remember my mom telling me how she wanted to be an actress and my grandmother wanted to be an actress and she was so excited that I could be an actress. I never really thought I could be anything else and I never really questioned it. I did start to get into acting and I did it partially because it was something to do with my mom and it made her so happy.”
Bertrand died of cancer in 2007. “I realized when my mom passed away that it was something I was very much something I was doing for her and it changed a little bit,” Jolie said. “I haven’t done much since she passed away, in front of the camera. Now I do it for my kids. And I do love it! It is fun! Who doesn’t love to get silly?”
The “In Conversation with” event wasn’t Jolie’s first outing at this year’s festival. She made the Sunday premiere of The Breadwinner, an animated film she executive produced, a family affair when she walked the red carpet with five of her six kids — Pax, 13; Zahara, 12; Shiloh, 11, and twins Knox and Vivenne, both 9.
Jolie, 42, is also getting ready for the Toronto premiere of her latest directorial project, Netflix’s First They Killed My Father. Last weekend, she took all six of her children — including eldest son Maddox, 16, to the Telluride Film Festival in Colorado for another premiere of the film, about a Cambodian child’s experience during the brutal Khmer Rouge regime.




Having brought two movies to the Toronto Film Festival this week, one Angelina Jolie directed and the other she co-produces, the Oscar-winning actress on Sunday said she prefers being behind the camera, rather than in front.
"I like championing other people and finding their greatness," Jolie said during an informal conversation at the Glenn Gould Theater. She brought her fourth feature directorial effort, First They Killed My Father, to Toronto, a foreign language film set in Cambodia that first bowed in Telluride.
She's also showing The Breadwinner, an animated feature she produced and which has its world premiere here. The director/actress brought her six children to the Winter Gardens Theater earlier on Sunday to take in the drama about a 12-year-old Aghan girl's struggle to grow up under the Taliban.
Jolie also talked at length about three earlier movies she directed -- In the Land of Blood and Honey, Unbroken and By the Sea -- each of which had a different cinematographer. "They change and I change," she said of growing as a director by never repeating herself by working with a different director of photography each time.
And with her latest movie, First They Killed My Father, Jolie said the feature, while headed to Netflix, was made primarily for Cambodia and its people, who experienced a four-year reign of terror in which nearly 2 million Cambodians died from 1975.
The film, which shows that country's genocide through its impact on one family, premiered first in Cambodia, months ago. "It was amazing. It was really bringing the film back, and the people who saw it were survivors," Jolie recalled. Because the Cambodian genocide is rarely spoken about, the director was nervous beforehand about how the country would react.
"It was really such a moving experience. We premiered it across the country, in many places, like the Olympic Stadium, where so much horror happened," Jolie recounted. "The country itself deserves this film and this dialogue. I heard parents and grandparents speaking about it (the genocide) to their children because they hadn't spoken about it before," she added.
And not being done acting, Jolie also had some advice for anyone looking to grow in front of the camera. "Have a full life. Listen to other actors. Be aware and respond. Be a better person," she said.
The Toronto Film Festival runs through to Sept. 17.








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