Gray Sunday rain didn’t stop Canadian content players from boarding a shuttle bus at the Park Hyatt and chugging up to the Canadian Film Centre for its annual afternoon BBQ. If Martha Stewart moved to Toronto, she’d settle nicely at the CFC. Its handsome New England architecture and oodles of lawn would mesh perfectly with her real estate portfolio.
She probably would have upped the barbecue’s plastic lawn chairs and burgers-on-a-bun but when you’re feeding a thousand-or-so film types with hangover munchies, keeping it simple works best.
Enduring the grass stains and mud caked stilettos were chic Canadian film couple Sheila and Nicholas Pye high on the morning’s TIFF directors’ luncheon at the Windsor Arms where they mingled with other shot callers like Gael Garcia Bernal. Drinkers were confined to the liquor licensed industry tent while soapster and ReelWorld Film Festival founder Tonya Lee Williams chatted up guests on the VIP patio.
I cornered CSI Miami alum and woman-about-the-Festival Sophia Milos at the cupcake station and asked her about her Friday night quick costume change between the Holt Renfrew and Shmooze parties. While I pictured her wiggling out of her Gucci frock in the back of her Caddy SUV, she said she hopped across the street to her hotel post Holts, rode up the elevator in one number and right back down in a smashing other. At the BBQ, she hid from the drizzles under a cheetah print top coat.
Back downtown at the University of Toronto, Mongrel Media held the annual Hart House party for their festival catalogue including The Jane Austen Book Club and the DVD release of last year’s Sarah Polley-directed hit Away from Her.
More parties should be daytime fetes. The sunny room made it easy to spot Walk All Over Me’s Leelee Sobieski glittering in a gold gown. She’s booked into the Chanel hair and makeup suite at the Four Seasons until Wednesday as she makes the TIFF rounds.
Away from Her’s Gordon Pinsent was receiving fans in the courtyard while Kevin Zegers sat inside with his Stone Angel co-star Aaron Ashmore.
Star sightings: Scott Speedman late Saturday night at the Motorola Lounge which took over Yorkville’s Club V for the weekend. Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie and Terence Howard all donating their IT Lounge swag to Big Brothers Big Sisters. Corner Gas’s Tara Spencer Nairn at Tastemakers proclaiming she already owns Adria Vasil’s Ecoholic book. It helped her naturally unclog her backed up kitchen drain.
