#BrainonFire @TIFF_NET Press conference live stream on Sept. 16 12pm. Watch live on YouTube! https://youtu.be/N6eEfKQl-o0

Richard Armitage ‏@RCArmitage

Richard Armitage hat BBC News (World) retweetet

@ChloeGMoretz @gerardbarrett @CharlizeAfrica @scahalan Go Chloë. Good luck for the screening.

BBC News (World)@BBCWorld

Oscar bait?

Oscar bait? Twelve films set to make a splash at Toronto

By Tim Masters Arts and entertainment correspondent

7 September 2016


The Oscars may be more than five months away, but this year's hopefuls are already jostling for position.

The Toronto Film International Festival kicks offs on Thursday, with almost 400 films set to screen.

As previous years have shown, success at Toronto often leads to recognition during film awards season - especially at the Academy Awards.

Here's a look at 12 of the films receiving their world premiere at Toronto that will be hoping to make waves beyond the shores of Lake Ontario.

American Pastoral

Director: Ewan McGregor

Cast: Uzo Aduba, Jennifer Connelly, Dakota Fanning, Ewan McGregor, David Strathairn

Ewan McGregor makes his directorial debut and stars in this 1960s-set drama, based on Philip Roth's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel. McGregor plays Seymour "Swede" Levov, a successful businessman whose comfortable family life is shattered when his daughter Merry (Fanning) disappears after being accused of an act of violence.

Barry

Director: Vikram Gandhi

Cast: Ellar Coltrane, Jenna Elfman, Ashley Judd, Anya Taylor-Joy, Devon Terrell

Devon Terrell makes his acting debut as the young Barack Obama in this biopic about his time at Columbia University in 1981. It is not the only Obama-related film out this year. Romantic drama Southside with You, which premiered at this year's Sundance film festival, was inspired by Barack and Michelle Obama's first date, on a summer day in 1989.

Brain on Fire

Director: Gerard Barrett

Cast: Richard Armitage, Thomas Mann, Chloe Grace Moretz, Carrie-Anne Moss, Tyler Perry

Based on Susannah Cahalan's bestselling memoir, this is the story of a New York Post journalist (Moretz) who is repeatedly misdiagnosed after she starts having seizures and hearing voices.

Burn Your Maps

Director: Jordan Roberts

Cast: Marton Csokas, Vera Farmiga, Virginia Madsen, Suraj Sharma, Jacob Tremblay

Jacob Tremblay, the young star of 2015's Toronto audience prize winner, Room, plays an eight-year-old boy who, after a family tragedy, becomes convinced he is a Mongolian goat herder and leads his parents (Farmiga and Csokas) on an unforgettable journey.

Deepwater Horizon

Director: Peter Berg

Cast: Kate Hudson, Mark Wahlberg, Kurt Russell, John Malkovich, Gina Rodriguez

This action drama tells the story of the oil rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010 that killed 11 crew members and became one of world's worst environmental catastrophes. Wahlberg plays Mike Williams, an electrician on the rig, with Malkovich as a bullying BP boss.

Gaza Surf Club

Directors: Philip Gnadt and Mickey Yamine

A documentary about the surfing enthusiasts on the Gaza Strip's Mediterranean coastline.

Lion

Director: Garth Davis

Cast: Nicole Kidman, Rooney Mara, Dev Patel, David Wenham

An Indian boy is adopted by an Australian couple after he takes a wrong train and is separated from his family at the age of five. Twenty-five years later he uses Google Earth to attempt to find his lost home.

The Magnificent Seven

Director: Antoine Fuqua

Cast: Haley Bennett, Ethan Hawke, Vincent D'Onofrio, Byung-Hun Lee, Chris Pratt, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, Peter Sarsgaard, Martin Sensmeier, Denzel Washington

Toronto's opening night film is Antoine Fuqua's remake of the 1960 western classic about seven gunslingers protecting the town of Rose Creek from the deadly grip of industrialist Bartholomew Bogue. It reunites Fuqua with Washington after they worked together on 2014's action thriller The Equalizer.

A Monster Calls

Director: J A Bayona

Cast: Felicity Jones, Toby Kebbell, Lewis MacDougall, Liam Neeson, Sigourney Weaver

This big screen adaptation of the award-winning children's book by Patrick Ness tells the story of a lonely 12-year-old boy with a terminally ill mother who is visited by an ancient monster who tells him stories.

Queen of Katwe


Director: Mira Nair

Cast: David Oyelowo, Madina Nalwanga, Lupita Nyong'o

The true story of a young Ugandan girl called Phiona Mutesi (newcomer Nalwanga) whose life in a Kampala shantytown changes when she discovers her affinity for chess. Oscar-winner Nyong'o plays her hard-working mother, while Oyelowo is the missionary who helps Phiona follow her dream of becoming an international champion.

