Spike Lee
kicked off a unique Toronto film festival Thursday with a tribute to black
victims of police violence, as his latest movie premiered online and at
drive-in screenings due to coronavirus.

With a
pandemic and a closed Canadian border forcing Hollywood stars and media to
remain home, North America’s biggest film festival has scrambled to find
socially-distanced ways to present this year’s line-up.

Even
directors have stayed away, meaning that “David Byrne’s American
Utopia” — Lee’s movie version of the Talking Heads musician’s Broadway
concert — officially opened the festival by streaming on the web.

The unusual
format did not dampen reviews.

Deadline
Hollywood said the film “isn’t just a concert doc, but also a
life-affirming, euphoria-producing, soul-energizing sing-along protest film
that’s asking us to rise up against our own complacency.”

In the film,
which meshes themes of community and battling injustice, Lee projects images of
Eric Garner, Breonna Taylor and George Floyd — all African Americans killed by
police — over a rousing protest song.

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The anthem
features a call-and-response chant of “Say his name” for each black
victim — a theme veteran filmmaker Lee has covered extensively over his long
career.

“It
feels like this year in particular, what he’s been saying for decades is
resonating with a lot more people,” festival co-head Cameron Bailey told
AFP.

“It
does feel like it is exactly the film for the moment… it gives both David and
Spike the opportunity to really focus the audience’s attention on issues of
anti-black racism, of the Black Lives Matter movement,” he added.

The Toronto
International Film Festival typically draws half a million attendees to its
celebrity-studded red carpets and world premieres, which include Oscars
hopefuls and obscure arthouse flicks hoping to find distributors.

This year
due to Covid-19, only movie lovers who are already based in town can attend
physical screenings at a dramatically pared-down festival boasting just 50
feature films on show — compared with a typical 300-odd.

On Thursday,
small crowds gathered at drive-ins, a lakeside open-air screen, and a handful
of limited-capacity indoor theaters to watch Lee’s movie, as well as French
debut feature “Spring Blossom” by Suzanne Lindon.

In a
separate online festival talk, Oscar-winning actress Viola Davis confronted
racism and typecasting in Hollywood, telling audiences that films with black
stars “don’t always have to be a ‘Boyz n the Hood’.”

Her comments
come days after the Academy changed best picture Oscar rules to require minimum
levels of diversity.

Davis noted
that while in the 1960s “only one black actor had an agent, that was
Sidney Poitier,” today’s trailblazers have benefited from diverse roles on
streaming platforms and a cultural zeitgeist “screaming and absolutely demanding”
more representation.

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In one of
several films that premiered online to Canadian web users, legendary director
Werner Herzog — fresh from his on-screen role in Star Wars series “The
Mandalorian” — explores the real cosmos in meteorite documentary
“Fireball: Visitors from Darker Worlds.”

Werner told
AFP his investigation led him to conclude alien life is likely — “some
(meteorites) carry sugar, a building block of life, so the probability is good
that there’s something out there” — but that fears of a deadly strike
were overstated.

“Maybe
in two million years we’ll be hit by something big… let’s face it, so
what?” he added, citing threats of nuclear war, a huge volcanic eruption or
“some really mean microbes.”

With the
current pandemic shutting down other festivals including Cannes and Telluride,
movie icons including Martin Scorsese, Anthony Hopkins, Nicole Kidman and Kate
Winslet have been virtually called in to boost Toronto with online talks and
galas, running through to September 20.

“We still wanted to do a festival,”
said Bailey. “It’s important for our audience, and I think we just all
need some inspiration that art can provide.”