TIFF: Steven Spielberg Says The Pandemic Made Him Realize ‘Fablemen’ Was A Movie He ‘Had To Skip Now’

The morning after Steven Spielberg fabelmann Following its world premiere in Toronto, a screening that immediately catapulted the film to the pundits’ best-picture lists after awards season, the director and his cast met with festival executive director Cameron Bailey to talk about the film. . .

Telling the story of Spielberg’s early life in post-World War II Arizona and his family trauma, the film is the director’s most personal yet. Dano, Michelle Williams, Seth Rogan and Judd Hirsch.

“I thought it would be a lot easier than it turned out, because of course I’ve known the material and all the characters my whole life,” Spielberg said at a press conference with co-writer Tony Kushner on Sunday. “However, I found it a very distressing experience for me, as I tried semi-empirically to retrieve vast memories, not just in my own life, but in the lives of my three sisters, my mother, and my mother. dad. who are no longer with us. Only this responsibility has begun.

Spielberg added: “As the actors know, it was a very difficult experience emotionally. Not all of them, but some were really, really hard to get over.”

Like Kenneth Branagh and his semi-autobiography BelfastSpielberg said he was urged to write it fabelmann Due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I remember as the death toll increased, we were looking at reports of what was happening in the country and the world and I thought, ‘What does this mean for humanity?’ How far will this pandemic take us? – he said. “And I thought, ‘Well, if I’m going to tell the story that I’ve always wanted to tell about coming of age in this unique family, with a unique mother and father, this might be the best time, where I have time to sit down with Tony and we decided to write it together on Zoom because I didn’t know where this was going, and I thought, “This is what I need to get rid of now.”

Dano, who plays a fictionalized version of Spielberg’s father fabelmannHe said there was a special feeling on set, after the master director opened up in a way he had never seen before.

“I felt there was some magic in the dark, and I think a lot of that came from Stephen’s vulnerability and openness and seeing someone like him manifest in that way,” he explained. “And I felt, I think, among the whole team, that the stakes were high. And I think it’s been inspiring to see artists put in the effort, again in such a brazen way, and I think, at the end of the day, it’s a real gift.

When playing LaBelle, Spielberg joked that he was more interested in aesthetics.

“I wanted to have someone who was really good-looking and sexy,” she said. And from Canada.

Following Saturday night’s showing, audiences at the Princess of Wales Theater gave the film such a long-standing ovation that TIFF Chief Executive Cameron Bailey had to ask everyone to sit down for a question-and-answer session.