Sing

Director: Garth Jennings

Cast: Beck Bennett, Taron Egerton, Jennifer Hudson, Garth Jennings, Scarlett Johansson, Leslie Jones, Tori Kelly, Nick Kroll, Seth MacFarlane, Matthew McConaughey, Nick Offerman, Jay Pharoah, John C Reilly, Jennifer Saunders, Peter Serafinowicz, Reese Witherspoon

A first look at this animated musical comedy, due out around Christmas, about a koala (McConaughey) who puts on a singing contest in an attempt to save his theatre. Witherspoon voices the character of Rosita the pig while Johansson plays a punk porcupine.

Snowden

Director: Oliver Stone

Cast: Nicolas Cage, Melissa Leo, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Timothy Olyphant, Zachary Quinto, Shailene Woodley

In this real-life political thriller, Gordon-Levitt plays the US National Security Agency contractor who leaked top secret intelligence files and became one of the world's most wanted men.

The 41st Toronto International Film Festival runs from 8 to 18 September.

Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness

MOVIE STUFF

So I've been a bit behind on details (partially because I'm knee deep into my next book) but here's some information at long last:

Brain on Fire will be premiering* at Toronto Film Festival next Friday (September 16!). I hear that there are tickets available to purchase on the website if you're in the area and are so inclined!

http://www.tiff.net/films/brain-on-fire/

I will be there trying to make sense of this bizarre experience. I can't wait to report back about what it's like to watch someone PLAY YOU IN A MOVIE recreating a time you DON'T REMEMBER. It's all very meta. And strange. And remarkable.

xoxoxoxo

*Still don't know the general release date, but I will report back the moment I get that info.

Read about our ties with @scahalan and #BrainOnFire ahead of the film's premiere with @ChloeGMoretz at #TIFF16 https://t.co/dXVwds8Kob

THE ENCEPHALITIS SOCIETY / AWARENESS / BRAIN ON FIRE
Brain on Fire

This week will see the big screen premiere of Susannah Cahalan's excellent memoir Brain on Fire at the Toronto International Film Festival.

The film – like the book - follows the New York Post journalist as she is affected by a mysterious illness and undergoes a nightmarish journey which sees her repeatedly misdiagnosed when she begins to have seizures and hearing voices.

Acclaimed actress Chloe Grace Moretz will star as Susannah in the film and has support from an all-star cast.

Brain_on_fire_pic_3.jpg

Since the book’s release, we have championed Brain on Fire, recommending it to anyone - from patients and family members, through to health professionals - as an excellent way of understanding the impact that Anti-NMDA Receptor Encephalitis can have on individuals and their loved ones.

Susannah, meanwhile, is a fantastic and popular Ambassador for The Society, helping to champion our work and support our Members wherever she can.

Naturally, we are very excited to welcome the film version of Brain on Fire and want you encourage your friends, work colleagues, family members – everyone you know – to go and see it upon its theatrical release.

We are extremely confident that it will raise a huge amount of awareness about encephalitis and we wish its director cast the best of luck!

Brain on Fire will star Chloe Grace Moretz (Kick Ass) with high-profile support coming from Richard Armitage (The Hobbit), Tyler Perry (Gone Girl), Carrie-Anne Moss (The Matrix) and Thomas Mann (Me and Earl and the Dying Girl).

It is directed by Gerard Barrett who was born in Ireland and whose films include Pilgrim Hill, which won him the IFTA Rising Star Award, and Glassland.

The film will have its premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival this weekend. Our very own Director of Operations, Phillippa Chapman, will be on hand to report on all the fun and games at the premiere.

Phillippa has also been invited to view the film and, alongside Dr Ava Easton, the Chief Executive of The Encephalitis Society, write a review for The Lancet Neurology.

There will also be regular updates on our Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts.

And we will be live streaming the press conference with its stars and director on Friday, September 16, at 12pm local time (see below)

Theatrical release dates for the film have yet to be announced.

Read on for more information about the book, the film, Susannah’s role with The Encephalitis Society and more about Anti-NMDA Receptor Encephalitis.

We also have copies of Brain on Fire on sale and information about how you can get involved with The Encephalitis Society and help to raise awareness of this devastating condition.
...

New film depicts Post writer’s battle against mystery brain ailment

By Jane Ridley

September 16, 2016 | 6:06am
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New film depicts Post writer’s battle against mystery brain ailment

At a private screening of the movie “Brain on Fire,” premiering Friday at the Toronto International Film Festival, New York Post journalist Susannah Cahalan sensed her husband clenching his jaw.

The couple was watching the unsettling scene in which Chloë Grace Moretz — the young actress who plays Cahalan in the film, which is based on her best-selling memoir — has an unexplained seizure in the middle of the night.

