43: Toronto Film Festival

It never rains but it pours. How often does this composer get a premiere? Not often. So how did it come about that I had three world premieres in five days on opposite sides of the world?

• Wednesday 9th Sydney Lightfall - World premiere
• Thursday 10th Sydney Lightfall - Second performance
• Friday 11th Sydney Lightfall - Third performance (11am)
• Friday 11th Toronto Daybreakers - World premiere (11:59pm)
• Sunday 13th Toronto Mao’s Last Dancer - World premiere
• (Monday 21st Sydney Mao’s Last Dancer - Australian premiere)

Lightfall Premiere

The only way to get to Toronto on time was to miss the third performance of Lightfall. This was incredibly disappointing but there was no other way to manage the schedule. It is a 22-hour trip, including the wait at LAX, but thanks to the international date line we arrived in time for the midnight premiere of Daybreakers. It was screening as part of the Toronto Film Festival’s Midnight Madness program. Howls of applause and cheering would erupt from the audience at every sighting of blood. It was a surreal experience, after living Lightfall for so long, to be on the other side of the world without genuine sleep for thirty hours, staring at blood-dripping fangs with a screaming audience. Much to our delight Daybreakers was voted runner-up most popular film in the Midnight Madness program. (The winner was The Loved Ones, directed by Sean Byrne, who is a former directing-student of my wife’s.)

Daybreakers - A Subsider

With Saturday to acclimatise ourselves, the world premiere of Mao’s Last Dancer was on Sunday at the Winter Garden Theatre. This was a most extraordinary experience with a standing ovation that lasted well over five minutes. It started during the credits and it was impossible to hear my music. Eventually they just stopped the film; no-one was looking or listening.

There was a second screening at 9am on Wednesday morning. I attended the last twenty minutes then went on stage with screenwriter, Jan Sardi for a Q&A. You can see a picture and watch Movie Moxie’s Day 7  vlog about it here.

Mao’s Last Dancer was voted second most popular film of the festival (out of about 350 films).

Mao's Last Dancer: Huang Wen Bin as young Li Cunxin

Back in Sydney on 20 September, with our baggage lost, we got ready for the Australian premiere of MLD on Monday night. Again a wonderful audience response. The last four days has been a lot of scurrying around to get the artwork done for the soundtrack album. The CD will be released by Sony in Australia in October and will follow the film around the world as it opens territory by territory.

With all these premieres and travel I was ripped from Lightfall into another universe and consequently this blog ground to a halt for over a week right at the important moment. My apologies to those that have been waiting for reports on the concert.

Update 26 September. While googling for reactions to the Lightfall premiere that I could add to 44: The Review I came across this unexpected and very pleasant Toronto surprise.