Hi, blanchetters!

Cate has donated to a non-profit organization in New Zealand in support of actors affected by the pandemic. Also, the Australian documentary Burning which is executive produced by Dirty Films will have it’s world premiere at Toronto International Film Festival.

Cate Blanchett gives $100,000 to help down-on-luck Kiwi and Aussie actors

Oscar-winning actor Cate Blanchett reached into her own pocket to quietly donate money for a fund to help New Zealand and Australian actors who have fallen on hard times during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Musical theatre royalty Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice are also understood to have played a part in raising money for the new fund.

The non-profit New Zealand Actors Benevolent Fund (NZABF) has been established to help actors, with the board run by Jennifer Ward-Lealand, actor and president of actors’ union Equity New Zealand. Its creation will be announced during October in a drive dubbed “ACTober”

But NZABF board member Jeff Szusterman? said Blanchett became a patron of an alliance was formed with five similar Australian funds when Covid-19 hit. She had personally donated about $100,000 to it.

Blanchett is Australian but spent time in New Zealand when she starred as Galadriel? in Sir Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit.

Eva Orner’s documentary Burning executive produced by Dirty Films to premiere at 2021 TIFF

The Toronto International Film Festival announced which films will fill the TIFF Docs, Midnight Madness, and Wavelength sections at this year’s edition of the event, which runs from Sept. 9-18. The festival also added new titles to the Special Presentation and Contemporary World Cinema programs.

Eva Orner’s Burning, about Australia’s devastating ‘Black Summer’, will make its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) in September.

Produced by Propagate Content, Dirty Films and Amazon Studios, the film marks Amazon’s first feature-length Australian documentary commission. To screen as part of the TIFF Docs strand, it explores what happened during the 2019 and 2020 bushfires from the perspective of victims, activists and scientists, as well as the lack of political will to address climate change.

In addition to directing, Orner executive produces alongside Cate Blanchett.

Burning is one of two Australian films selected for this year’s TIFF, the other being Jane Campion’s drama The Power of the Dog, a New Zealand co-production, which will play as a special presentations following its Venice bow.

This year’s TIFF, with more than 100 films in selection, is a hybrid event, with in person and digital screenings.

Burning will launch on Amazon Prime Video later this year in 240 countries and territories around the world.

Sources: Stuff, TIFF, IF, Variety