It was a re-enactment of the frightening real-life convulsions Stephen Grywalski witnessed when his then-24-year-old girlfriend was unknowingly battling a rare neurological disease called autoimmune encephalitis.

“Stephen has PTSD from that experience,” says Cahalan, now 31 years old and The Post’s book editor. The 2009 health crisis left her shaking uncontrollably and frothing at the mouth, and led to a shocked Grywalski rushing her to the ER.

“Seeing it portrayed on film was a trigger for Stephen, but it wasn’t so hard for me because I have no memory of the seizures.”

Remarkably, Cahalan missed a month of her life while hospitalized at NYU’s Langone Medical Center for the mystery illness. She heard voices, suffered paranoid hallucinations and screamed out in terror. Later, she became catatonic.

Baffled, the doctors could only give her antipsychotic drugs and put her in restraints. Left untreated, the condition could have been fatal since victims can suffer severe cognitive damage, fall into a coma and die.

She was correctly diagnosed only after a Dr. House-type expert, Dr. Souhel Najjar, came on board with the case. Her symptoms had previously been wrongly chalked up first to mono, then alcohol withdrawal (she drank just two glasses of wine per night, but one inattentive doctor wrote two bottles of wine in her notes), and then the psychiatric disorder schizophrenia.

In an “aha” moment — after Cahalan drew a lopsided clock, indicating the right side of her brain was impaired — the specialist discovered the cause of her sickness was harmful antibodies in her immune system. Her body had effectively declared war on her brain.

“I was extremely lucky and have so much gratitude toward Dr. Najjar,” says Cahalan, who painstakingly pieced together what happened by interviewing her family and medical staff once she was treated with steroids and blood transfusions. “And now to see my story turned into a movie is mind-blowing.”

She first wrote of the ordeal in The Post in October 2009, after her editors were astounded by her diagnosis and months-long recovery. It turned out Cahalan was only the 217th patient found to be suffering from anti-NMDA receptor autoimmune encephalitis, the barely known neurological disease that was identified by scientists in 2005 and officially labeled just two years later.

Cahalan’s article was the basis for her best-selling book, “Brain on Fire” — Najjar coined the phrase in order to explain the condition to her parents — published in 2012. It caught the eye of actress Charlize Theron, who has her own company, Denver and Delilah Productions, and was made into the film starring 19-year-old Moretz last year.

Actor and filmmaker Tyler Perry plays Cahalan’s editor (a hybrid of The Post’s Paul McPolin and Editor-in-Chief Stephen Lynch), while comedienne Jenny Slate appears as her concerned colleague Margot (also an amalgam of several Post employees).

As co-producer, Cahalan was deeply involved with the script and spent three days on set in Vancouver, British Columbia. Syria-born Najjar was one of the medical advisers.

“Susannah is like a daughter to me,” says Najjar, now chairman of the department of neurology at New York’s Hofstra Northwell School of Medicine. “I didn’t think in my wildest dreams when I was focusing on saving her life that her case was going to call attention to this disease and help so many others.”

He is attending the Toronto premiere with his wife, Marwa. While excited by the glitz and glamour, he is most overwhelmed by the fact that his relatively obscure field of neurology has grabbed the spotlight.

Cahalan concurs. “I never imagined while going through this horrifying illness that I would write a book or that it could ever be a movie,” says the writer, who lives in Brooklyn with Grywalski, a 38-year-old musician. “To hear the words ‘autoimmune encephalitis’ in a movie is amazing to me, and I’m so proud.

“My number-one priority has been raising awareness.”

Since her case was publicized, thousands more have been safely diagnosed with the same condition after getting a spinal tap. Cahalan’s goal is to see every hospital offer the test to those with first-time psychosis. Neurologists already give patients a copy of “Brain on Fire” as part of their treatment plan.

Despite the seriousness of the subject, Cahalan still managed to have fun during the filming in Canada. In one hospital scene, she and her 27-year-old brother, James, appear as extras.

“It was hilarious because we played white-coated doctors examining one of my MRI scans,” she recalls. “We laughingly called ourselves Dr. Finkelstein and George Clooney, and James mouthed, ‘Her blood is running at an abnormally high level,’ to look authentic!”

The cast and crew were very friendly, and Cahalan was floored by Moretz’s acting ability. The similarity in looks between the two women is startling.

“Chloë is a powerhouse, and watching her on set was unreal,” says Cahalan. “She would go into these intense periods of psychosis or catatonia with this deep, physical portrayal, and then cut back to this fun-loving 19-year-old person, joking around and so charming and engaging.”

Interestingly, real-life video of Cahalan’s stay in the hospital epilepsy ward was interwoven with scenes featuring Moretz. It shows her confused and petrified, struggling to get out of her restraints and yelling for help.

