{"id":133829,"date":"2017-11-24T03:58:11","date_gmt":"2017-11-24T08:58:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=133829"},"modified":"2017-11-24T03:58:24","modified_gmt":"2017-11-24T08:58:24","slug":"the-breadwinner-director-says-angelina-jolie-helped-guide-the-film","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2017\/11\/24\/the-breadwinner-director-says-angelina-jolie-helped-guide-the-film\/","title":{"rendered":"‘The Breadwinner’ director says Angelina Jolie helped guide the film"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\u201cFor<\/a>
\u201cFor our cast, I think it was incredible for Angie to stand on the carpet with them all, and certainly for us it was fantastic,\u201d Twomey said in a recent phone interview. (Photo By Foreign and Commonwealth Office – http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/foreignoffice\/14217374639\/, CC BY 2.0)<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

TORONTO\u2014 It was a show-business moment Irish animator and filmmaker Nora Twomey had never experienced before.<\/p>\n

Oscar-winning actor-director Angelina Jolie, an executive producer of Twomey’s \u201cThe Breadwinner,\u201d showed up for the\u00a0film’s premiere at the recent Toronto International\u00a0Film\u00a0Festival with five of her six children and posed with the cast for photos.<\/p>\n

It’s rare to see Jolie on the red carpet with so much of her brood, and the moment made international headlines and provided a big boost to the independent Canadian co-production, which features various forms of 2D animation.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor our cast, I think it was incredible for Angie to stand on the carpet with them all, and certainly for us it was fantastic,\u201d Twomey said in a recent phone interview.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don’t think any of us had ever experienced cameras flashing to that extent ever before. But it was such a strong message to bring her children and to celebrate the\u00a0film.\u00a0It was a really, really great day.\u201d<\/p>\n

Opening Friday in Toronto, \u201cThe Breadwinner\u201d features the voice of Toronto actress Saara Chaudry as 11-year-old Parvana, who disguises herself as a boy in order to support her family while her father is wrongfully imprisoned by the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2001.<\/p>\n

The story is adapted from Canadian author Deborah Ellis’s children’s novel, which is based on the testimony of Afghan women in refugee camps in Pakistan.<\/p>\n

It’s one of 26 movies that have been submitted for consideration in the animated feature\u00a0film\u00a0category for the 90th Academy Awards.<\/p>\n

Twomey said Jolie signed on to the\u00a0film\u00a0about three years ago, when they were in the early stages of script development. Jolie was a perfect fit, given her work with Afghan refugees and schools in the country.<\/p>\n

She \u201cshared our sensibilities and helped guide the process, from the casting all the way through to the exact sensibility of this story and where the story leads to,\u201d said Twomey, co-founder and creative director at Cartoon Saloon, which is behind productions including the series \u201cPuffin Rock\u201d and the Oscar-nominated \u201cThe Secret of Kells.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a female\u00a0film\u00a0director, to have another female\u00a0film\u00a0director to be able to ring up and seek guidance from was great. It was fantastic for our cast as well, because she very much asked me to, where I could, cast Afghan actors or at least people who had some kind of a story to tell in terms of moving from one country to another, or some kind of depth to them and intelligence to bring to the part.\u201d<\/p>\n

Coincidentally, Chaudry already had a history with Ellis and her novel before being cast.<\/p>\n

After reading it with her mom she wrote to Ellis, who responded to her. Ellis then spoke at Chaudry’s school, and the actress told the author she’d love to see it be made into a\u00a0film.<\/p>\n

\u201cThen a while later she got a call from her agent asking her to audition for the part,\u201d said Twomey.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust the intelligence and sensitivity in her voice and her performance was just incredible.\u201d<\/p>\n

Acclaimed Canadian composers Jeff Danna and Mychael Danna did the score for the\u00a0film, which opens in Vancouver on Dec. 1, in Ottawa on Dec. 8, and across Canada on Dec. 15.<\/p>\n

Twomey hopes to bring it to Afghanistan next year.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe’re in negotiations about it … and we’re certainly going to dub the\u00a0film\u00a0into Pashto and Dari,\u201d she said, noting they recently screened the\u00a0film\u00a0at the Canadian Embassy in Washington, D.C. for Rula Ghani, the first lady of Afghanistan.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe was quite moved by the\u00a0film\u00a0and spoke really beautifully about it afterwards and the importance of girls’ education and the importance of women.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

TORONTO\u2014 It was a show-business moment Irish animator and filmmaker Nora Twomey had never experienced before. Oscar-winning actor-director Angelina Jolie, …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":133833,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[34884],"class_list":["post-133829","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-the-breadwinner-director-says-angelina-jolie-helped-guide-the-film","mauthors-victoria-ahearn","mauthors-the-canadian-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133829","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=133829"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133829\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/133833"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=133829"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=133829"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=133829"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}