Seeing the footage of herself bothers Cahalan less now that she’s watched it so many times, for her book and for the movie.

But she says the film has helped renew the overwhelming sense of relief that her condition was properly diagnosed and she was saved from what could have been life in an institution — or worse. Concludes Cahalan: “This movie has unleashed a whole new wave of gratitude.”

TIFF 2016 day 9 - even more unmissable events!

Just three more days to go, folks. And while the roster is short, it's got clout.

So if you still haven't met your red carpet quota, then hit the streets tonight — there will be directors, movie stars, rock stars, a doctor, and even a walking medical miracle.

Things kick off at Princess of Wales Theatre with the true-story drama Brain on Fire with director Gerard Barrett, and stars Chloë Grace Moretz and Robert Moloney hitting the red carpet at 5:15 p.m. Screening at 6 p.m., Brain on Fire tells the true story of Susannah Cahalan (played by Chloë) a woman who woke up unable to move or speak, and the unbelievable medical miracle that saved her from a debilitating descent into madness. Gerard and Chloë will be joined by the real Susannah Cahalan, and Dr. Souhel Najjar, the incredible neurologist who cured her.

The highly anticipated tour documentary The Rolling Stones Olé Olé Olé! : A Trip Across Latin America is up next. The film, which follows The Rolling Stones through their 2016 tour of Latin America, will be premiering at Roy Thomson Hall at 9:30 p.m. And guess what? There's even a couple stones on tap for the evening — both Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood are set to roll onto the red carpet at 8:30 p.m. Cue the screams!

Head on back here tomorrow to see what's in store for the last two days of TIFF! ~Shelby Morton

Chloe Grace Moretz calls ‘Brain on Fire’ part a ‘role of a lifetime

BY CASSANDRA SZKLARSKI, THE CANADIAN PRESS ON SEPTEMBER 16, 2016.

TORONTO – Chloe Grace Moretz says her starring turn in the Canadian/Irish co-production “Brain on Fire” is “the role of a lifetime.”

The “Kick-Ass” actress plays a young woman battling a terrifying auto immune disease that attacks her brain and causes hallucinations, paranoia and psychotic violent outbursts.

It’s only with the support of family, friends and the last-minute intervention of a diligent doctor that she’s properly diagnosed and saved from a lifetime of psychiatric institutions.

“You get to kind of break a lot of stereotypes that surround people with illnesses,” Moretz told a press conference at the Toronto International Film Festival on Friday.

“I think above all, it’s more than a movie about illness, it’s a story about labelling and mislabelling, and misunderstanding and how far a misunderstanding can go.”

The film, which made its world premiere at the fest, is based on the book of the same name by Susannah Cahalan, whose promising career as a New York Post reporter unravelled quickly with an unexplained illness that also attacked her ability to form memories.

The real-life Cahalan was on hand to describe her harrowing journey, although she could only reconstruct the tale by interviewing others about what they witnessed.

“Some of my memories now are actually of Chloe doing the things, which is bizarre,” said Cahalan, who lost about two months of her life.

“It’s just blank, maybe a few glimmers of things that are very unreliable but mainly blank. However, in the process of recreating and in the process of watching a movie about your process of recreating, I’ve created a lot of false memories, too.”

Irish director Gerard Barrett said he hopes the film can shed light on a little-known condition that is often misunderstood.

“It’s very rare that you get to make a film that will probably save a life and I think by putting this film out there and dealing with the disease and talking about the disease and highlighting the disease I think ultimately it will save a life in some way, shape or form,” said Barrett, who was brought on board by producer Charlize Theron.

“There’s a greater good in it. And that’s what really attracted me to it.”

Tyler Perry and Jenny Slate play co-workers, while Richard Armitage and Carrie-Anne Moss play her devoted family.

The real-life doctor who saved Cahalan, Dr. Souhel Najjar, said he faced a “huge” challenge in convincing colleagues she had a neurological – rather than psychological – condition.

He said Cahalan has become the voice for many people who can’t advocate for themselves, calling it “truly an honour to be her doctor.”

Najjar bemoaned “tremendous gaps” between medical disciplines – especially psychiatry and neurology – and stressed the importance of simply listening to the patient and their family in order to find important diagnostic clues.

“We don’t treat the patient sometimes as a whole. We treat symptoms and disease and we forget that behind that symptom there’s a human being,” said Najjar.

“We need to learn to treat the patient as a whole…. Nothing replaces sitting, not standing, in front of the patient. Just sit next to the patient.”

The Toronto International Film Festival wraps Sunday.

Standing ovation for BRAIN ON FIRE last night at the TIFF World Premiere. 2,000 people. @ChloeGMoretz @scahalan https://t.co/mCe2P1jvaY